A few days ago a friend posted on Facebook that she got a brand new iPhone. She asked for tips on how to get familiar with her phone.

The advice I gave her was to read every tutorial and guide she could on the phone and explore all of its capabilities in the first ten days (there are thousands of them between official product, youtube videos, blogs and more).

The reason I gave that advice is simple. It reflects a pattern I’ve seen in me and maybe you’ve seen in yourself.

The way I learn to use a device in the first 10 days is essentially the way I’ll use it for the rest of it’s life.

Here’s what I’ve discovered about myself. Whenever I get a new piece of technology, I try to familiarize myself with it at once. I don’t naturally try out it’s maximum capacity. I simply find a few cool features and try to get it to behave in a predictable way.

I like the familiar. As a rule, most of us humans do: we like to take new things and domesticate them – make them behave how we want whenever we want them to.

As a result, within about 10 days, all the experimentation is gone.  We tell ourselves that we’ve mastered it.

But we haven’t. The truth is we’ve mastered about 10% of the device’s capabilities. We’ve missed 90% of its potential, because our drive was to subjugate it, not learn it.

Our need for predictability killed our curiosity and innovation.

So…what if the next time you get a new device, you decided to learn everything you could about it for 10 days. Read blogs, tutorials, watched user videos and experimented with it endlessly without settling into any habits?

What would the next three years with that device look like? Better for sure. You’d be smarter, more efficient, more satisfied and get far more value out of it than usual.

But that approach only works if you’re willing to suspend habits for the first ten days and resist the drive to make everything easy and predictable.

Enough about devices.

Now the big question:

What if you approached the new year that way?

I’m convinced that one of the enemies of progress is routine. We are creatures of habit, but our habits (repeated patterns of behaviour) often take us to places we don’t want to go.

I say 21 days only because this isn’t a phone we’re talking about, it’s our life. And it takes 21 days to make a new (and better) habit.

What could it look like if the first 21 days of 2013 meant you launched a radical assault on the status quo:

What if:

You bought a new alarm (or downloaded the nicest alarm app you could find) and set it for 5:30 a.m. and made no excuses?

You changed your meeting schedule so you could do something active 5 out of 7 days?

You changed grocery stores and had to learn a new pattern of shopping – and you just never went down the chip aisle?

You pulled your credit cards out of your wallet and put them in a lock box or cut them up?

You used smaller plates for 21 days as a way to cut back portion size?

You gave away $50 a week you’re currently spending on yourself?

You picked up a new bible (or got a new bible app or reading plan) and never missed a reading for 21 days?

You decided you not speak a critical word to your family or friends and every day just prioritized doing it?

You took a new route to and from work to give you more thinking time?

I’ve already experimented with a few changes in my habits as 2012 draws to a close in the area of fitness.

I set my bike up on a trainer (done that before). But I did two other things to make working out more automatic.

I reorganized my schedule to accomodate spinning 45 minutes 3-5 times a week.

I preloaded some documentaries on Netflix’s Instant Cue to watch when I’m working out. As a result, I don’t have to think about what to watch – it’s there preloaded ready to go.

My motivation is double now – I want to work out and I can watch some intelligent film at the press of a button.  New habit = progress.

You can fill in the blanks for whatever you need to conquer, but you see the pattern, right?

The way you spend the first 21 days of 2013 will set the pattern for how you spend the next 344 days of the year.

Your desire to domesticate the new year and make it predictable and ‘easy to use’ runs deep, and it will lead you to exactly where this year led you unless you attack that pattern. 2013 will be exactly like 2012 unless you intentionally change it.

So why don’t you do that?

In 21 days, so much could be different.

What do you want to change? What are your ideas on how to change it?

You’ve made this a great year on the blog. Seriously. Thank you!

The blog changed and grew this year. A new design, more frequent postings, a new commenting system and now a way to subscribe to the news letter (I’ll activate this list next week).

Although blogging is still a hobby for me, we’ve got some changes ahead for 2013 including a new monthly podcast that will launch in January 2013.

But now for the most popular posts of 2012:

1.  5 Signs You Lack Integrity.

2. How to Deliver a Talk Without Using Notes

3.  21 Signs Your Church Needs to Change

4.  7 Ways for Young Leaders to Overcome the Slacker Generation Label

5. 7 Reasons You Should Give a Talk Without Using Notes

6.  Today I Start My Spending Fast

7. What Your Spouse Isn’t Impressed With

8. What To Do When You’re Not the Senior Leader

9. The Number One Reason You (and the People You Lead) Don’t Change

10. 3 Things That Won’t Help Your Church Grow

Looking forward to 2013. So hoping this blog serves as a place for community, conversation and ideas that spark personal and organizational change.  Thanks for making 2012 such a great year.

What do you enjoy most about the blog?

What would you add or take away for 2013?

 

If you’re like me, you’re already thinking about how to make the new year better than the current year. Been thinking about that for a while actually.

In fact, I’m using this week of holidays to get a few things moving. Today I set up my bike trainer in the family room (now that the family Christmas celebrations are over), start outlining a new book and am going to tackle some family projects.

I also think about how I want to recalibrate my own relationship with God. Like any relationship, it can fall into a rut. If you’re not careful, what was once meaningful can easily become mechanical.

Or maybe you’re new to a relationship with God and you’re looking for a way to begin a relationship with him. I realize my tips are mostly around reading the Bible, but here’s what I find:

The more I engage the Scriptures, the more I engage God.

Here are five ways to kickstart your devotional life:

1. Find Your Best Personal Time. For me, it’s a no brainer. I’m always best in the morning. If I try to spend time with God at night, I fall asleep (it’s nothing personal, I also treat late night movies, friends and family the exact same way after 10:00 p.m.)  I love having time with God between 5 and 6 a.m.. I’m fully awake, engaged and present.

What’s your best personal time? Give it to God. You’ll grow.

Okay, I better come clean. I have a bias. I think everyone should become a morning person. I think there are inherent advantages you don’t get any other way. I started becoming a morning person in my early 30s and have never looked back. Think you can’t do it? Michael Hyatt shows you how.

2. Find the Medium that’s Best for You. I’m a reader, so a written Bible has always equaled awesome for me. But a few years ago I discovered that I had stopped reading my bible in a fresh way because I had been reading it for so many years. The words didn’t feel fresh anymore because they had become so familiar.

Around that time I had bought my first iPhone. I downloaded the YouVersion app and suddenly I found I was reading the Bible as though it was the first time. Every word looked new, even though I had read it before. And that meant my connection with God and the Bible was stronger. The only thing I changed was the media. Now I read it off my tablet with the same effect. Experiment with mediums. See which one works best for you. If you don’t like reading, get an audio bible and listen.

3. Get a Translation You Can Understand. Many new Christians I talk to think there is something sacred to the King James Version of the Bible. There isn’t. It’s a beautiful translation that works powerfully for people with a solid command of 17th century English, but that’s not me.

There are many great translations out there. I personally prefer the New Living Translation. The TNIV (Today’s New International Version), the Message and even the English Standard Version are used by many people effectively.

4. Use a Reading Plan. Random reading can get you started, but it often doesn’t keep you going. Like many others, I use a reading plan. Here’s a sampling of the hundreds available.

After a few years of trying different plans, I’m going back to the One Year Bible in January. Over the years, nothing has kept me more engaged with God on a daily basis than that. It’s about 15 minutes of reading a day (so it’s a commitment), but for me there has been nothing better. I love it because I simply look for the daily readings and they’re all laid out. No flipping pages all over the bible. If it’s July 6th, all the readings for the day are laid out. So whether you use a paper bible or an App like me, it’s all there for you. So easy to use. If reading through the Bible in a year is not something that will help you, there are a ton of other reading plans out there.

5. Take time to Reflect and Pray. A combination of prayer and some kind of reflection time is advised. Some people love to journal. I’ve tried to journal, but I’m not sure it’s me. (I might again in the new year). Other people reflect when they pray. I often do when I cycle. If you make your prayer time a time of asking God to help you apply what you’re learning and apply what you’ve read, you will never run out of things to pray about.

So those are five things that help me kickstart my devotional time with God.

What has helped you? What would you add?