What Are You Watering?

No matter where you go, water is both a basic and universal need. According to The USGS Water Science School, about 71 percent of the earth is covered by water and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth’s water. Health experts recommend drinking six to eight glasses of water a day. While most of us are finding ways to earn and save money, there are many parts of the world that are searching for clean water and ways to conserve it.

As water is a key component to sustaining life, it can also be used to represent the time, attention, and affection we commit to see things grow. There are three essential areas of life worth asking the question, “What are you watering?”

1. Priorities (Health): Overall health is a key performance indicator in life and is a predictor of growth. Consider these areas of health to stay grounded in your priorities: Spiritual health centers on our internal system of operation and it impacts our thinking. Some practices to help water your spiritual health are prayer, quiet time, Bible reading, and meditation. To the degree we are renewed spiritually we can operate effectively. Physical health consists of what we put into our bodies as well as the amount of exercise and rest we get on a daily basis. Relational health is the deep connections we are developing and growing with others. Being authentic and transparent in conversation and action is a key practice. Financial health is living within your means. It involves living on a budget, having a rainy day fund, saving for the future, as well as diversifying your investments to build long term wealth. One important concept to keep in mind in financial health is that your income is your best wealth building tool. Whether income comes by dividends, endorsements,business profit, or working a job you earn money by what you do but you use it by who you are. Your money flows in the direction of your character. Your priorities are what give you a solid base of support in life.

2. Opportunities (Height): These are the moments made available to you by time and chance and what you do with them. They come in all shapes and sizes and are beneficial to the degree you can discern them and mesh them into your daily routine by giving ample time and attention to them. Opportunities can be given or created. They can be given in response to preparation and connection. They can also be created out of a desire to meet a need in the world. Whether given or created, they have the ability to greatly improve quality of life if you approach them correctly and apply yourself wholeheartedly to them. Opportunities often carry the aura of excitement and adventure and we can miss opportunities staring in our face because of this single track thinking. When I took advantage of the opportunity to write blogs and books, I didn’t realize the sacrifices I would have to make for the sake of the opportunity. In economics this is referred to as opportunity cost. There were days when ‘exciting’ and ‘adventurous’ was replaced by ‘mundane’ and ‘uninspiring.’ Don’t let bad days turn you off from the opportunity in front of you. Two questions to ask when assessing an opportunity: Is this the time? How will this opportunity impact my priorities?

3. Proclivities (Habits): These are your tendencies, inclinations, bent, bias, or predictive responses toward life as it happens. Our habits are our repetitions which eventually form our reputation. Our habits will either trend our lives upward or downward depending on their effect on our lives over time. Our lives are continuously designed by the pen of our habits. The blame game is as old as Adam in the Garden of Eden, and is always the path of least resistance traveled by those who are reactive rather than proactive. When you are proactive you focus on watering essential habits in two distinct areas: attitude and paradigm. Your attitude is the posture of mind you hold at any given time. Your attitude determines your altitude but it also plays a critical role in growing your aptitude (competence). Your paradigm is the view or lens through which you see life. Your view will either lighten or darken the world around you. By changing your attitude and shifting your paradigm, your habits will become an aide and not a hindrance to your progress.

Final thought: Water is vital to the development of a seed. It is part of what will change the structure of the seed in the ground to bring out the fruit it is capable of producing. What we water becomes stronger. What we don’t, wilts. As we water what is necessary for our lives, we operate from a place of strength and not stress.

Keep On Keeping On!