Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Why You Need A Compelling Why.

I have heard it said, “People lose their way when they lose their why.”

Every outpost Commander needs to have a goal or two for his outpost for the year.  Something that’s personally valuable to them.  A value proposition that they can esteem.

Your goals may not change from year to year, but your challenges will.  You need that anchor, that internal drive that reminds us in the messy middle why we do what we do.

“When goal pursuit is fueled by personal endorsement and valuing of the goal, commitment and persistence will be high,” “In contrast, when goal pursuit is the outcome of external pressures or contingencies, commitment will always be ‘on the line’ and goal attainment will be comparatively less likely. ”If you want to go the distance, you’ve got to find a reason that speaks powerfully and personally to you.  (Michael Hyatt, Best Year Ever)

External Whys

At the heart of every great team you find a great coach, and many times it is the coach that rallies his team around a moment and gives them a compelling reason to press on and reach their goal.  But, these can be very temporary and over time are just not enough to keep us fully committed.

Internal Whys

This is the place where you and God carved out the plan.  The playbook that will keep you in it for the long haul.  But, why do people fall out of love?  Why do people lose their passion and give up something that seemed so vital to what they were put on this earth to do?

We have an adversary.  I don’t know how you make sense of life and ready yourself of the inevitable challenges if you don’t recognize this truth.

In those origin moments when God first plants the seeds of passion and delivers to your heart the vision we need to write it down.  God wrote it down, why don’t we?  It so important to journal the why’s.  Yes, in our hearts and minds but also on paper.

In those times of trial and weariness our mind will answer whenever question it ask. So be careful how you frame a question and be ready to answer intellectually and emotionally tethered to the original vision.

Should I stop running?  Why should I keep running?

Action Steps:

• Write down two or three intellectual and emotional reasons why you are a Royal Ranger Commander.
• Share these with your spouse and one or two of your closest fellowship.
• Put them in a place where you can review them once a week.

Yes, there is time to quit, but in my experience, it will be a clear moment of leaving one vision headed to a new one.

Yes, there is a time to regroup.

My Why

I will never forget my first experiences in Royal Rangers.  It wasn’t this story of walking into an Outpost that was running like a well-oiled machine.  It was a bit of controlled chaos.  The few men that I was exposed to in Royal Ranger Kids has hectic lives and a loose commitment to their Outpost duties.  I’m not sure I even know what those were.  But I did see within them a heart that burned with a desire to “Reach, Teach, and Keep Boys For Jesus Christ”, and immediately that included Chandler.  To have someone deeply and honestly care about my son’s eternal future meant a lot to me and tugged on my fear loyalty gene.  I remember coming home one night, standing in the kitchen and, what my wife would have described as anger, telling her I was going to strive from that day forward to be the best Commander the Outpost had ever seen.  Now, I know that sounds arrogant and I had no idea what “the best” event looked like, but it was just a raw passion that God had deposited in my heart.  The next day I bought every workbook, poster, and a new uniform.

The passion has gone from mentoring future Chandler to mentoring future men.  To be part of what God is doing in the Royal Ranger program has been life changing for me and my family.  Positions have changed and my whys have been adjusted but when I feel too busy and frustrated with all that doesn’t go right, I look back to the beginning, to that little kindergartener so full of life, not knowing that he had and enemy that would peruse him.  That kindergartner is now 21, about to graduate and get married and at the center of all those decisions is Jesus Christ.  We reached him, we taught him, and we kept him for Jesus Christ.  I won’t that for every dad and mom.