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Improvising Your Approach to Improvement by Dr. John C. Maxwell

Our well-being and happiness are tied to the notion that our lives can improve. We hope for a better future for our company, our kids, and ourselves. We dream of a tomorrow that's better and brighter than today.
Here are a few improvements many of us desire to see:
We hope to lose weight and improve our fitness
We hope to earn more money and improve our financial standing
We hope to argue less with our spouse and improve our marriage
Over the next year, if we knew our health would deteriorate, our economic situation would worsen, and our closest relationships would unravel, then we'd be depressed. In fact, even if we knew our lives would stay the same, most of us would feel unsatisfied. We're always looking to improve the quality of our lives - it's human nature.
Unfortunately, many of us never go beyond hoping for improvements to actually making them. In this lesson, I'd like to share some insights to help you improvise your approach to improvement.
Develop Habits
The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda. Leaders who make successful improvements share a common denominator: they form habits of daily action that those who fail to improve never develop. As my friend Andy Stanley says, "Your direction determines your destination." The steps you make each day, for good or ill, eventually chart the path of your life.
Consider the analogy of saving for retirement. Financial advisers counsel us to invest for retirement early in our careers and consistently throughout life. If we do, we can quit working at 65 with a sizeable nest egg. However, if we neglect funding our 401(k) each month, then we end up with nothing. We may still "hope" to win the lottery and secure our financial future, but we've lost the ability to control our fate.
Befriend Discipline
We live in the ultimate quick-fix culture. Everyone wants to be thin, but few people eat healthy and exercise. Everyone wants financial stability, but many refuse to be bothered by a budget. Rather than trouble ourselves with discipline, we opt for diet fads or speculate in the stock market. When we don't see long-term improvements, we discard one fad in favor of another.
In life, there are two kinds of pain: the pain of self-discipline and the pain of regret. The pain of self-discipline involves sacrifice, sweat, and delayed gratification. Thankfully, the reward of improvement softens the pain of self-discipline and makes it worthwhile. The pain of regret begins as a missed opportunity and ends up as squandered talent and an unfulfilled life. Once the pain of regret sets in, there's nothing you can do other than wonder, "What if?"
Admit Mistakes
When trying to improve, we not only risk failure, we guarantee it. The good news is that mistakes generally teach us far more than success. There's no sense pretending we're perfect. Even the best of the best have moments of weakness. That's why it's important to be honest when we fall short, learn from the mistake, and move forward with the knowledge gained.
Measure Progress
You cannot manage what you cannot measure. Identify the areas in which improvement is essential to your success and find a way to track your progress. Keeping score holds you accountable and gives you a clear indicator of whether or not you're actually improving.
Change Continually
Continual change is essential for improvement. One of the great paradoxes of success is that the skills and qualities that get you to the top are seldom the ones that keep you there. The quest to improve forces us to abandon assumptions, embrace innovation, and seek new relationships. If we're complacent for too long, we'll fall behind the learning curve. Once this happens, it's a steep, uphill climb to get back to the top.
The desire for improvement has a degree of discontent in it. Personal growth requires apparently contradictory mindsets: humility to realize you have room to grow but also confidence that improvement is possible.
SUMMARY
Tips for Attaining Improvement
Develop Habits
Befriend Discipline
Admit Mistakes
Measure Progress
Change Continually
LEADERSHIP@LARGE

Enjoy these Bulletin Bloopers from around the nation:

The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."
Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community.
Smile at someone who is hard to love.
Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.
Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.
Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasureto the congregation.
For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
The Rector will preach his farewell message, after which the choir will sing:"Break Forth Into Joy."
Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on O! ctober 24 in the church.So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?"Come early and listen to our choir practice.
Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new membersand to the deterioration of some older ones.
Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled.Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person youwant remembered.
The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.
The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind.They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church.Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.
The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him theirelectric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM.! Please use the back door.
The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basementFriday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church.Please use the large double door at the side entrance.
The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaignslogan last Sunday : "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours"

Minister’s Summit Coming UP August 18 at 7:00 pm

The first Fall Minister’s Summit is scheduled for one week from today, Monday August 18 at 7:00 pm in the Sanctuary. This will be an important hour of vision casting for the coming fall season.
If you need child care, please communicate with Heather Varvell at HVARVELL@wordalive.org or call the Kidz Alive offices.

We will be focusing on a Fall Season of Small Group Ministry beginning the week of September 21 and continuing through Thanksgiving. That’s 10 weeks of emphasis that allows you to focus your LIFE group ministry of a topic or activity of interest that allows new folks to connect and provides a clean start point and end point for that ministry season.
We are coming to realize that LIFE groups, LIFE Expressions, and LIFE Lines need the opportunity to focus, invite, begin and end. This helps leaders pace themselves, keeps things fresh, allows for interest based groups, and allows for a good sense of beginning, middle, and ending.

THE CHALLENGE- Over the next few weeks, consider how you would like to revive and/or extend your LIFE Group for a 10 week focused study, activity, or outreach open to newcomers and old-comers alike. Please take the lid off and go after something you will really enjoy. It may be cycling, golfing, hospital visitation, studying a book of the Bible, making a craft, taking a trip, reading a novel and discussing it, cooking, eating out, shopping… just something that you can use as a connection point for ministry. –

Remember… “I couldn’t just turn and walk away from a vision like that!!” Your ministry call is a life line of God’s flow of grace and power to you.

What Love means to a 4-8 year old . . .

Slow down for three minutes to read this. It is so worth it. Touching words from the mouth of babes. A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, 'What does love mean?'

The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined . See what you think .
'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.' Rebecca- age 8

'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.' Billy - age 4

'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.' Karl - age 5
'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.' Chrissy - age 6
'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.' Terri - age 4
'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.' Danny - age 7

'Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss' Emily - age 8

'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.' Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)
'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,' Nikka - age 6

'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.' Noelle - age 7

'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.' Tommy - age 6
'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.' Cindy - age 8
'My mommy loves me more than anybody You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.' Clare - age 6
'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.' Elaine-age 5
'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.' Chris - age 7

'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.' Mary Ann - age 4

'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.' Lauren - age 4
'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' Karen - age 7

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.' Mark - age 6
'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.' Jessica - age 8


The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, 'Nothing, I just helped him cry'