by Carey Nieuwhof: The problem with many leaders is that there is a gap between what they want to see happen and the courage it takes to get there.

You dream of a radical new future, but then you answer email all day, go to meetings, inhale caffeine and go home before it’s too late with far too much of whatever-you-did-today (what did I do again today?) leftover for a boring repeat tomorrow.

And if you drill down a little further, you’ll often find that what lurks under the tedium of every day is…fear. It’s just easier to answer email and be in meetings all day instead of making the bold moves you know you need to make to secure a better future.

To put it as eloquently as possible, that pattern stinks.

To accomplish a radically new future, you will have to do radically different things.

This scares the socks off of most of us. After all, risk is for risk-takers, and many of us are not crazy risk-takers.

So the question becomes, when you realize fear is holding your back, how do you act? How do you push past your fear?

Well, start with small steps.

Small victories over fear quickly become larger ones because like any good muscle, the more you practice overcoming your fears, the more fear you overcome.

To accomplish a radically new future, you will have to do radically different things.Click To Tweet

The End of the Road for the Timid is Not Awesome

Another way to get motivated to grow bolder in your leadership is to consider the alternative, which is, well, not good at all.

It’s simple. If you fail to take risks in your leadership:

Your organization will experience few breakthroughs and likely continue down a path  to decline and irrelevance.

You will leave leadership without any sense of fulfillment or accomplishment.

Here’s what’s worse. From a distance, it’s hard to tell the difference between a fearful leader and a lazy leader. Why? Well, while the motivation is different, the outcome is often indistinguishable.

It can be difficult to tell the difference between a fearful leader and a lazy leader.Click To Tweet

I believe risk-taking is both a habit and a mindset. Take a few steps toward tackling small challenges, and soon you’ll be up for the bigger ones.

At the same time, if you’re a natural risk-taker, you may feel an urge the older you get to rest on your laurels. Don’t.

Even taking risks like the ones below will prime the pump for future change and transformation, which, by the way, is always in season.

After all, the next generation doesn’t care what you did yesterday.

The next generation doesn’t care what you did yesterday.Click To Tweet

7 Risks Any Leader Can Take Today

So, if you want to flex your risk-muscle for the first time or the 1000th time, here are 7 things you can do today to get started:

1. Start something you don’t know how to finish

This can be truly awesome. Tackling things you know how to do is a sure path to stagnation and eventual boredom.

What’s that project at work that scares the life out of you? Start it. Today. And see where it goes. You will figure it out. You will.

Most people who make a dent in the universe had no idea what they were doing when they started.

Why would it be any different with you?

People who put a dent in the universe usually had no idea what they were doing when they started. Why would it be any different with you?Click To Tweet

2. Do what you’ve been thinking of doing but haven’t done yet

We all have things we’ve been thinking of doing for years that might be doable. But we haven’t started yet.

Just do it. Seriously.

Make the call. Send the text. Clean out that drawer. Write page one of the book you’re terrified to start.

True leaders have a bias for great action, not just great thinking.

True leaders have a bias for great action, not just great thinking.Click To Tweet

3. Be generous when you don’t feel like it

Yes, generosity is a risk. Being financially generous when you don’t feel like you have the funds to be generous is a risk.

Being generous with praise when you don’t feel like praising someone is a risk.

In a world where there are a thousand reasons to be stingy, generosity is a risk.

But generosity is the key to developing an abundance mentality. And people with an abundance mentality often end up taking more risks.

So start by thanking someone who deserves some thanks even if you don’t feel like giving it. Or give some money away. You may surprise yourself at what you get back.

In a world where there are a thousand reasons to be stingy, generosity is a risk.Click To Tweet

4. Set a goal you think is impossible to reach

The reason you won’t set a daring goal is because you think it’s impossible. Which is exactly why you should set it.

It can be small. When I began seriously and consistently blogging 7 years ago, I set a crazy traffic goal of reaching 100,000 page views a year. I thought it would be impossible. But that goal motivated me to write three times a week, week in and week out.

I had no idea that in my first year full year of dedicated blogging, I would realize 7x that goal…reaching over 700,000 page views. That was in 2013.

Three years later, this blog sees over 6 million page views a year.

If someone had told me that when I started, I would have laughed. The thought still astonishes and humbles me.

But here’s some truth for you: People who set goals accomplish more than people who don’t.

People who set goals accomplish more than people who don’t.Click To Tweet

5. Be vulnerable

Yes, vulnerability is also a risk.

Bring a close friend in on a struggle you haven’t talked to anyone about yet.

Get over your fear of telling your team you don’t know the answer (I promise you they already know).

Being vulnerable sets you up for accepting the failure that inevitably accompanies risk…that failure you’re so scared of.

Being vulnerable today will prepare you for a bit of failure tomorrow on your way to greater accomplishments.

6. Give someone else an opportunity you were going to take for yourself

It’s a risk to trust others with something you care about, isn’t it? Which is why you need to do it.

Pick an opportunity you were personally going to do and invite someone else to do it. This will not only help you be more generous with your leadership but this will also position you to create a stronger team moving forward.

As the saying goes when it comes to accomplishment, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go further, go with a team.

It’s a risk to trust others with something you care about. Which is why you need to do it.Click To Tweet

7. Take quitting off the table

When you’re afraid, you think about quitting, don’t you?

So take it off the table. Just decide you’re in for the long haul and get moving.

It’s riskier to stay and try than it is to quit and leave.

In the same way that couples who take divorce off the table usually find a way to work through their issues, you will find a way to work through your issues if you move quitting off the table.

It’s riskier to stay and try than it is to quit and leave.Click To Tweet

Invest in Yourself

It’s ironic, the better a leader you become, the less coaching you would think you’d need.

Just the opposite is true. The better you become, the more you need. Just ask any professional athlete.

If you want to take your leadership and life to a new leader, I’d love to challenge you to take the High Impact Leader Course. It’s designed to help you get time, energy and priorities working for you, not against you.

I’ve helped over 3000 leaders free up hundreds of hours each year and often 3 hours a day to do what they feel they never have time for and get healthier in the process.

My High Impact Leader course, is my online, on-demand course designed to help you get time, energy and priorities working in your favour.

It’s perfect for leaders who feel like they never have enough time in the day to get the really important things done.

Many leaders who have taken it are recovering 3 productive hours a day.  That’s about 1000 hours of found time each year. That’s a lot of time for what matters most.

Here are what some alumni are saying about The High Impact Leader Course”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you for providing the course again. It has absolutely made an impact in my life and family already that I can’t even describe.” – Joel Rowland, Clayton County, North Carolina

“Just wow.  Thank you, thank you.” Dave Campbell,  Sioux Falls South Dakota

“A game-changer.” Pam Perkins,  Colorado Springs, Colorado

Curious? Want to beat overwhelm and have the time to reflect, rest and reinvent yourself?

Click here to learn more or get instant access.

In the meantime

What other risks do you think leaders can take that will set us up for the future?

Scroll down and leave a comment!

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Source: Afraid to Make A Move? 7 Risks Any Leader Can Take.

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by Bill Hull and Bobby Harrington: This is part of our blog series from the free eBook Evangelism or Discipleship: Can They Effectively Work Together?.

An occupational hazard for you, the informed reader, is to scan or skip this section because you know what it says. While that may be somewhat true, we would be so encouraged by your careful attention. In this chapter, we’re asking three critical questions of this seminal passage.

We begin with the two verses before it:

“Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him—but some of them doubted!” (Matt. 28: 16-17, NLT).

1. Why did they show up?

The 11 disciples were afraid. They had failed Him. Yet they were His disciples, not anyone else’s. The resurrection had convinced them to stick with Jesus. They knew what was ahead. Jesus had already told them they would be hated and would die like He did. But they would also be raised like Him. So when He appeared to them once more, they worshiped Him. Still, doubt nagged at them. Was this real, were they imagining this, were they being tricked?

If a skeptic paid attention to this one simple fact about the disciples, it would erase any doubt about the reason for the creation of the church and the existence of the New Testament. The idea that these very ordinary men would have invented such a story and arranged for themselves to be killed is ludicrous. Belief and sacrifice didn’t come naturally for these 11 men; they don’t come easily to any of us.

…

Written by Bill Hull and Bobby Harrington

Bill Hull is a Co-Founder of The Bonhoeffer Project. Bill’s passion is to help the Church return to its disciple making roots. He considers himself a discipleship evangelist. This God-given desire has manifested itself in 20 years of pastoring and the authorship of many books. Two of his more important books Jesus Christ Disciple Maker and The Disciple Making Pastor have both celebrated 20 years in print. Add a third in the popular trilogy—The Disciple Making Church—and you have a new paradigm for disciple making.

Bobby Harrington is the Executive Director of Discipleship.org, a national platform, conference, and ministry that advocates for Jesus’ style of disciple making. He is the founding and lead pastor of Harpeth Christian Church (by the Harpeth River, just outside of Nashville, TN). He has a Doctor of Ministry degree in consulting and has spent years as a coach to church planters and senior pastors. He is the author of several books on discipleship, including DiscipleShift (with Jim Putman and Robert Coleman) and The Disciple Maker’s Handbook (with Josh Patrick).

The post Why Did the Disciples Show Up to the Great Commission? appeared first on Discipleship.org.

Source: Why Did the Disciples Show Up to the Great Commission?

The post Why Did the Disciples Show Up to the Great Commission? appeared first on Passion for Planting.