Book Report: Intentional Living.
Author: John Maxwell
By: Amuron Mable Barbara.
This is an introspective piece on how the book impacted my life..
I had heard of this book a while back and I also knew of John Maxwell as the foremost person on leadership, but at the time I was not interested in reading it until gang happened. This is probably because, at the time I was afraid that the zone in which I found myself would be challenged and I would have to leave it. This zone was the comfort zone.
I have these dreams, I think we all do. And we tend to relegate the dreams to the future. I will do this in the future, or I will do that, or I will get that when my circumstances change. And I think we forget that we are the ones who change first before our circumstances then change, a truth I realised while reading this book.
I remember listening to one of those skits on Power FM radio by LifeLine productions where a person is told he needs open heart surgery and that's when he wakes up to say he needs to stop his bad habits, when his bad habits had led him to need surgery...I didn't know at the time but this skit so related to my life.
I do believe my problem was that I was waiting to live as opposed to actually living in the moment.
I mean, I know I've been intentional about certain things like loving, forgiving, smiling for no reason at all. But a lot of other things have slipped through my fingers.
I have dreams. I see myself having written a bunch of books but something had been stopping me from starting to write the book.
I also have a love, some would even call it an obsession, for t-shirts with awesome and/or weird messages.
Reading Intentional Living has made me realise that the thing that stopped me from starting to write these books that I see in my future is really myself. And my waiting, my waiting for something to change or for my conditions to become different so that I'm able to actually start living.
Every one of us wants our life to matter.
We each have an innate need, a longing, a desire to be significant, to make a contribution, to do something noble and purposeful. We often, however, doubt that these things are within our reach.
John Maxwell says that making an impact on the world doesn’t require you to be a certain age, have a lot of money, fame, or a big idea. In fact, the key to choosing a life that matters comes down to one word. Intentionality.
Quoting directly from the book, “if you want to live a life that matters, don’t start when
you get good; start now so you become
good.”
I now know that need to change myself and then my circumstances will chan because my thinking has changed and therefore I don't have to wait to start living but I can actually start.
I have also learnt to stop saying that I'm going to try my hardest or my best because that's a cop out. From what I gathered it's like saying, “I actually don't think I can do what is asked of me.”
And when I fail, which five times out ten is going to happen, I can always say, “well I gave it the good college try.”
And I shrug and walk away. However, I need to stop holding on to this “trying” as a crutch and start to actually do.
To make a difference, I have to live intentionally, meaning I have to find my ‘why’ and start doing instead of trying.
The book has chapters that expound on connecting and partnering with like-minded and like-valued people made and in these chapters John Maxwell make convincing points about the true synergetic effect of a great team.
He also keeps stressing how intentional living is about serving others more than anything. We humans are inherently selfish but Christ, who was king, became a servant and even died for us, so our lives should be about others.
Find your ‘sweet spot’, he urges’ and start adding value to other people’s lives and I couldn’t agree more.
One of the things the book asked us to do was to write down our stories so far.
My story so far: I am a twenty eight year old who is very proficient in the act of procrastination. But this is going to change. In fact, it has already changed.
Our lives are like a story, there is often the good, the bad and sometimes the ugly that we often want to hide, but overall, the way that we live and what we do is our story. The awesome thing is as long as we are alive, we have the ability to change our story to who we want to be instead of who we might be right now. Instead of living an unintentional life where things just sort of happen, or where we are just skating through life, we can begin to live intentionally, and choose to make a difference, then it becomes like a ripple effect where we might just influence someone else. Reading Intentional Living showed me the simple steps I need to make to start living life with purpose, and one of the simplest steps is changing one’s mindset.
If there's one thing I am taking away from this book and I know I'm going to apply in my daily life as a result, it is to do whatever appears on my mental “I should” list. This was particularly a problem for me, the procrastinator.
Entrepreneur and speaker Jim Rohn said, “One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental, ‘I should’ list.”
So maybe my life will be turned around by this technique.
I have purposed however, that I will change my thinking and I will not be content with my circumstances and because of this I will change my story. As the book says, “Action is what converts human dreams into significance.”
And maybe from this I will fulfill the purpose for which I am on earth. As Viktor Frankl said;
“Everyone has his own specific vocation or
mission in life. Everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus everyone’s task is as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.”
So what is Intentional Living?
I believe it is giving everything we’ve got to make sure we don’t miss a thing. Intentional living is knowing WHY we do what we do. I am now stepping into my story.