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Wow, what a fast-moving year 2014 has proved to be! With nine months gone, have you given some thought to what you could achieve with the remaining three?
Author and motivational speaker Earl Nightengale noted that the way to become an expert on any subject is to spend one hour a day practising or studying that subject for five years. Another famous author, Malcolm Gladwell added the twist that the route to 'genius' is to spend at least 10,000 hours doing something.
Five years or 10,000 hours - true, no doubt, but probably rather abstract! So let's focus on the remaining three months of 2014. If you just spend 60 minutes a day, what headway could you make in one area of your life? We're not talking about becoming an expert or genius here, just making serious progress!
There's a lot you can do in three months! In just three months, you can join a gym or exercise programme that will leave you in great physical shape. You can do a short study course that will improve your career prospects. You can work on changing one behaviour that has limited your relationships.
You can cut spending and save up so your Christmas vacation doesn't leave you with the usual January blues. You can go on a healthy lifestyle diet that will let your heart end the year stronger. You can reconcile and work on mending a broken relationship. You could practice that skill that you've neglected and actually be pretty good at it by the end of the year!
Of course there are those who will use that time to watch several TV series or catch an additional hour of sleep. And there are those who will spend it complaining about how things aren't working out for them.
But perhaps there are those reading this who are willing to take the road less travelled and will seize the moment, using it to move forward in the calling God has placed on their lives.
The real challenge for them will be to organise their days in such a way as to create a daily routine that includes time for the things that may not seem urgent but are truly important.
Author Stephen Covey put it this way: 'The key is not to prioritise what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.' Or as King David prayed in the good book, 'Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom!'
Just one hour a day for the next three months may not seem like much. But applied wisely and diligently, it could make the difference between finishing this year strong and making zero progress from where you are right now.
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