Before you RESOLVE…re-SOLVE

New Year is a time for resolutions.   Most are well-intentioned.   But resolve isn’t enough — like muscle fatigue,  sooner or later it hits a wall.    Generally it’s after just a few days or weeks.

The essence of  BUILT TO LEAD is all about WHY deep change — i.e. lasting transformation — depends on something more than resolve.    Something more than white-knuckling it.

If you want to produce lasting change in WHAT you do — and HOW you live — don’t just RESOLVE… re-SOLVE.    Scripture calls the key to transformation “repenting”  — which you might embrace more when properly translated, as it literally means to “re-think” what you’re doing in a new way.   Old habits are rooted in old THINKING — so in-grained you often can’t intuitively recognize the underlying PRINCIPLES you’re living by and WHY.   And how that connects to how you see yourself (your IDENTITY).    Which ultimately is rooted in your deepest held beliefs — your WORLDVIEW.     This is why building a strong core MUST come first.

Simple example?     How much wasted time I’ve spent processing email.  For years one of my subliminal operating  principles has been the neurotic need to delete, file or respond to every email that came my way.   Connie would ask “when will you be home, John?” at 5:45pm on a typical weekday in the late 80s– “Leaving soon, just finishing up some email.”    At that time, I was marketing manager for the CompuServe electronic mail product and disk space was expensive.   Keeping inboxes in good shape was an important operating principle for me – and it was part of my identity — which in my worldview was ultimately defined by career success.

But getting home closer to 7pm meant missing that pre-dinner hour with my kids when they were toddlers.    Add all those hours up and that’s a big regret — I’ll never get’em back.     In the wee morning hours of December 29, 1989, my oldest boy just turned 3 died in his sleep.  Suddenly, shockingly gone.   Like a trauma victim who’s “alert & oriented times zero” — I realized I didn’t have the feintest idea who I was, what day it was, where I was, or what just happened.

If you’ve read my Builder’s Journey on our website, you know that was a powerful turning point in my story.   You also know that’s when 30-yr old Chet was first used by God as my fellow builder… to help me repent & re-think & re-solve my W-orldview, my I-dentity, and my P-rinciples.

So as a fellow W-I-P,  learn to RE-solve WHY you do what you do…and see if it doesn’t give you more clarity AND resolve to produce sustainable change in 2012.      

For a good start, re-SOLVE not to do it alone — find a fellow builder.   Remember, together we improve.