268 - Alan Briggs ”A dozen axioms that will change your life Clarity UP, Overwhelm DOWN”

What do you do when you don’t know what to do?

The answer is a little different for all of us, but when we don’t know what to do most forward-thinking leaders just do something. Start something. Work on something. Read something. Get busy doing something. It seems our culture is completing wrapped up in busyness, and I believe much of that stems from a lack of clarity. 

Activity is not the some as productivity. We need to figure out what the right things are. That is effectiveness; discerning and doing the right things. That is completely different from doing all the things. The efficiency of doing all the things without focusing on effectiveness to do the right things will only lead to overwhelm, burnout and futility.  

I heard a quote many years ago that haunts me; Unsure of our direction we double our speed. While we all get paralysis from time to time many of us leaders have the bad habit of going faster when we don’t know where we’re doing. When we do this we are leading from insecurity. Eugene Peterson used to say, “A busy pastor is a lazy pastor”. I think that’s true for all of us. Much of our busyness is actually a fruit of our laziness to discern the right things and say no to everything else. 

At least once a day I say this crucial phrase to an overwhelmed coaching client; clarity UP, overwhelm DOWN. Clarity and overwhelm have an inverse relationship. Imagine two sandbags stretched over a pulley. When clarity goes up overwhelm naturally goes down. The simple act of finding clarity has the ability to clear the fog of overwhelm. Overwhelm cripples our ability to make healthy decisions for us, our families, our teams and our organizations. Leave it too long and it festers into burnout, quitting or letting your life bring your along for the ride. Clarity is a game changer. 

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