Episode 1103: Intentionality is Key to be Productive

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,103 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] RJ Jackson: I'm RJ Jackson,

[00:00:09] the courage giver. I encourage you to have the courage you need to live your calling. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend,

[00:00:23] Scott.

[00:00:24] Scott Maderer: and most of us don't, most of us don't spend the time and energy to think about it because we're so busy and we're working so hard and we're doing so many different things that we don't put any time or space in our life to actually unpack what it is that we believe and why we believe it. We don't spend any time or.

[00:00:45] Figuring out. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your [00:01:00] treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:13] and today's episode about investing in others by stewarding your time. I talk with you about why intentionality is key. I talk about why your intention is a key to making sure you are doing the right thing. And I also share why we often think of the right thing, the wrong way. As we talk about stewarding your time.

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[00:01:51] If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/. [00:02:00] A few weeks ago, I talked about the definition of productivity is doing the right thing. And I wanted to talk about another word that I use a lot when I'm talking about your time and your money and that's intentionality.

[00:02:15] I wanted to talk about why being intentional is so important over and over again. When I talk to people about their time and their money, what I discover is many of us go through life by default. We go through life, letting things happen. And then trying after the fact to dissect what happened, one of my clients put it like this.

[00:02:39] They said, it's every month we have a train wreck and then we're spending all of our time trying to figure out what happened during the train wreck. The truth is that because they hadn't spent a lot of time and effort in planning. Just tracking showed them what went wrong, but then they had to spend all of their time trying to [00:03:00] figure out why did it go wrong?

[00:03:01] What happened, what was actually going on? Because they hadn't unpacked some of the underlying issues that were going on. They hadn't really dug in and found out what they could do to prevent the train wreck instead of just dissecting it after the fact. And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying whenever you're intentional, that means that everything's going to be better and you're never going to have any problems nothing's ever going to go wrong.

[00:03:31] That's not it at all. Instead it's about actually spending the time and energy ahead of time to be proactive and to think about what you actually want. Because the truth is by having a, when you begin to go that direction, your brain begins to look for things that are in alignment with that your brain begins to find opportunities and work on things that it can do to [00:04:00] make things happen.

[00:04:00] Your subconscious and your conscious begin to be pointed in the same direction. So when I talk about doing the right thing as the definition of productivity, it ensues in that definition that you've spent some time and energy thinking about what is the right thing for you. That's where intentionality comes in.

[00:04:23] That's what makes it being intentional. If you haven't spent the time and energy defining for yourself, what is the right thing? Then you can't really do the right thing. And here I'm not talking about right and wrong in terms of good and bad, or in terms of truth or things that are in alignment. I've talking about aligning things with your personal values, your personal priorities. So often people will tell me, my first priority is God by second is family. But then when you actually look at what they're spending their [00:05:00] time and their money on God and family shows up nowhere in either of them.

[00:05:05] And it's hard to believe that's really your priority. If it's not showing up in your. Because if it's a priority, it has to show up and you have to be spending some time building those relationships. But often the people that say that's the most important thing, art giving, they aren't spending time and they aren't spending energy doing any of the things that they say are their number one priority.

[00:05:34] And that really over time that misalignment, that cognitive dissonance in your head begins to say, I'm not productive. I'm not worthy. I'm not doing the right thing. And that makes you less likely to do it. That begins to drain your energy, drain your. And so instead of thinking about the right thing, in terms of good or bad, think about the right thing in [00:06:00] terms of alignment, with your priorities in your values.

[00:06:04] And of course, begging in that is the idea of spending the time and energy to figure out what is your priorities and your values. Because if you haven't done that, then how do you all line your time, your energy and your money with those values? If you don't even know what those values are. And most of us don't, most of us don't spend the time and energy to think about it because we're so busy and we're working so hard and we're doing so many different things that we don't put any time or space in our life to actually unpack what it is that we believe and why we believe it.

[00:06:41] We don't spend any time or energy figuring. Deep inside. Where did this come from? What's the history of it. We haven't figured out where do we want to go? And where have we come from? And if we don't spend that time and energy, figuring those things out, then it's really easy to [00:07:00] just go through life by default and going through life by default means that you're constantly being reactive, not proactive.

[00:07:09] You're reacting to things instead of intentionally designing your life to move more in the direction that you want. This doesn't make life perfect by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, in some ways it makes life harder because if you just go with the flow, if you do everything that everyone else does, if you become just somebody who does what others

[00:07:31] do

[00:07:32] and what others tell you to do, I will tell you that's a lot easier.

[00:07:37] It's hard work to recognize that more often than not just because people say that something is the truth doesn't mean that it's the truth. Not talking about believing in conspiracy theories or believing in any particular message of politics or values are other things I'm talking about, spending the time and energy to figure out what it is that [00:08:00] you truly believe and why you believe.

[00:08:03] Instead of just accepting it because of the way you grew up because of the people around you, because of what you watch on the news, because of what in your Facebook feed, because of what's fed to you. It's about taking the energy to actually decide. So I was a school teacher for many years, and I taught science.

[00:08:24] And a lot of times in science, the idea about science is this idea of proving things are studying. Things improve in science does not mean something is absolutely true. It simply means that the evidence supports it. And if new evidence comes along, you can change that belief. It's hard to do it. Don't get me wrong.

[00:08:45] Scientists are human, so they really fight against it sometimes, but it is possible for science over time to self. Correct. And the only thing I ever got in trouble with in terms of parents coming in and complaining wasn't about teaching a [00:09:00] particular scientific view, even one that was not in alignment with those parents' beliefs or what they wanted their children to believe.

[00:09:07] Instead, it was when I told the children to actually weigh the evidence and make up their own mind because oftentimes our parents as parents, we want our children to believe what we want them to be. And that conflict of telling a young adult to begin to make up their own mind, to begin, to study their own beliefs, to begin to recognize that maybe they don't have to believe everything that the people around them believe, whether that's their friends, whether that's their family.

[00:09:35] That was the conflict that I actually got in trouble for. And yet I continue to believe that is the key to intentional living. And that is the key to your success. Long-term thanks for listening.

[00:09:51] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to [00:10:00] not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign. For our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting 4 4, 2, 2, 2 time tips.

[00:10:29] And that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time. Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world. .