Dr. John Townsend

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  • Are You Using Social Media in a Healthy Way?

    Are You Using Social Media in a Healthy Way?

    I love using social media. It’s not going away, and I’m glad. Social media makes our lives better, but that also means that we must be able to use it wisely.

    Before we get any further, let me just define the terms here.

    Social media is any kind of a website or application that involves the delivery of content that leads to interaction with other people.

    Benefits of Healthy Social Media Use

    Social media can provide many benefits, including:

    • Stronger Relationships
    • More Success
    • Entertainment

    Unfortunately, we tend to see people get stuck in addictive cycles on social media. This could mean they are constantly on their phone, which can also lead to physical problems like eye strain headaches. Or, they seek out people who may’ve been problematic in the past, which can lead to all kinds of emotional challenges. Social media is supposed to be primarily for entertainment. It simply cannot take over your life.

    The main thing to consider when using social media is, “Is it helping me be a better person? Am I in charge of it or is it in charge of me?”

    Watch Out For the Negatives of Social Media

    Let me give you some of the negative ways people handle being constantly connected.

    The first is access issues. You have your home life, work or school life, friends, church, etc. All too often, work or school can be accessed through text or email. You are technically available anytime. Do you respond or simply let it go for the time being?

    Another thing is quality vs. quantity. When surfing social media make sure you’re not allowing stuff in that’s going to adversely impact your emotional or spiritual well-being. Then, there’s quantity. There’s so much research out there about how people are spending way too much time on Facebook, Twitter, etc., and it gets in the way of real life and real experiences.

    Healthy Social Media Boundaries

    Now, let me give you some healthy ways to deal with this:

    1. Make sure you’re living a healthy life. You’re working out and dealing with people who are good for you and you’re doing something meaningful with your time. Nature abhors a vacuum. When we don’t have a healthy life and we’re lonely or isolated, we have a tendency to go into the digital world. This is the addictive process. Look, just like some people turn to drugs or alcohol, they can also go into the social media world because their real life’s not working. So, have the healthiest life possible.
    2. Set realistic ground rules. To start, establish times when you cannot be accessed. Use this as a time where you can be disconnected and have real-world experiences, whether it a be a workout or going to church.

     

     

  • Digital Boundaries

    Digital Boundaries

    Tech offers many wonderful options through the web, smartphones, tablets, and so forth. That being said, it can be very easy to “sucked in” to the digital world and lose sight of priorities in the real world. It can also make it hard to set aside time to take care of yourself and others.

    What Are Digital Boundaries?

    Simply put, digital boundaries are property lines designed to optimize the positives and minimize the negatives of the digital world.  

    When you have reasonable property lines, the digital world becomes your servant and not your master. It’s often the other way around for many of us these days.

    That’s not good for us.

    Why Are Digital Boundaries Important?

    Let me explain why digital boundaries are so important. First, there are times we MUST have freedom from access, meaning access to yourself, people who want your time and attention or to hang out.

    The digital age has changed everything. It’s no longer just getting up, going to work, coming home, and spending time with family. Now, anybody can get to you anywhere on the planet, at any time of day, 24/7, sun up, sun down, moon up, moon down.

    Have you ever had an instance where you get home from work and you get an email or text and think, “Oh, that’ll take me a second?”

    It’s bad for our brains.

    It’s bad for our relationships.

    In fact, it’s bad for life.

    Starting Setting Digital Boundaries

    The time to set some digital boundaries is NOW! To start, we need to set reasonable digital boundaries when we get home from work. Yes, it’s time to turn off your devices and being present! For example, I like to go ‘no digital’ for an hour after I get home from work to spend quality time with my wife and kids.

    Setting digital boundaries is an important idea is because we need great relationships in real life to keep us energized. I mean, isn’t life really about relationships and the things we do?

    Great relationships thrive with face-to-face interaction. The more face time you have with the people that are important to you (like someone you’re dating, your spouse, your kids, grandkids, or your great friends) the better the relationship will be.

    Making time to connect with these people in real life, instead of digitally, will help foster strong relationships. Emphasize how important seeing them face-to-face is to you, and I’m confident you’ll be happy with how these relationships grow.

    What my wife and I do sometimes is have a “non-pixelated night.” This means there’s no TV, you can’t get to us over the phone, and there’s no texting or email. I know you think this might be impossible to do. Admittedly, it’s been hard, but really cool. Try limiting your digital exposure over time instead of all at once to get started.

    Worried about your own digital boundaries? Join TownsendNOW to get help setting realistic digital boundaries with the people in your life!

     

  • Leading a Family

    Leading a Family

    What does it mean to serve as the head of a family?

    A family is really an oven, growing people to be the best they can be, to learn their talents, to feel loved, to feel like they have choices, etc. To lead a family unit is to influence your kin to be the best oven of growth possible.

    As a household leader (which usually means a Mom or a Dad), you’re going to influence your family; it’s up to you to create a place where all the elements of growth and the kids’ work come together.

    If you are leading with integrity, that means you’re working hard, God’s working hard, and really good things happen. Leadership is an influence.

    Why Is Leading A Family Important?

    First off, leading a family is an expression of love. I mean, one of the primary feelings we feel inside is that we love our kids. When you have kids, they can sort-of drive you crazy, but they’re also the people you love more than anything in the world.

    Simple fact – kids can’t do it on their own.

    By definition, a kid can’t lead a family. Sometimes, you see this happening with absent and dysfunctional parents when you’ve got somebody 11 years old who has to be a grown-up. This isn’t fair – kids can’t do it.

    Basically, a parent is the person who has the maturity, structure, and all the tolerance and wisdom to pull it off. You can’t expect a child to have these things and lead a family!

    Another important thing about leading a family is you really want to work yourself out of a job. Your job as a good parent, really as a good leader of a family, is to work yourself out of a job. Your goal should be to be fired, so to speak, one future day at the right time. If you’re always somebody’s parent at 25, and 35, and 45, you’ve still got children.

    When you think about it like this, the end goal for your children is really autonomy. The goal in leading a family is for your kids go out and win the world themselves.

    Your job as a family leader is to help your kids be self-sufficient and find their life in their own way.

    When In Doubt, Be Warm

    Another thing about leading a family is, sometimes it can be tough! When in doubt, move to warmth, and when there’s still doubt, move to strictness.

    In great meta-studies, researchers found out that warmth and strictness from parents made for highly-functioning children over a long period of time.

    So, what is warmth? Simply put, it’s just getting on their level and talking to them about life. Learn and apply listening skills and get them to open up.

    Part of being the leader of a family is applying appropriate strictness. Functional families need boundaries, house rules, ground rules, consequences, and values.

    This also means that you’ve got to be the one with a thick skin and let people hate you. This is how families grow together.  I mean, it’s a tale as old as time – kids must hate you (respectfully) and rebel, which will ultimately result in (fair) consequences. The big thing is that you can’t take this personally – it’s part of growing up and they will grow out of it.

    Final Thoughts

    Part of leading a family is giving your kids room to grow. Be the good parent that lets them make other friends. Keep in mind that they’ve got to be the right friends, hopefully, with good parents, you can trust You don’t want your kids to be around toxic friends, but if you’ve done your job right you won’t have to worry about this. Instead, learn when to start letting go of the reins a bit and trust your kids to pick the right people to spend their time with.

    Struggling to connect with your children? Get real-world guidance today from TownsendNOW!

     

  • Leading a Team

    Leading a Team

    The basic idea of leading a team is to influence a small group of individuals to perform at levels that they could not without you. In other words, they can do something without you, but your influence and guidance has them perform at a higher and better level. If they could do it without you, you don’t need a leader, but as you’ll see, they do need one.

    Why is Leading a Team Important?

    The research is clear – teams do better when there’s a good leader. They perform better, are more motivated, and more engaged because they’ve got someone that they know they can trust. It’s not even a question if you’ve got a team that has no leader and a team that has a leader, all things being equal, the team with the leader does better. But secondly, as the team goes, so goes the organization.

    So if you get the team going right, you’ve got a much better probability of success in the entire organization.

    Another reason this is important is that a team puts together intimacy. Teams have to learn to connect and be together. 

    Tips For Leading a Team

    First, the leader’s supposed to advocate for the mission.

    Secondly, developing trust. Every team leader must develop trust not just toward yourself, but also within the members. They have to learn how to trust each other enough to have hard conversations, to make mistakes with each other, to know they’re safe with each other.

    Third, remember to get their views before you give your view. A mistake team leaders make is putting their opinion first. You’re supposed to set the tone, but then your other job is to tease out what they’re thinking.

    Fourth, create a path. Sometimes, we call that a strategic path, sometimes we call it a path to growth, but that’s your job. You don’t have to do that by yourself, but you’re the one that’s got to make sure it happens.

  • Difficult Conversations

    Difficult Conversations

    Great conversations can lead to equally great personal development. But, as we know in life, we sometimes have to contend with those not-so-great conversations.

    You will, more often than not, find yourself facing a difficult conversation or confrontation.

    A successful confrontation will always involve balancing grace and truth. Grace is you being an advocate for the other person, while truth is whatever you need to say about the challenge at hand.

    This balancing combination is referred to as being neutralized. Being neutralized doesn’t mean being neutral about the problem. In fact, the clearer you express your opinion, the better your chances of success.

    Instead, being neutralized means that having grace and truth together counters the bad effects of having one of these by itself. In other words, grace or truth alone can have a negative effect in a confrontation.

    People need both in their relationships.

    For example, think about a time when someone told you the truth without love. You probably felt attacked, judged, or condemned. No matter how accurate the truth, it hardly mattered, because the hurtful feelings erased the truth in the confrontation.

    Now reflect on a time you received grace without any truth.

    Grace comforts us and keeps us safe and loved, but it doesn’t provide reality, structure, direction, or correction. You may have come away from that encounter feeling refreshed and encouraged, but without the path or insight to know what to do next. Truth neutralizes that problem and provides the way we need.

    Here are some ways to keep both aspects in balance when you are having the talk:

    • The Other Person’s Grace and Truth: Even though you might be upset with someone, their ability to take in truth will also require love and grace, just as yours does. Your intent is not to fix, straighten out, or punish. It is to provide enough amounts of truth and grace to reconcile and solve the problem.
    • Lead With Grace: Tell the person you care about them and are on their side.
    • Keep Grace and Truth Together: You’ve got to have both elements woven into your difficult conversation. Otherwise, you are setting yourself up for an unhealthy outcome, which no one wants.

    A TownsendNOW membership means you get practical, Christian-based insight for having those difficult conversations.

     

     

    Originally published by Faith Gateway. Taken from How to Have That Difficult Conversation You’ve Been Avoiding by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, copyright Zondervan, 2005.
  • Great Conversations

    Great Conversations

    Great conversations can be a really important part of your life. What is a good conversation? It’s a dialogue between two people. It’s not a monologue.

    Secondly, and one of the outcomes, is information.

    Thirdly, the potential for self-improvement. There are a lot of conversations I’ve been in where I’m a better person because of having been around that person.

    Many times, improvement, growth, and change can be a big part of it, but it’s not always necessary.

    Why is This Important in the First Place?

    First off, a transfer of nutrients. The way people grow and thrive in life and succeed is because we give each other nutrients to grow. The nutrients of encouragement and attunement and then the nutrients of wisdom and feedback and all these sorts of things.

    A second reason it’s important is that those great conversations are self-reinforcing. A good conversation will reinforce many more.

    Third of all, I think great conversations are milestones for great decisions.

    So What Do You Do About It?

    Let me give you the skills that really work. One is to take initiative. Don’t wait for someone to draw you out. Be a grown-up, ask them how they’re doing but you be the first mover.

    Another very important one is to move toward vulnerability. When somebody opens up and says something about themselves like a struggle or a challenge they’re having, you say, “I had no idea you had a kid that was struggling. I had no idea that you weren’t happy with your job. Tell me more about that.” People in great conversations and great conversationalists are always moving toward the vulnerability of the other person. They’re vulnerable themselves. That’s where the real payoff is.

    There’s also kind of a process here. Good conversations move from events to deeper matters.

    • One is feelings.
    • Another one is relationships in general.
    • Another one is no hijacking the football. If you are talking about something of interest, you go mutual. You pass it back and forth.
    • Finally, go for mutuality. Just make that your goal in a good conversation.

    Become a TownsendNOW member today to learn more about great conversations and to get the answers you can’t find anywhere else!