It’s All About Your Shoulder

A thought early this morning made me wander down the rabbit trails of my mind, thinking about all the times we reference our shoulder. As in:

• Put your shoulder into it.
• Shoulder your load.
• Shoulder the responsibility, shoulder the blame.
• Strong shoulders to lean on.
• Put an arm around the shoulder and be a friend. (Shoulder hugs!)
• Toss salt over your left shoulder.
• We shoulder past someone one and through the crowd.
• Lead with your shoulder.
• Look over your shoulder at what’s coming up behind you.
• Someone’s always looking over my shoulder – to see what I’m doing, or to make sure I’m doing it their way!
• The side of the road for emergencies is often called the shoulder.
• Shoulder bag in place of a backpack.
• It’s the part of a hill near the top.
• It’s that part of your body that connects your arm to your trunk and sits just below the neck.
• It’s what you lend to someone to cry on.
• Shoulder to shoulder, all lined up.
• You rub shoulders with others.
• Shoulder your weapon, soldier!
• Talk straight from the shoulder.
• Give ’em a cold shoulder.

It’s a strange word. Shoulder. It’s “Should” with an -er, and that’s not a hospital term (e.r. – emergency room). It’s from several languages including Old English, West Germanic, Dutch…well, maybe from more than several. It’s possibly related to “shield” in some original term. (Source) Maybe that’s why we “lead with our shoulder” because it shields the more tender parts of our body.

Why think about shoulder on a cool morning? We shoulder the load of our responsibility, and we look over our shoulder to see how we’ve done to date.

Many Monday mornings I think about what happened on Sunday. What was good… bad… ugly… necessary… waste of time… could have been done differently, better, or not at all. What lessons did I learn? Are their repeats from prior personal reviews that did not get applied properly so it never shows up again? What am I missing? What do I do differently next time?

Basically…How do I improve?

That’s mostly the reason for the shoulder review. In my IT world, and especially on the Y2K project, we would conduct After Action Reviews and consider the same thing mentioned above. In fact, if you begin a project and do not even think about prior Lessons Learned first… then you are in a position to repeat the same mistakes and we all know what that’s called – Insanity!

A local radio host has a Monday Quarterback segment that reviews the same thing but dealing with the football game played by other people… and dissecting lessons learned for the next game.

Question: How do you push past yesterdays, or even last years, missteps and pick up the pieces, make an ordered approach to the new time segment ahead, and do things better than before?

It’s not that I’m no good at setting goals, or refusing to use them as signposts to lead the way, rather, I need goals to keep me on track with my life plan. Actionable, measurable, and specific goals continually pointing me forward, and not sideways, or slipping backward. I want to do the best I can and if there is anyone to blame then it is simply me, myself and I that shoulder the blame and responsibility.

You can not identify it as a goal unless you follow this mantra:

Goals should be written down, carried with you, reviewed often, corrected as needed, and celebrated when they produce a win! Share on X

Any goal should be written down, whipped out at a moments notice to refresh your plan in your mind, and even recite it to others so they know the path you are on!

Here’s my thought today. 

I know there are plans I have for my life, but it’s God who determines my steps. (Proverbs 16:9) The steps of a good man are ordered by God. (Psalms 37:23) Though I may have a prodigal momentary lapse in judgment and execution, His hand upholds me. (Psalms 63:8) It will always be my choice, today, to serve my God, or not, but I want to stand with Joshua and declare, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!” (Joshua 24:15) I want my goals to lead me to hear those fateful words, “Well done…”. (Matthew 25:21-23)

However. I do not want to go on that path alone. I need my partner, bride, and helper to go with me, hand-in-hand, shouldering the load for each other when the weight becomes unbearable. I have a description of marriage I’ve used for years describing the benefits of having a partner.

When one is down, the other needs to be up.
When both are down, there are problems neither can handle.
When both are up, they are an invincible team to face all obstacles!

I am praying that you have a great week and are planning for a great new year. Let’s get our goals in order to prove it’s the Best Year Ever!