Refire, Rewire, and Get Connected 045

This is Craig Coile, and thank you for joining me today. Do you feel you need a reboot?  That is what we are doing to talk about today on episode 45 of Your Encore Life.

I have been going through a process developed by Teresa McCloy called "The Realife Process" with my coach Mark Ross.  I had gone through several weeks of the process but was not really connecting with the process and felt I was making little progress.  When I had a few days to myself in the mountains trying to get back on track, I realized that even though the focus I had was something I wanted to do and will do, there were more important things that I needed to focus on first.  So I rebooted my focus and all the sudden the process became much clearer and more motivating for me.  The process wasn't the problem, my focus was the problem.  I recently listened to another podcast called "The Begin Again Leadership Podcast" with Winston Faircloth.  He had taken a break from publishing his podcast for a period of time and when he returned, he said he needed a new start, a begin again moment which he referred to as refirement.  That really resonated with me that perhaps I needed a period of time away to have a refirement of my own.  I was also talking to someone recently that I had worked with on a life plan, or vision board a couple years ago. Even though the idea of a life plan is to revisit and revise at least quarterly or sooner if needed, they felt the plan had become stale to them and expressed a desire to start over from scratch.

2020 has been a confusing year at best.  When I did a podcast at the end of 2019 talking about 20/20 vision for 2020, we never could have foreseen what it has become.  Depending on your circumstances, the events of 2020 may have had little impact on your life or it could have derailed everything you were planning.  October is right around the corner and it is a good time to look ahead and plan for 2021. We may see 2021 as a big question mark at this point, but don't let yourself become complacent and lose sight of your dreams.  Now more than ever we need to have a dream to look forward to, goals to set, and a vision for how we are going to get where we need to be.

It can start with being still and listening to the messages you are getting.  That is what happened to me.  For a period of time last month, I was getting messages from sermons, podcasts, things I read, and people I talked to about the importance of being connected with others, about being in community.  People who know me a little would think I was a very social person who thrived on being with others,  People who know me the best know that I can be introverted.  I realized that it is OK to be both and that I can value time alone or just with my wife and family, but that I also need desperately to be in community with others. That has been a challenge in 2020 with COVID-19, but there are ways that you can connect with others through technology.  This will pass eventually and we need to prepare ourselves to connect again with others face to face when it does.  It just isn't the same using technology as it is being with others in person.

So the podcast episodes that will follow for a bit we will be talking about the importance of friends, connecting to others and being in community.  We will also talk about preparing for 2021 with a vision for what what we want to accomplish and a plan for how to get there.

Hebrews 10:24-25  24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

1 Peter 4:8-11  8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 9 Offer hospitality to one another witho