The Marbles

Happy New Year! As we turned the page into 2018, do you have big plans, new year resolutions? May be you have dropped down a thought or two in your mental blog, with the hope to achieve the baby steps of dreams that have been fostered in your heart all along? Wanna wish you all a very fruitful and fulfilling year coming ahead.

This morning as I opened my blog, I noticed that my last entry was more than half year ago on June 16 2017. Yes, I stopped posting all these months. Somehow, I felt very loss this past half year as if I stepped into a mid-life crisis. Have you experienced that? Nothing major happened, but seemed like the motivation just slipped away quietly. The passion, energy and creativity that once flowed so naturally simply stopped.  And there was a sense of blue that lingered over the days.

As the calendar rolled around to Jan 1, I dragged myself into picking up the reading routine again. All along, I know reading and writing are the means of my nourishment. Funny that when I got loss, those were also the things I abandoned first. The first book I pushed myself to read was "Frequency-Tune In, Hear God" by Robert Morris. Being in the stage of loss, I long to hear the whisper from God. And so in my journal, I wrote down "LISTEN" as the focus of 2018, along with this verse, Jeremiah 29:13 "You will seek me and find me when you search for Me with all your heart."

Not sure what this new year is holding up for me, but I pray that it would be a year that I strive to be a better listener, at home, at work and able to hear God's voice more often, clearer. Allow me to share two pages of excerpt from the book. I love the fishing analogy that Morris used in these two pages.

As Morris puts it,

Hearing God's voice is like that. every day we need to spend time in God's presence so we hear God's general voice. When we learn how to discern the general will of God on a regular basis, we are ready to hear God's specific word. God comes to a prepared atmosphere. As we make and keep appointments to meet with God, we'll learn to hear His voice.

As I gradually pick myself up into a healthy reading rhythm, I was reminded once again the power of small things. The habit of setting aside the consistent time of pausing and reflecting can bring a huge difference in our fast paced life. If each of the marbles (see the top picture of this blog) represents a day of the week, may we all take heart in how to use this marble wisely, as we are losing one each day and our jar of marbles are depleting moment by moment. We don't have all the time in the world, and so, let us use each marble intentionally, starting from the smallest thing . . .

Here is the book if you are interested to check it out. Frequency - Tune In, Hear God

On "Power of Habit"

Do you have the tradition of setting up new year resolutions? If so, do you find it hard to sustain after a short while? Have you ever wondered why are healthy habits so hard to establish?

A while ago, I came across the New York Times Best Seller, "The Power of Habit," by Charles Duhigg. The book has a lot of thorough researches with fascinating data points. What struck me in particular is the fact that majority of our daily decisions is actually habitual; meaning we don't process through before we act. It is almost like our brain is set in the cruising mode. 

I am particularly impressed with the chapter about how Target uses their sales data to project the need of their customers and it is very eye opening to see how the static numerics can come to life when it is analyzed and applied organically. 

I remember I was sitting in Panera Bread at the moment sipping my morning coffee when I was digesting the food for thoughts of that chapter. And suddenly, an enlightenment came to my mind. What if we can instill a habit of daily scripture reading into the kids lives. If that habit can weave into the fabric of their lives the same way how coffee is to ours, the impact can be transformational. 

I used to think that thoughts ought to come before actions and habits are established through will power and determination. But when I read these few sentences from "Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry," it gives me a very different perspective.

[Y]ou don't think yourself into a new way of acting, you act yourself into a new way of thinking . . . we believed that thinking is paramount-that thoughts turn into action. But it's actually the opposite. When you act your way into a new habit, the habit becomes your opinion about how you should do things, and that opinion becomes your character as a person or as an organization.

Small daily actions can be so powerful. Indeed, small daily actions will form habits and which in turn drives our destination. If you are in the process of setting up new habits, but struggle to keep it up, hope the principles outlined in the book (cues, routines and rewards) will bring you some insights and tips to get your habit stick. Here is a very good summary of "The Power of Habit." Check it out if you don't have time to read through the whole book. http://www.deconstructingexcellence.com/the-power-of-habit-summary/