00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 673 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Dao Tippett, author of seven daily choices. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your colleagues, having the ability to make the right choices every day is key.
00:00:25 And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader, and equally, whenever there's something that you feel like there is a larger calling for you. You're hearing those echoes and things that others say. You're hearing those echoes in your heart strings within yourself. As you begin to, to sense that over and over again,
00:01:00 that is something that you need to stick to. That is something that you need to work hard on. 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 treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:01:22 We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. And today's episode about impacting the world by stewarding your time. I talked with you about why we often quit too early. Why other times we actually quit too late and how we can actually recognize when it's time to quit or when it's time to keep going.
00:01:55 As we talk about stewarding your time, wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission will come back to support the show. Just that quick. If you enjoy the show,
00:02:16 when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. Let's talk about quitting. No, the truth is that all of us have hundreds of things that we start to do. We begin a fitness regime. We begin to exercise. We begin to go to the gym. We began to get our money. In order, we began to be more productive.
00:02:44 We began to clean our house or clean a room. We all have things that we begin doing. And all too often, we also have a long list of things that we quit doing. And sometimes we quit those things too early, and sometimes we quit them too late. You know, the truth is quitting in some ways is easy. Following through is hard.
00:03:11 You know, running as an example, let's, let's use going on a run as an example, if you first started running and you've never really run for a long period of time and you begin to run every moment of that run, your body will begin to think about stopping your body will begin to think about how uncomfortable it is, how it doesn't feel,
00:03:34 right, how painful it is, whatever experience it is. It will begin to reflect on why running was a bad idea, and often you'll quit rather quickly. But if instead you begin a, a pattern of learning how to run you, you began a, a set regime and you have other people hold you accountable to it. And you've set up your systems where this is important to you.
00:04:01 You've got a really important reason why you need to run from a health perspective or from a, a weight loss perspective or other reasons. And you've connected to that deeper. Why then you begin to, to build it up over time. You don't try to go on a three mile run the very first time that you run, but you go out and you begin to,
00:04:23 to exercise in a set pattern. It's easier to follow through, but even then, if let's say you've been running for a while and you've got yourself up to where you're running two or three miles, when you get towards the end of that run, it's very easy to suddenly stop to finish the run with a walk instead of a run. And that's in part because of how we pay attention to things.
00:04:53 See the truth is that while you're in a run, oftentimes your mind begins to focus, not so much on the moment to moment of the run, but just the pattern, just the effort that it takes and the energy that it takes. And you kind of get into this state of flow where you're just moving the body and your body is focused less on ending the run less on avoiding pain and more of just moving through it.
00:05:22 But then as you get close to the end, you suddenly recognize that you are getting close to the end, and it's very easy to then begin to pay attention to how it's going to feel to stop running. And as you do that, it also becomes suddenly much easier to stop running. It becomes easy to quit because you've recognized that it's almost time to quit.
00:05:49 See, in some ways where we pay attention helps determine whether or not we follow through how we frame, what we're doing. Are we in touch with a deeper reason and other things that allow us to build on that in a stronger way? Or are we just going through the motions? Are we doing it because others have told us, or because we've decided it's important.
00:06:15 So oftentimes it's so easy to quit. As you get close to the finish line, even though you haven't actually finished it in a way it's almost like, because you're almost done, it becomes easier to quit. See the truth is oftentimes we really don't want to go through the effort. We just want the outcome. We aren't focused on the process or the skill that we learn.
00:06:38 We're just focused on the reward that comes at the end, or we tie up what we're doing into what people think about us and what we think about ourselves. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, you know, we began to fail to follow through. So now we're someone who quits and it becomes easier to quit, but just as surely, you can build up the habits.
00:07:03 The other way, you can begin to be someone that follows through. And now you're someone who follows through, but we worry about what others think and what we think about ourselves. We look at the times that we quit and we call that a failure instead of a learning opportunity. We don't learn to pivot to new things. We don't stick to it because we see ourselves as someone who doesn't stick,
00:07:30 do it. We get distracted by the next shiny object. It's very normal to begin to get bored with something new that comes along and then begin to look up and look for what's the next thing, what am I going to do now? As opposed to continuing to follow through with the hard work in the activity that you're in now, because it's not as exciting anymore.
00:07:54 And so rather than continuing to work on it are even twisting or tweaking it and pivoting a little bit to something new but related. We just look for the brand new completely different thing. All of these reasons are reasons why oftentimes we quit too early, but just as surely, we can quit too late. This is when you're doing something and you know that it's not the right thing to do.
00:08:21 You're spending every penny you earn, you're not investing for the future. You're not spending the money on things that help build your wealth or build things for the future or protect you like insurance. And, you know, you should, you know, it's wise, you know, having emergency fund is smart, but we just keep bebopping along doing what we're always doing.
00:08:42 And we don't quit that bad behavior until something terrible happens. And it's all too late. And we do it because we have this false belief that somehow we are invulnerable, that the moment that we have today will be the same moment that we have forever. We don't recognize the fact that sooner or later, this is going to catch up to us that the moment to change in that case,
00:09:06 the moment to break those bad habits is now not later, even if that bad habit includes quitting. So how do you know the difference? How do you know if it's something that you need to keep doing, or if it's something that you actually do need to quit. And some of it is just with your gut, your instinct, when you know that there's something that you're supposed to be doing when it's common sense,
00:09:34 when it's something that others have recommended that you do, and you keep hearing this message over and over, oftentimes it's one to examine and equally, whenever there's something that you feel like there is a larger calling for you, you're hearing those echoes and things that others say, you're hearing those echoes in your heartstrings within yourself, as you begin to, to sense that over and over again,
00:10:00 that is something that you need to stick to. That is something that you need to work hard on. You can seek input from others. You can seek accountability from others, and you want a combination of accountability and input from people that are very close to you and from people that are completely outside of the woods and can see the bigger picture, can see things that you're called on to do and can see things that you have that maybe you don't see because you're deep down in the moment to moment.
00:10:30 And when you, when you see that gestalt of input, then you begin to recognize this is something I need to quit, or this is something that I need to continue to push on. And that's what really changes your life. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen,
00:11:02 but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series, by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting four, four, two, two, two time tips, and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time,
00:11:36 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.