To Get Real About What You Want, You Have to Avoid Mission Creep
(Originally YST 063, December 2015)
A few months ago, Lisa and I realized that we were working harder and harder on more and more things, but that we were so busy with everything that we were having a hard time really making progress on any one thing.
Nod your head if you can relate.
There are so many noble endeavors, good things to be involved in, responsibilities in your job and your family and your church, and if you’re wired like Lisa and me, you also constantly feel a drive to create and develop more.
In my case, I’m a busy neurosurgeon with a highly successful practice. But I’m also a husband and a dad, and involved in our church and mentoring a younger man, and in a bible study, and I write, and I invent surgical instruments, and I read a lot and I blog and I podcast…
I realized that I was doing so many good things that I was running out of creative gas, I was burning out, I was becoming less effective and more tired and less able to spin all of those plates at a level of success and quality that was acceptable to me.
In short, I’d gotten swallowed up in mission creep.
In this episode, we’re going to define mission creep, figure out how to avoid it, and learn to become masters of the essential.
We’ll overcome the crippling habit of saying yes to so many good things that we can’t get the great things done.
And, like always, we’ll start today.