I hate quitters, and it really doesn’t matter what they are quitting, I just don’t like it.
Now, I am not special, I have quit a few things in my life, I have quit a job or two, I have quit smoking, and I have quit working out and eating right more times than I can remember. That is not really what I want to talk about, I want to discuss, quitting things that matter, marriages, families, life, and I am sure there will be more things we come up with. Lastly I want to compare leaders quitting a team, versus team mates quitting a team.
Has anyone ever thought about what it means to give up? No I am not talking about the kind of giving up that can be positive….surrendering your life to Christ, giving up your old ways for a special woman, giving up some extras in life for a new child. I am talking about the, its too tough or hard, I will just stop trying kind of giving up. What have we done is society to make quitting acceptable? Why has is it become okay to decide either someone else will do it for me, or it just cant be done?
Have we ever stopped to think about where we would be in the world if there were more quitters? What would the Declaration Of Independence look like if those guys said this revolution is too difficult, where would we be if Noah had built a smaller boat because it was easier, and what would have happened to us if Christ had said, I cant put up with this any longer? So I ask you, why is divorce acceptable? How is leaving children to be raised without ok?
Quitting only seems easy from the outside, ask anyone that has ever quit a job, how hard finding a new one can be. Ask me how hard getting back in the gym is after being out of it for a month or more. Find a divorced guy and ask how much he misses his family. How about people who cant quit what they are doing? Ever consider asking someone in the military if they would like to quit what they are doing? You might hear someone say sometime, it takes guts to quit, I dare say it might, but it takes real heart not to.
So I did a quick internet search and perused a few sites and I found 5 common threads about why Leaders quit:
- Burnout — So lead, but find some time for you,
- Unrealistic Expectations — Start with attainable goals, use other leaders to bounce your goals off of,
- Criticism — No one critic, or supporter gets to alter how you feel, you don’t have to respond to critics,
- Discouragement — Surround your self with people that care about you, people who will tell you what you need to hear, not what you might want to hear. And lastly
- Focus — Don’t lose focus on the goal, what ever it may be, make sure you speak with your team regularly about the goal.
I am going to make an assumption quickly, that our teams are teams because we share the idea that something is worthy of our focus. So saying that, here are
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As fathers, we are the “go-to” guys of the family. There is a lot that is expected of us. We are given enormous responsibility and we are going to ultimately be accountable for the actions that we take as husbands and fathers.
Fathers can be compared in some ways to a small town mayor or the owner of a small business. Think of the many roles that you are asked to fulfill. Have you counted the costs represented in each role?
