Staying Focused

Has your team prioritized plans and then become distracted?

The sports movement is made up of volunteers. This means those on our teams have limited time and energy to accomplish our agreed-upon goals.

I recall when our team had a consensus on an outcome that would take a year to accomplish. Later, when we realized it would take even longer than initially planned, it was easy to keep moving forward because everyone had been part of the initial decision. We all had buy-in.

What we hadn’t fully considered was all the positive distractions that could occur. There are always other good ideas to pursue or crises that distract us. To prevent us from being sidetracked, we created a process where unexpected issues would be considered by just a few on the team to determine if we put them on the agenda for our entire team. We were aware that, as volunteers, we needed to stay focused.

To protect our agreed-upon priorities, we created guard rails so as not to become distracted. I’ve observed that we often don’t say "no" to requests as much as we probably should. Maybe we feel a "no" will hurt a sister or brother. If we want remarkable outcomes, we often need to say "no" even to positive but ultimately distracting ideas.

Though our time is limited, it is wise to take the time for all on the team to discuss our priorities and proceed with consensus.

Scripture to Ponder – 2 Timothy 1:7

"For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline."

Key Lesson: It is easy to lose our individual or team focus. We need wisdom on what processes will help us and our team to stay focused.