We all know chaos is unavoidable at times. But living there isn’t healthy or enjoyable. It’s exhausting. If you’ve lived like that for a while, order may sound like a unicorn.

I get it.

But there is a way to stop the incessant whack a mole existence. It’s not magical. It’s a graceful process.

You deserve to enjoy your life more and I’ll show you how.

DARE TO BELIEVE

I use that line a lot in my writing because we have a tendency to trip over ourselves. I know I do.

We feel powerless so think we are. It takes a lot of courage and a little faith to grab ahold of that dare.

To dare to believe change is possible and you have the power to do something.

While it’s true things do happen outside our control, we have more power than we give ourselves credit for.

• We have control over what’s at the center of our lives.
• We have control over how we respond to what’s happening in our lives.
• We have control over what we choose to believe.

I dare you to believe it.

I DARED

I just finished reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. The concepts in it have a language all their own.

I was more familiar with survival and chaos than the order he unveiled. I needed to learn a new way of thinking.

I dared to believe I could learn.

I took a long time to read it. It was difficult to digest, but I wanted to understand how to gain the effectiveness he illustrated. I’d never applied that word to myself or my life before.

I dared to believe I could—and I did.

I began the graceful process and you can too.

BEGINNING

It begins with our perceptions. Stephen Covey calls them paradigms. How we see and process our world. How we see ourselves.

That’s why I started with daring you to believe you’re powerful where you may see yourself powerless.

Change takes place from the inside out.

If you took the dare, you’ve already started your graceful process toward order.

You’ve taken your first proactive step. Being proactive is intentionally choosing how to respond.

This choice is your superpower.

To move from chaos to order you must make intentional choices.

If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control – myself. – Stephen Covey

WHAT YOU WANT

To get what we want out of life we have to know what we want. I know that sounds obvious but there’s more to it than I understood.

To understand what we want, I mean what really matters to us, we have to look at the end. Then to get it, we have to begin with that end in mind. What do I mean?

Reading Stephen’s book I learned I was vague in what I wanted in life. I had priorities but I needed more specifics to create order.

He had a little exercise. It sounded morbid to me at first and then it made perfect sense.

Imagine you’re at your own funeral. Imagine who’s there. What would they say if it was today? Are you happy with that? What do you want them to say? Using that information, write a personal mission statement of what kind of person you want to be and things you want to accomplish. Go over it frequently.

Knowing what you want is a big step in the process.  

How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and, keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most. – Stephen Covey

NEXT STEP

Begin to move in the direction of what you established as important to you.

Moving requires trading time from what isn’t important—to what is.

Stephen divides our time into four different areas he calls quadrants. They help us identify where we spend our time.

I created one here with examples of activities belonging in each area. Look at each area and identify where you spend the majority of your time.

Moving to a place with more order requires intentional choices.

• Spending more time in the order producing area.
• Spending less time in the 3 chaos producing areas.

Two of the chaos producing areas aren’t important. The Necessary Now is important so you can’t eliminate it. However, you can reduce your time there.

The Order producing area is where the things you’ve identified as important belong. This is also where work is done to lessen time spent in Necessary Now through prevention and planning.

Consider this change:

You move from chaos to order by trading time.

HOW TO TRADE TIME

This is where we imagine the unicorn lives.

But it’s an illusion. Trading time is quite possible. The key is to put the big rocks in first.

YOU decide what the big rocks are.

The big rocks are the things that are the most important to you.

DON’T FORGET GRACE

This part is so important. It’s the difference between reality and the unicorn.

You won’t move from a life filled with chaos to order simply by reading this article, or because you want to.

You’ll need to grow into it.

Remember it’s a process. Let it be graceful by being filled with grace. Don’t beat yourself up trying. Don’t destroy yourself in the process.

Remember you started with daring to believe you can. In time, you will.

Moving from chaos to order is done one step at a time in a graceful process.

WHAT NEXT

• Where do you struggle most? Let me know so I can pray for you.
• Remember process, grace…read the articles linked above.
• Get a Dare to believe free printable here.
• Get The 7 Habits book – available in various formats. From Audible to Kindle

Danielle Bernock

Author, Coach, and Speaker helping men, women, and organizations EMERGE with clear vision of their value, TAKE ownership of their choices, and CHART a path to their promise, becoming Victorious Souls who Embrace The Change from survive to thrive through the power of the love of God

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