Integral Development Forum

In the state of Kentucky there is a highway called the Bluegrass Parkway. It is a beautiful place to drive through the mountains and to take in the natural scenic landscapes that are dominant in that part of the country. On the Parkway, there are frequent pull-offs so that the driver and passengers can exit the car and take photographs or just gaze at the majesty of the surrounding mountains.

We need to be careful about traveling down a superhighway that has similar pull-off points. I call it the “Round-To-It Parkway” and it can be a dangerous place to travel.

Travelers of this superhighway are usually fixated on the idea that perfect conditions must arise before they can commence the journey towards their goal or dream or purpose. They want to be fully prepared and educated and informed and organized so that failure will not be an option. They will discover countless pull-off points to stop and assess or prepare or just plain stall.

Procrastination is deadly because the longer one procrastinates on a task or a dream or a goal, the harder it becomes to achieve.

The longer a person lives in a state of making and accepting excuses, the easier those excuses are to find and validate.

The road signs on this superhighway are all about the roadside attractions. What is the next shiny object that I need to stop and observe?

Instead of getting much accomplished in life, she might just have a lot of experiences. And she will think the thought that has been heard and accepted by far too many: “Some day I’ll go there … when I get around to it.”

• Exercise:
  Have you ever found yourself trapped on the “Round-To-It-Parkway”?
  Are you on it now?
  Write down one thing you have been procrastinating on that you can take action on today.

The next superhighway to the land of your nightmares is the “Run-of-the-Mill Roundabout”. This is less of a highway and more of a circular trap that keep its prisoners in a perpetual state of insignificance. The traveler of this particular road has decided that mediocrity is not only acceptable, but that it is the best state of being that he can hope to attain.

On the “Run-of-the-Mill Roundabout”, the prisoner caught within will set his expectations about life based on what he has been able to accomplish in the past and by observing what the vast majority of people do.

He does just enough to get by, and finds things to do to simply pass time.

Challenges in life take a great toll on these types of travelers because they have built their safety and comfort around the idea that nothing has to change. Therefore, job loss, sickness, death, friends leaving, or anything that shakes up the status quo becomes a very painful and catastrophic experience.

These travelers will sometimes feel a pull to pursue a passion or dream, but they talk themselves out of it because they have accepted the lie that striving towards excellence and significance will bring a discomfort that is not worth the effort. They believe they are incapable of greatness and that seeking to discover the true nature of their worth will lead to disappointment.

Road signs on the “Roundabout” are a little tricky, because the traveler will frequently see the same things again and again.

If you begin to see the same problems or challenges or feelings cropping up in your life throughout a variety of circumstances, you may want to give this superhighway a close look.

The questions for this highway are tough ones to ask. When was the last time I had a different experience? When did I try something new or set a goal? Am I living life or just passing time?

• Exercise:
  Have you ever found yourself trapped on the “Run-of-the-Mill Roundabout”?
  Are you on it now?
  Write down one change that would better your life if you decided to be brave enough to make that change.

The second superhighway that will take us straight to a land of nightmares is the “Uncontrolled Access Throughway”. The traveler on the “Uncontrolled Access Throughway” believes that the process of prioritizing her life and establishing goals is a waste of time and not really worth the effort.

There is no deliberate direction on this highway; travelers are blown whichever way the winds of obligation and circumstance and opinion take them.

They don’t set boundaries and their identity is frequently based on a quest to please the people around them.

The traveler on this superhighway will find herself overwhelmed and exhausted, with no real direction in life. Her passions will be sacrificed or forgotten or never even fully discovered because she is too busy reacting to life rather than designing her life.

Feelings of “always being busy” yet “never accomplishing anything” are road signs that one might see on this highway. The inability to say “no” to things is another road sign. If a traveler does not know the exit number for her destination, it is another indication that she may be traveling this highway.

You may want to ask yourself some questions. Where am I headed? What is important to me? If I have two potential commitments and I can only do one, what determines my decision? I would recommend asking these questions until you develop a hierarchy of priorities and a way to determine boundaries in your life.

Another series of questions might be: Am I just pleasing people? Do I have a need for affirmation? Do I find my identity only in the value that I bring to others?

There is only one way down this superhighway and it is never towards the land of your dreams. Unless you choose to turn off this highway and be deliberate with your life, your influences, and your direction, it will carry you directly towards your nightmares.

• Exercise:
  Have you ever found yourself on the “Uncontrolled Access Throughway”?
  Are you on it now? If so, recognize where.
  Now, write down one boundary that you can commit to today to start turning yourself off this path.

Sometimes, there is a benefit to shock value because it forces our minds to process things just a little bit differently. So, for the next 6 days, we are going to engage in some alternative, uncomfortable thinking.

We can discover some paths that, when followed, will unquestionably take us towards defeat and sorrow. This discovery will empower us to stay away from those highways. We can learn the road signs so that we can get off the highway if we are on one, and then we will find a better road to travel together.

The first superhighway to the land of your nightmares is the “Feelings First Freeway”.

The traveler makes decisions based on what helps him to feel good or what helps him avoid feeling bad. The traveler stops reasoning and ceases to look ahead for the consequences of his actions. When a situation arises that doesn’t offer an opportunity to feel good, his decisions will be based on avoiding that situation entirely.

When faced with a challenge or pain, this person will resist the idea of trying to find the good in the situation or will refuse to acknowledge the growth opportunities.

His thoughts will be controlled by his feelings – when he feels pressured or cheated or angered, he will allow his mind to dwell on it. When he feels good or encouraged or happy, he will allow his mind to dwell on it. Feelings dictate thinking on the “Feelings First Freeway”.

The traveler on this highway will miss countless lessons and chances for joy because he is too bogged down with his own feelings. He will start to be disillusioned with the high points on the road because he knows another low point is just around the bend. He will keep searching for the next mountaintop experience, only to keep finding himself in the next valley that follows.

Is this happening to you in some form? I have an affirmation that I mentioned in an earlier segment that addresses this: “My actions are based on what I know I should be doing and not on my emotions. My emotions are ever-changing.”

• Exercise:
  Have you ever found yourself on the “Feelings First Freeway”?
  Are you on it now?
  If so, recognize where, and write down one positive thing about the situation. Choose today to let your mind focus on the positive thing you have written.

This critic within can be the harshest of all, and yet often I don’t even realize the havoc he is wreaking on my life. Wreaking. Is that a good word? When we set out to accomplish our dream, we make goals and determine the disciplines we need to form in order to have a successful journey.

If we are not careful, we can become a negative voice to ourselves, dishing out criticism instead of positive reinforcement.

It is not helpful nor healthy to merely beat ourselves up for everything we are doing wrong. Some may call this self-discipline, but that’s not what it is. It’s self-abuse.

The key here is a perspective shift: we must work to turn the inner critic into the inner coach.

Of course we will fall short. But our inner coach reminds us to learn from the failure, to see how we could have done it differently, and then to focus on doing better the next time. Finally, our inner coach reminds us to be grateful for a stepping-stone to a better future.

Let’s remember that a consistent pattern of engaging positive thoughts and ideas will strengthen our inner coach and silence our inner critic. Here’s the good news: they have separate volume controls … and we have sole possession of the dials.

• Exercise:
  Are you beating yourself up inside in the name of self-discipline?
  What’s one area of your life where you can take control of the inner critic?

Have you begun work on your affirmations yet? Most people merely think about the idea and never actually get around to doing it. Have you?

The reality is that we can affirm most anything that we want to be true in our lives. We can affirm things that we want to accomplish or things about the type of people we want to be. This little step of writing down affirmations can have a powerful, life-altering effect on you!

Here’s a list of some other affirmations that I have used about myself to give you some inspiration and a place to start.

I have a positive expectancy of the future because I know I’m accomplishing my goals.

I have pride in my performance.

I look for ways to lift people up.

I have a great emotional sense of connection with the people in my life.

I am a happy person.

I have a quiet, emotional, magnetic strength when I speak.

As we affirm these kinds of things about ourselves, I believe we will discover that our lives will begin changing and that we will become more and more like the people we desire to be.

Today I challenge you to make a list of some affirmations about you as a person, about your goals in life, about the things you’d like to have happen to you. Then begin the process of affirming them on a daily basis.

• Exercise:
  Write an affirmation here that specifically references an attribute of the type of person you would like to be.

Yesterday is gone, but it would be a major mistake to assume that it is, or should be, forgotten.

Our past holds all sorts of truths and revelations and lessons that sometimes we overlook in the moment, and only can truly grasp them when we look at these things from a distance.

We also must always remember that looking into our past is never for the purpose of assigning guilt or blame or shame; it is never meant for camping out amidst our mistakes and regrets and losing sight of our present or future.

A healthy look at the past starts with one thing: honesty. So often, when we begin to look at the past, we become defensive. We try to justify our actions to ourselves or to whomever we feel like we need to convince.

We have to stop making excuses and assigning blame and we need to embrace the phrase that I repeat so often to myself: I am responsible. Our past can create healthy, powerful, insightful building blocks for our future, if we choose to look back with honesty.

• Exercise:
  Think about a time in your past when you felt defensive.
  What were you trying to justify in that situation?
  Write down an honest account of what happened and then decide what you can learn from it.

We have already discussed the principle of action and the motto, DO IT NOW. Today we will visit an idea that goes hand-in-hand with action: urgency.

While action is always important, I think urgency applies more to the attitude of the action.

Urgency is taking action with an awareness of purpose.

This sets an example for our leadership team and our campers that we are not just going through the motions; we are taking action with a purpose. I want to communicate this sense of urgency through my body language. I am moving with purpose, I’m focused and there is no time to waste because my goal is important to me.

We have to temper the sense of urgency so that it doesn’t turn into an unhealthy pressure or haste that will lead to mistakes and burnout.

Remember, a sense of urgency is less about the speed it takes to accomplish the action, and more about a confident, deliberate, enthusiastic attitude about taking the action.

Action is vital when we are working to accomplish our goals. Urgency is the multiplying power of the action that will increase our pace and let us cross the finish line sooner.

• Exercise:
  Do you have a plan of action that could be enhanced with a sense of urgency?
  What would that look like?

Look for the good in others and then to talk about it. This is a vital part of creating the atmosphere because it helps us get out of the world of competitive comparison. This allows us to build each other up instead of tear each other down.

For some, looking for the good in others comes quite naturally. For others of us, this is something we have to work on.

Compliments that build others up are only meaningful if they are genuinely given.

There is good to find in every person, in every circumstance, in every day, and in every life. The more we look for the good, the more we discover that there really is good to find.

Another concept is leaving a place better than we found it. For just a minute, let’s think about applying this to people. How much different would our world be if we tried to leave everyone we meet better than we found them?

If I’m encountering others and trying to learn about them, and if I’m investing myself in talking about all the good things I’m seeing in them—without expecting anything specific in return—both my life and their lives will be made better.

One of the great joys of life is relating to others and seeing their different perspectives and all the wonders of their experiences.

There is so much more to life when we learn to truly see and celebrate the good in every person we meet.

• Exercise:
  Who in your life can you deliberately focus on seeing the good in?
  Write down their names and begin to look for and speak about the good things you see in those people.

Integrity means being consistent or congruent on the inside and the outside of one’s life. Integrity is all about saying what you mean and meaning what you say.

There is little integrity in business practices and in many relationships. Our guiding system as a culture is based more on what can be proven right or wrong in a court of law rather than on a simple custom of integrity.

That can sound rather impossible sometimes, can’t it? That can sound like we have to attain a standard of perfection in order to have integrity.

But I have come to understand that perfection is not required in order to be a person of integrity nor to achieve significance in life. The pursuit of excellence is what I am personally after.

It is not about perfection. It is about a relentless pursuit of integrity: deliberately making the choice to be the same on the inside as we are on the outside.

A life of integrity will be one of the most rewarding, successful, significant, impacting lives that you can imagine. Let’s all work towards this life together.

• Exercise:
  What is one place in your life where you observe a lack of integrity?
  Is it in word, thought, or deed?
  What is a way that you can begin to strengthen your integrity in that area?