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Hey friends, the Fearless Advisor here. Today I am going to discuss the three big distractions that keep us from success.

How can we eliminate distractions?

For the past twelve months, I have been thinking about the distractions in my life and how to eliminate them. I’m sure you would agree this may be one of the most challenging tasks in life. There are libraries full of research and books that can tell us why we are so easily distracted. I am going let you decide if and how you want to consume that information.

The Bible has insight on 3 of our biggest distractions.

What I plan to do in this video is discuss the three big distractions that have been plaguing us humans since the beginning of time. My source is from the Bible in the book of Mark 4:19 ESV. Here Jesus is explaining the Parable of the Sower to his disciples. Verse 19 says, “but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.”

And there are the three distractions: cares of the world, deceitfulness of riches, and desires for other things. Personally, these are major distractions for me. Now, let’s walk through these together.

Cares of this world

First, the “cares of this world” refers to the worries or concerns of the time in which we live. This happens when we worry about something in the future, either near or far, and assume that the outcome will be bad. This worry can consume us and turn our focus from the success we can achieve. Think about news commentators constantly telling us something bad is going to happen. This creates what I call the nose-ring fear. Fear will lead us where it wants to take us.

Deceitfulness of riches

Second, the “deceitfulness of riches” refers to the misleading claim that having more money will make life easy. This may sound strange coming from a financial planner. However, this aligns with our perspective on money. We view money as a tool to achieve what we have been called to do. Accumulating money to further the lives of those people and causes we love is noble. However, just chasing more money for the sake of it will likely leave us lonely.

Desires for other things

Third, the “desires for other things” refers to focusing on things we do not have. Just visit a website with ads plastered all over it. The companies that paid for the ads are wanting to increase your desire for their product or service. The more we see and think about what they are selling, the more likely we are to take the time to research and make their product or service ours.

These 3 distractions are unfruitful.

I find it fascinating that a writing from approximately 70 CE was dealing with the same issues we are dealing with today. The last part of this verse states how these distractions come into our lives and choke or crush what we should be focusing on, and we learn they are unfruitful or useless. Wow! That is a hard truth to swallow.

If I honestly reflect on how I allow these three distractions to impact me in my life, I must honestly agree they have been useless. When we worry about things we cannot control, like whether our sports team will win or a bad grade on our kid’s report card, we get bogged down and less productive.

When we chase after riches as our focus in life without a realistic plan for how the riches will impact those we love and care about, the outcome is not what we thought it would be. If we spend time envying what other people have versus what we have been entrusted with, we can squander what has been entrusted to us.

Distractions keep us from achieving success in the areas we were called.

Eliminate these 3 distractions and achieve success!

The moral of the story is that distractions keep us from achieving success in the areas we were called. I have kept away from defining success in this video because our culture tells us success is being the best. I believe this is a lie that keeps us from working together to be great collectively through our different gifts and talents. Eliminate those distractions and achieve success!

If you would like to discuss how to set and achieve goals in the areas you are called, reach out to us here at F5 Financial. Thanks for joining us!

Reference links:

• The Parable of the Sower
• Radical Wisdom by Regie Campbell

Photo credit: Todd Trapani on unsplash.com