How to Identify Your Season – Inspirational Reads Chapter 1
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There are so many times that I have written and spoken of the importance of taking your season into account. This greatly applies to those times when we are ready to beat ourselves up about something that we didn’t do well. This applies when we are deciding what to say yes to and what to say no to. You can read more about that in What’s Your Season? Taking our season into account even applies when we are looking to create a mission statement.
In fact, I happen to think that taking our season into account is in the top three of things we should use to help direct our steps on a daily basis, right behind what our mission statement is and what the roles are that we are to be fulfilling as it pertains to the people who matter to us most.
Seasons can be very short – a matter of a week or two while at other times they can last for years. This is especially true if we are walking through a difficult season. What can be an already long season becomes only longer when we are walking through fire at the same time.
While we can agree that taking our season into account is a good thing, what may not be so easy is actually being able to identify what our season actually is.
As I really sat back and thought about how I have identified my season, these are the questions I have asked myself to help determine my season.
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Who are the ones who need you?
I say this with caution because just as we can have a hard time deciphering between a want and a need, we can also have trouble differentiating between who really needs us and who only makes us think they need us. Do you see the difference? Generally the ones who need you would be your immediate family, primarily your spouse and your children.
What do these people need you to do?
Now that you know who needs you, you need to determine what it is they need from you. The role we play in the lives of these dear ones will vary at times. Infants, toddlers, and preschoolers need us in a different way than do teens, for instance. Taking these people and their needs into account can help us assess how much time and effort they will need us to put forth.
What are the demands you must meet?
There are things that we need to accomplish, things we would like to accomplish, and then there are the demands that we must meet. Our job comes to mind here. Regardless of how you feel about your job, if you are in need of a paycheck or some other benefits that your job offers, you have no choice but to meet the demands of your job. Assess the demands that you must meet when determining your season.
What is the accurate amount of time that these demands occupy?
In keeping with our job as an example, what are the hours that your job demands of you? After you take into account the time spent fulfilling the demands that you uncovered, you will have a more accurate picture of where other things can and cannot come into the picture.
What are the extras?
These can very well be good things, but what are the extras? After you have taken the previous things into account, the things that are left are simply extras. What are those things?
How much do you have left to offer these extras?
It could be that being honest with yourself would mean that you have nothing left to offer these extras. If we are to be learning how to get off the crazy busy hamster wheel, we may have to decline all extras at certain points in our life.
After working your way through these six steps, you will be able to accurately identify your season, which will help keep you from running on empty.
Just like Alli talks about in chapter one of Breaking Busy, we all have signals to look for just like our cell phone can tell us that the battery is low. The cell phone is such a great example because just like our cell phone, there will come a time when our bodies, our health, our will, and our ability to keep moving forward will just stop working. Like a cell phone, we will shut down.
Taking the time to identify your season is a major way that you can keep the shut down in your life from happening. Recognizing that knowing your season is important is a great place to start, however, following thru with identifying your season is where the rubber meets the road so to speak.
The thoughts shared in this post were inspired by a chapter in Breaking Busy. This is a book that were are reading together as a community beginning April 11, 2016. We are reading just two chapters a week in this book.
Even if you are not reading along with us this time, you can still pick up your own copy and gain the wisdom you need to break the busy in your life.
Breaking Busy
Here is a bit more about our book club…
This book club is a way of encouraging others to carve out the time to read at a pace of just two chapters a week because I’ve learned that finding time to read never just happens on its own.
Every Monday and Thursday there will be blog posts here with Monday’s Inspirational Reads somewhere in the title with my reaction to each of the two chapters for the week.
All you have to do is grab your book above, and you’re good to go! We’d love to have you join it, otherwise, grab your own copy and read any of the posts with Monday’s Inspirational Reads in the title and you can join in on your own time!
