Sometimes My Wife Tells Me to Simmer Down

Are You Impatient or a Type “A” Achiever?

Patience is not one of my gifts. The busyness of life today seems to feed this weakness of mine more and more. Ugh. It steals from the gifts that happen in the moment - think children, grandchildren, spouse or friend doing or saying something funny that you miss. I have goals and want to make them – QUICKLY! Then I remember my wife saying often, “Charlie, now just simmer down.”

Another Nerd Alert (Hopefully Last Week’s Similar Warning Helped)

For all of us who try to do things too quickly or want fast results, there is a concept in math and physics that can support us to be more patient. This concept will also show all of us that our chances of successful life change can rise dramatically, so pay close attention. I’m about to explain the concept of The Vector Principle. It includes some pictures for the visual learners.

We are all on a path which Andy Stanley made famous in his book, The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. We may have some ups and downs like New Year’s Resolutions that fail 92% of the time, but we are essentially on a path of little to no progress. Below is our graphic for representing that path - the straight horizontal line:

Here’s where the magic starts. (My son is a math teacher, and he’ll like that I said there is magic in math.) Pretend you are the pilot of a jet taking off from Kennedy Airport. Initially, you are on the path or vector to Paris. We’ll call that the place that reflects being in a rut and leading to nowhere special or reflecting your desires. (Oops! Don’t mean to offend my French daughter-in-law.) Let’s change that to Amsterdam. We have no clients or family there yet, so I should be safe.

Let’s say that you have new aspirations for getting out of your rut and trying something new like visiting Rome. All you must do is make a small change in the direction or path early in the flight, and you will land at your destination. The longer in the trip you wait to make the change, the bigger the change will have to be. Alternatively, you could make multiple and even tinier vector changes throughout the flight to have a very smooth and effective turn in the direction of the flight (or your life) and still land at your new destination. Below is the graphic that shows this new path.

How Does This Stuff Apply to Improving Your Life?

Let’s look at your life instead of the plane trip. The horizontal line represents the outcome of the rut you are experiencing. Your spiritual life may be stale with no prospects of feeling the fire you felt as a new Christian. Your marriage has fallen into a hum drum existence as the two of you pass each other in the night without any growth. You’re a guy who doesn’t have a close friend in which to confide that things really aren’t great right now even though we men are taught early in life to suck it up and get back in the game – no tears or complaints allowed. In other words, you are feeling some frustration, dissatisfaction, pain or even fear in your life.

According to the graphic, the curved line incorporates very small, achievable and positive changes in your life every so often over a time period that can really make a difference in producing a fulfilling life (see Purpose Fulfillment on left axis) and a good standing before the Lord (the end of your time on earth, bottom axis).  In other words, we can simmer down, be patient at any age, make these small changes, and our life will be so much better over time and at the end. YOU CAN ACTUALLY HAVE AN AMAZING LIFE FOR HIS GLORY, PROPERLY MOTIVATED BY YOUR LOVE FOR HIM BECAUSE OF HIS LOVE FOR YOU!

Don’t make another New year’s Resolution. Only use small changes of new behavior such as thoughts of gratitude for God, behavior reduction like less smartphone time, and behavior elimination like watching TV that is not God glorifying. In the face of failure, make the tiny steps even tinier. Look for the emotional impact of the behavior change, and success will be easier. Even use the Unstatus Your Quo® Growth Plan to help you understand where God wants you to make changes and specifically what changes can give you the biggest “God’s will obedience” bang for the “behavior change” buck. Whether you do it yourself or use us to help you take advantage of the long-term power of the Vector Principle, your life will be changed!!

What Did One Pastor Say?

After hearing some of the details of the process, Pastor John (his real name) said the following to me: “Charlie, there is a great chasm between the pulpit and the pew. We ask members of our bodies to make 90° turns in their lives. They don’t do it. They can’t do it because the changes are too big. What the Lord has led you to design by using tiny steps over time may be a bridge between the pulpit and the pew as members eventually will make those 90° changes over time.” You can do this!!

What’s Next?

You can take a Free Purpose Assessment to understand where you are in dissatisfaction, frustration, pain or even fear in your life. This 3-minute assessment was co-designed by Unstatus Your Quo® and a Christian counselor to help people understand if the Unstatus Your Quo® Growth Plan could help them. See you next week!

Charlie