the BAKERS | www.jimjessbaker.com

Yesterday I had a phone call with a friend that I haven’t seen in over a decade.

If you know me, time on the phone is a rarity.  I for some reason really do not like the phone.

But we have a little money that was given to us for our son and I don’t want it just sitting.  I want it doing something, growing.

My friend had reached out to me about a year ago letting me know that he was a financial advisor now and wondered if he could serve me in anyway.  So I reached out to him to chat.  We ended up not having enough money for it to be worth either of our time to work together but it was great to catch up.

My friend was in YWAM with me a decade ago in Kona.  I have a vivid memory of us standing on the wall entrance sign to campus passionately praying out-loud for the base.

He’s gone through Bible college and is now doing financial advising.

I’ve been thinking a lot about mindset lately.

Your mindset shapes how you live your life.  How a police officer sees the world is very different than we do.  It’s because they have a different mindset.

I wish I would have recorded our call and been able to share it with you.  I asked him what’s been helping him grow in this new season.

I always ask for book recommendations, he recommended a few, Grit by Angela Duckworth and Mindset by Carol Dweck.

I listened to a youtube presentation by the author of Mindset.  She said in an inner city school instead of telling kids they had failed they told them they hadn’t passed yet.  So interesting how subtle changes in words affects how we think, and how we think makes big differences in how we act.

Failure seems final, permanent.

But a “growth mindset” knows that one failure is just a blip on the radar.  A good attempt that needs to be readjusted and reattacked.

A growth mindset embraces and welcomes those challenges.

Failure takes us out of the game and sits us on the sidelines moping.  We start to think because we failed, that we’re a failure.

“Not yet” gives us the fortitude and hope to try again.

I want to be transformed.  I want my mind renewed.

I want to help shape my son’s mindset to one that is excited about challenges and is resilient.

So whatever failure you think you’re sitting in right now.

It’s not permanent.  It’s just a not yet.

How you move forward will determine the future outcome.

Ask God for His perspective.  Ask God for help.  Ask friends for help.

Readjust, recalibrate, and keep after it.

Are you WRITING DOWN your goals?

I watched Stephen Larsens youtube video yesterday on productivity and he talked about how he plans his next 3 months out on a google sheet and asks himself what can I do for this 3 months, and what will I do.

When he boils down his list to the things he’s going to focus on, he then breaks those big tasks into smaller tasks.  What will it take for me to launch this?

I’ve never used google sheets much, but I’m really enjoying it.  It feels like a digital white board because you can easily move things around.

I started using a google sheet for my podcast planning and it’s a great tool to visually brainstorm and see where progress is being made and what else still needs to be done.  You then highlight the cells that are completed in green and that’s a great feeling.

Last night I recorded my intro for the podcast and got to make that green!

I’m realizing how time really is my most limited resource.  And that I want to make sure I’m not wasting any of it anymore.  Which means I need to prioritize what I truly want to get done in life, otherwise there are plenty of other distractions that could steal my time.

Next on my limited resource list is emotional energy.  I have a very limited supply of things I can care well about.  So how do I guard that?  And how do I make sure my family gets the best of that emotional energy?

How I FEEL is very valuable to me.  I don’t function well and can’t make progress on my goals if I don’t feel well.  I want to feel amazing, which means I need to keep momentum going and guard my emotional energy.

Momentum gets interrupted when we don’t know what we need to do next.  We waste our brain power searching instead of making progress.  Usually in that searching for what is next we get sucked into some distraction and get derailed.  Sitting down and creating a plan ahead of time will keep the momentum going.  That way we can easily move from task to task.

So that’s what I did this morning.  I mapped out the BIG things I want to do for May, June and July.

I’ll take some time before May starts to break those down into smaller chunks with actionable steps.  A lot of those items are one touch items that I could take action on right now.

What do you WANT to be doing?  What do you NOT WANT to be doing?  Set up your life in that trajectory.

If you’re unhappy and living without intention in your life, fix it.  Intention yourself and make moves on walking towards the things you want in life.  I bet you’ll feel better.

What is a constant stressor in your life?

Jess and I are SUPER busy right now with her running the Bible Core Course and me working a few jobs.

For us in the Baker household the recurring stress is this:

“What do you want to eat?”

We’re shifting gears with Jess in her third week of the school, and me doing my second week of OMAD (one meal a day intermittent fasting) we haven’t quite found a groove for meals.

Most mornings I cook Jess breakfast while she’s feeding our son. But we don’t have a plan in place for our lunch times and evenings are a toss up with our work schedules.

So instead of allowing this problem and stressor to persist we have to create a SYSTEM.

James Clear talks about “habit stacking” adding any new activity to a pre-existing one with a simple statement of “after I do x, I will do y.”

So the new system is after I cook Jess breakfast, I will prepare her lunch and put it in the fridge so it will be ready for her when she comes home for lunch.

This is a seemingly simple stress, but it adds up when you face it daily. If something is a problem more than once take the time to think about a system to battle it.

What systems do you have in place to reduce stress in your life?

Comment and let us know.

Thanks to Adam Booher who gave me #5D9DDA #FFBA00 as colors.

The people who learn to work hard AND enjoy it are winning over the complainers every single time.

If we sit around and complain about what we have to do, what we need to do and even what we want to do, we’re not making things easier on ourselves.

The people that are winning at life are the ones who get necessary things done immediately.

Are you expending massive amounts of effort and not getting the results you want?

How does that make you feel?

When that happens to me it makes me want to quit.

The longer you sit in inaction the worse it gets.

Tempted to be lazy and not do something you know you need to do?  I’ve noticed the longer I sit and debate about whether I should do something or not, and fester in the feelings of not wanting to do it, the more likely I am to throw in the towel and not do what I know I need to do.

Tempted to do something you know you shouldn’t?  If you sit there and keep debating about it the more likely you are to give in.

Take immediate action.  Be swift about it.  Choose to DO what’s right.  Do it quickly.

Poor choices seem to multiply.  Open the door for that one thing then you’re throwing caution to the wind and making a lot of poor choices.

But the opposite is true.  Choose the right thing, the sometimes harder thing, and momentum is now on your side.

Don’t dabble.  Don’t entertain temptation to give into fleeting temptations.  Don’t dillydally.  Take Immediate Action.  Make it a habit to make choices you’re proud of and watch how you feel change.

Hosanna! This past Sunday we celebrated Palm Sunday. Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

Let’s imagine this scene.

Jesus is riding two donkeys down a road.

C U L T I V A T E

: to improve by labor, care, or study :

W O N D E R

The other day I was sitting with my friend Melanie and as she was telling me about her day, she casually said that she “zoomed out.”

I had never heard this term before but I really liked the concept and the visual it placed in my head.

The overhead crane shot that starts on the top of my head and whatever myopic thing I’m focusing on in the moment and pulling back and showing more context for what’s going on around me.

Stop making excuses and create. The world needs you.