I enjoy writing because I love wrestling with words and ideas. Most leaders relish ideas and many create through writing. Because, writing clarifies thinking. Carving and contouring thoughts include arm bars, half-nelsons and switches to your internal mental machinations to form your life inside your head.
And, your ideas, experienced as those internal machinations shape your life, whether consciously or not. That mental malleability literally determines your direction and what your life becomes. Better thinking increases your personal wisdom and keeps you from falling back into the same ruts.
But, just staying out of thinking ruts doesn’t get you far. It only leaves you resting beside an over worn road. Meanwhile, mental flexibility drinks in the space of mind share, currently and from time immemorial.
Your thoughts shape your life. They can also reshape your life.
A couple examples of reshaping thoughts are:
- What would a great leader do in your situation?
- What if you thought about this perpetual problem differently this time?
How would your life be different if you thought about yourself or your situation from a bird’s eye view? This shift in thinking looks like this: “You see from the path. How would your thinking alter if you looked at the path?” Because, wisdom perches herself in a position to gain better perspective:
Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? At the highest point along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand;
Proverbs 8:1-2 NIV
One more potential new thought:
Your decisions got you where you are today. What different decisions will buoy you further personally, with others or as a leader?
Wisdom from above, God’s wisdom, says you change your life by changing your thinking:
Don’t be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him.
Romans 12:2 CEV
And, a last thought about thinking:
Write one of your thoughts in a journal. Then, re-write your thought and begin thinking the new thought instead of the old. You can do this. It’s your choice what you think, you know.
Here’s an example from my life:
- Old Thought: I don’t believe anyone wants to read what I would write.
- New Thought: I will write to clarify and improve my thinking and will make it available to others who might be interested.
You can see the focus changed from a negative (“I don’t think anyone…”) to a positive (“I will write…”). The new thought also avoids anxiety over whether anyone wants to read it or not. (I still hope they do, of course!)
The first step really is that simple. After you write the new thought, consciously exchange the old for the new when the old pops into your head. “Be transformed” [NASB translation of Romans 12:2] means overhaul it.
Rethink the thought to redo the doing.
Your most dramatic shifts in thinking occur at your identity level.
Physical Example
“I need to get in better shape” means I’m still an unhealthy person attempting something out of character for me. Change that thought to: “I am a healthy person.” When you do that, you almost feel the shift. Healthy people live, think and act like healthy people. Fit (another word for healthy) people embody strength and fitness. They also shed unhealthy eating and days without movement. And, with that shedding comes the realization of who they are.
Whereas, “I need to get in shape” positions you over against health, “I am a healthy person” places you within it. Avoiding this mental obstacle assists your journey to health. And, you already know your mental framework forms part of any obstacle you face. Furthermore, your thinking is the most vital part.
And, as your patterns of behavior adjust, you reinforce your healthy identity.
Over time, you become what you say.
Rich Halcombe
Leadership Example
Further, what is true personally on the physical level also holds true organizationally on the supervisory level. Jettison, “I’m not a very good leader.” Then, embrace, “I am a good leader, under God.”
- Difficult to swallow?
- Does it feel prideful?
The Apostle Paul did not think so. He believed he led well, at least well enough to tell other people to follow. He embraced it to such a level he inked it for all Christ’s followers to come: “Be imitators of me.” And, Paul didn’t just say it once (although once would have sufficed):
Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. 1 Corinthians 4:16 [NASB]
And again…
Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. 1 Corinthians 11:1 [NASB]
The Contemporary English Version tells us Paul said: “…and I want you to be like me.” [1 Cor 4:16]
What stops you from saying the same thing?
If it’s unconfessed sin, stop and confess it now.
Think you aren’t being a good leader? Change what needs to be changed.
Humility? It really isn’t humble to tell people not to follow you. If God calls you to pastor or lead, you abdicate your responsibility when you tell people not to follow. Additionally, you don’t fulfill this responsibility when you fail to enlist people to follow you.
Say to someone today, “I need you to help me on this…”
They follow you as you follow Christ.
