Today's message comes from the Renewed Man Boot Camp. Renewed Man is a systematic teaching and coaching series designed to help men grow emotionally, relationally, and spiritually ... developing the essential character quality of "self-mastery." Even though this community is created for men, the principles are universal -- women will benefit from these insights
as well.
We build this teaching around 12 Keys, and this week, we're focusing on key 2: PERSONAL
ENVIRONMENT. Here's how we put it:
ENVIRONMENT - We take deliberate steps to design a personal
environment that supports our commitment to self-mastery and vitality. Knowing what gets us in trouble, we establish boundaries and support to deal with it.
Here's one of the daily messages from this week's teaching series. I hope this will help you:
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One of the principles I’ve learned from my training in life and leadership coaching is the importance of our “personal environment.” Our environment will either support or sabotage our efforts at
life-change. We tend to think that in order to change, we need new information and increased motivation. This is especially true of Christians. We are repeatedly reminded — by teachers(!) — that what we need most is more teaching.
But when it comes to deeply ingrained urges and habits — like those related to our sexual behaviors — teaching is not enough. More knowledge is not enough. If our environment stays the same — full of the temptations, triggers, and
frustrations that caused us to turn to our compulsive behaviors — we will fall back into those behaviors … no matter how much we have learned, or how motivated we have become.
Willpower is a limited commodity. We don’t have enough of it to sustain life change if our environment is not aligned with our new commitments. The principle can be stated this way:
Environmental change drives life
change.
Willpower won’t work.
Just to be precise: It’s not exactly true that willpower doesn’t work. It does work … for a while. That’s what makes this so confusing. BUT it doesn’t work as a long term strategy, We get tired of exerting it, and/or we get distracted by other things. Then the next thing we know … we’re
drifting back into the same old, destructive behaviors.
Imagine being an alcoholic, and working as a bartender. Imagine trying to lose weight, and living in a home filled with snacks, junk food, homemade bread and cinnamon roles, and ice cream. Imagine trying to quit smoking, while carrying around a pack of cigarettes and a lighter with you, and hanging around with others who are smoking all day.
In the battle between will-power and our environment …
environment pretty much always (eventually) wins.
NEXT ACTION
Today do some reflecting, and then write your answers down. In your efforts to live with emotional well-being and sexual self-control … what, in your environment, is making that hard to do? What is your equivalent to being the alcoholic with whiskey in your house, or the food addict with junk food in the kitchen, or
the smoker with cigarettes in his pocket? You don’t need to decide anything about them yet … but at least for today, be honest with yourself about how hard this is.
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Would you like to go "all in" and join the Renewed Man Boot Camp? It's a 12 Week Immersion in these principles. You'll get these daily teachings, a weekly video on one of the 12 Keys of Being a Renewed Man, and access to
a support group and/or a coaching group that I lead.
Find out more about the Renewed Man Program here.
