Who do you want to be this year? Who do I want to be this year? I’ve been working through the 70 resolutions of Jonathan Edwards and his 47th resolution was…

Resolved, To endeavour, to my utmost, to deny whatever is not most agreeable to a good and universally sweet and benevolent, quiet, peaceable, contented and easy, compassionate and generous, humble and meek, submissive and obliging, diligent and industrious, charitable and even, patient, moderate, forgiving, and sincere, temper; and to do, at all times, what such a temper would lead me to; and to examine strictly, at the end of every week, whether I have so done. 

He knew the man that God wanted him to be. He had a vision for what that looked like. He also knew that it was quite possible for him to not be that man. He examined at the end of his week whether or not he lived the way that he wanted to.

There is an idea in business that you need to work on your business as well as in your business. Working in your business would be performing the day to day operational stuff that your business requires. Working on your business means looking at your business from a bird’s-eye view to develop the systems, strategies and values that ultimately determine how your business performs.

Most of us work in our lives…but do we work on them? How often do we stop to think about what we think about? How often do we stop to look at the way we’re living? Are we contemplating our values and the overall trajectory of our lives? It is at least as important if not more important to work on our lives as it is to work in our lives.

I want to be able to get to the end of my story and feel like I accomplished what I was set on this earth to accomplish. That’s not going to be happen by accident. What systems/disciplines do we need to have in place to make sure we finish our time on this earth the way that we ultimately want to?