You can give up or you can breakthrough! Choose wisely.
The difference between winning, change, or a continuation of the same. Don’t give up! Faith in all that you do will see you through the tough times when you want to give up. Giving up comes in the form of emotional pain.
I call it kicking your own ass!
We are conditioned from a very young age to avoid pain. Our brain will have us run from pain. Here is an example of overcoming emotional torture.
Marathon runners hit what they call the wall. This happens late in the race when your body is so fatigued your brain begins to say you need to stop NOW. Runners say they feel as though they are hurting their bodies beyond measure.
Yet studies have found this is all in mind. That if you can break through this process, on the other side, you complete the Marathon. Bodies are not injured, it’s simply fatigued that your brain registers as pain.
Humans can see themselves through tremendous emotional pain. You genuinely do not know what you can take until you try. More often than not, giving up too soon, when achievement is just one more step away. Success can take one action further than most are willing to do.
Yes, you will have to work through emotional pain to achieve real success in anything you set out to make. Moreover, this is worth your investment, time, and energy. Stop losing and learn to win. Achieve more than you dreamt of!
How you say?
Learning to recondition yourself, your auto-response to emotional pain. This takes time and your fullest attention.
Look at the state of your home or office. Is it cluttered? Is it clean? Clean is good, cluttered is bad will talk about that. The state of your mind runs congruent with the state of your account. East start, get your home and office in order!
Organize your life to win. In my book, we talk about activity vs. productivity. When you fully understand the difference, this is the secret sauce. For example, the action is social media, gabbing, etc. Productivity: net a result. Work on a project to completion in a set time.
Take care of Body, Mind & Soul. Eat healthy, walk, get in the sunshine. Take time to unplug from social media (most significant waste of your time) phones, get outside and leave the phone at home or in the car. Unplug!
Meditate and pray. During your meditation, see yourself as you would love to live. It’s not about fancy cars, mansions, it’s about being present in a moment. Success will come if you can actually be present in a moment. Giving full attention to the tasks at hand. See yourself and pray to God for wisdom. Not possessions.
Learn. Simple enough. Make time every day to broaden your mind. Watch videos, take a master class, attend night school. Do something that brings a better you to this world.
Five quick things to get started.
None of this will make any difference if you don’t follow-through. This means set out reminders for 1 Year. Exercise, make time for an entire year to exercise. One hour per day for 365 days = 365 hours of training, education, family. It’s time to organize to win in life.
For the “I don’t have time, crowd.” Let me piss you off here and say YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO MANAGE YOUR TIME, AND I CAN PROVE IT. I can also HELP!
Give me ONE day of honest assessment:
Track your day literally every 30 minutes make a note of what you have done in this space of time. Journal your day as close to the times as you can.
Be HONEST (Goofed off, social media, personal stuff, bathroom breaks) Chronicle it all HONESTLY.
Then with all the time, you’ve wasted doing junk. Add that number up and times it by your work weekdays.
I would challenge you to fill 1 hour with complete focus. NO phone, no email, nothing but real production. As you can begin to focus like this on daily tasks, complete one move on (oh, by the way, multi-taskers the 90’s called they want you to come home).
Laser-sharp focuses on the task at hand. Start and complete. It’s much harder than you might think to fill an entire hour with PRODUCTION.
Now you must begin to realize the enemy; your head will not want to let go of your goof-off time smoothly. You will start “this doesn’t work” “its too hard” will fill your head with crap. How bad do you want to win? Bad enough to not kick your own ass???
This is why we set out a year for changes in our life. You want lasting change? Do something that produces a result religiously for one hour per day for an entire year. This time next year, you will not know yourself as you do today. You will have achieved much, my dear friends.
Just released my new book. Organize to Win in Life. Here is the Introduction to the book, I hope you enjoy.
Why people fail often is a lack of organization. Not truly understanding the difference between activity and productivity.
What if you could learn to manage your life for success?
Are you tired of trying only to fall short of goals?
Are you living in your Gift?
Life skills!
Self Improvement!
When the alarm clock goes off, are you bouncing out of bed excited, hurrying to get ready for a day you can’t wait to begin? If not, you’re are not living your best life, your Gift. God has a whole lot more for you!
If your ready, keep reading!
Of course, anyone would love to learn how to manage life for success. Yet very few can. This book will give you skills with exercises to help you learn to organize for success.
How to plan a day with production.
How to achieve goals because we had a daily routine towards its achievement.
What some will begin to say is a couple of things:
I don’t have time; my schedule is so full.
I won’t live my life on a time clock.
The first thing we will learn is how to get rid of the “I can’t!” Yes, you can, and together, we will overcome negativity creeping into our thoughts.
Fear:
“Fear can be good when you’re walking past an alley at night or when you need to check the locks on your doors before you go to bed, but it’s not good when you have a goal, and you’re fearful of obstacles. We often get trapped by our fears, but anyone who has had success has failed before.”—Queen Latifah
Let’s touch on this for a moment. Fear is a natural response from within you. Fear moves you out of harm’s way. When your brain begins to feel stress, you will naturally jump back out of fear. “oh, this may hurt me.”
Learn that fear can be overcome with practice. You may fear to speak publicly. However, over time it will become second nature to you. When we do things, enough fear will disappear.
Remember, while learning anything. Ounce, you do anything enough times. When comfortable, fear will simply move away.
Procrastination is the leading cause of failure. Your own ability to get yourself to do nothing. Put off to tomorrow what you need to do right now.
Decide what you want. Plan. Work on that plan every day. Devote yourself to the life you want to have, not the experience you have to have. A significant difference in doing what you want to do versus what you must do!
One of the critical components you will learn in this book, Activity vs. Productivity.
When you master this, life will open in ways, your only option is smile.
We’re going step-by-step to learn how to totally organize our life for success. However, nothing in this book will work unless you are ready to change. You cannot quit because change is hard.
“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.”–Erma Bombeck
Amazing how the bible is filled with everything we believe in regarding self-improvement. You can find it all in the Bible. Proverbs is an excellent place to start if you want to test my theory.
Proverbs was written by King Solomon. Let’s just say in today’s terms, King Solomon’s wealth would make Bill Gates look like a pauper.
Vision boards! Read this bible verse pretty cool:
Habakkuk 2
2-3And then God answered: “Write this.
Write what you see.
Write it out in big block letters
so that it can be read on the run.
This vision-message is a witness
pointing to what’s coming.
From basically the dawn of time, folks like you and I have studied to improve their lives. Throughout history, self-improvement has been a part of the discourse for millions of people.
Something to be said for goals and having a vision board for visual reference.
Here are some fun ideas to create a vision board:
Gather up pictures from magazines, the internet, with your goals and dreams. Don’t be shy. Remember, God flung into existence the Universe, so I think he can handle even your wildest goals.
A poster board makes a great vision board. Glue your photos all over it in a collage. Then place the board in a prominent place so that you see it every day. Several times a day!
You can also make a folder in your photos on your phone, vision board. Then save into these photo pictures that inspire you.
It’s okay to have more than one board. Again, don’t be shy.
Do work. If you just stare at photos and never act. Nothing will happen. Action must occur faithfully, diligently, and consistently if you ever want your vision to come true!
Vision boards are ever-evolving. As one goal is achieved, get a new one on the board.
John Assaraf, in the movie The Secret. He told the story of his son, asking him what his vision boards were for. He said to his son, “they are daddies vision for his life,” as he thumbed through the boards, stopped to see a photo of a house that years before he put on a vision board. He had not looked at this board for a long time. He then realized the new home they were moving in was the exact house he had just purchased.
He never put that together until he was unpacking boxes in his home. A picture of his dream house, he clips out of a magazine years before he now owns. Wow, what a fantastic story.
Last year I had not looked at my board for some time. Even lapsing reading my goals for a time. Yet, I endeavor to not miss a day. Reading my own goals, I paused when I read the one that was to publish my first book in 2019. It dawned on me at that moment, I published seven.
Vision boards and written goals work!
The key to success with your goals is action. You cannot sit on your ass and expect the world to feed you. Get off your duff and get working. Small steps, giant steps, just move. Forward momentum with a plan will open up your life to incredible heights.
The life you want to have. Put in front of you every day. Let God know. Remember what it says in the bible. You have not because you ask not—James 4:2
Give it to God, vision yourself with what you ask. Do work. See your life manifest into abundance, peace, hope, and love.
I found this and love it, for those of us that need creative help..lol…
“The key to forming good habits is to make them part of your ‘rituals.’ I have a morning ritual, afternoon ritual, and Sunday ritual. It’s one way to bundle good habits into regular times that you set aside to prepare yourself for the life you want. Rituals help you form habits.”—Lewis Howes
With no real easy way to tell you this. Your head is going to be at times, your most formidable adversary. Wanting to stay status quo. Comfortable in misery. So much so you don’t feel the pain at a level like the beginning.
Changes in our lives, new paradigms to replace old thought processes is what is needed now. The past will not give up easily. Prepare yourself for a title fight.
If you’re a Christian, the enemy is preparing an attack like you’ve never fought. Why? He wants you to continue miserable. He hopes that you will implode. As we move further in this chapter, I will share with you how I made it through the toughest times.
The enemy will attack you to keep you down. He is afraid of losing you to an excellent team. So he will fight you in the form of:
Depression (not diagnosed or medicated) Just feeling depressed.
Keep your mind on past mistakes.
I am feeling hopeless.
I am reliving the past over-and-over in your head.
Dark thoughts of self-harm.(NEVER AN OPTION)
Working through this will be difficult, and you will be tested. You can and will get through this time.
We are making it easier to understand. We all buck change at work. If a policy changes everyone in the office complains. “Why are they changing, the old way worked.”
Let’s say, for example, you’ve done the same thing, the same way for years-and-years. Change won’t come easy. Excuses like:
I’m too set in my ways.
I’m too old to change now.
Too hard f*&^ it.
Don’t fool yourself into these false statements. You can change, you’re not too old, stop limiting yourself!
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”—Nelson Mandela
Allow yourself to change. It won’t happen overnight; I can tell you I still fall into traps; however, I can happily report that the bear traps are further apart.
So how do we bring about real change, especially when confronted with real pain? Here is how I brought myself out of the dark:
Learn to quiet your mind. Declutter all the garbage that goes through our minds. Meditation can be life-changing if you practice daily.
Something that seems innocuous has tremendous value — taking times daily to slow your breathing for sixty seconds only. Slows your pulse, helps relax your body, relieve tension. Tension causes aggravation. Breathing several times per day for a minute or so will slow you down.
Do something physical every day. Walk, gym, run, get off your butt, and do something to relieve stress in your body.
Helping others will get you outside yourself. Reminding you that life is not all about you. Be a blessing to someone!
Changing our lives takes time and work. You can’t all a sudden tell God you want to make a million dollars this year, order a Pizza and wait. Sorry life takes real work.
The most important of this is discipline and organization. Set reminders daily to do the tasks laid out in this book. Otherwise, you wake up a week later and go, “crap, I was supposed to meditate every day.”
If you want lasting and real change, fill your calendar with an activity that fosters change.
You are fighting with yourself. I call it kicking your own ass. Your noodle will run from the pain of change. Your mind is falsely convincing you that you cannot change. It’s too hard. Don’t listen to these false prophecies of your life. Years of conditioning will take time to shake off old paradigms.
At times this will seem relentless the attack on you to stay status quo. The enemy will come at you in ways that look as though you cannot win. You will feel alone, like nothing you can do will ever help. Surrender to God. Let him know that you can’t see a way, but you know he will take away.
When I first moved from my home in South Texas to live in West Texas. My ex-wife wanted a divorce that I honestly at the time did not want a divorce. Financially in dire straits, the woman I believed to be my soulmate now gone.
Could not at the time be in more of a dark place. I had so many times thought I had no reason to live. Scary how close that came to pass. For whatever reason, I never acted on dark thoughts. Thank God I did not.
With some lucid moments of I need to start over. I began to think about life without my wife. I decided I would get into Church and try to understand the spiritual side of my life. I was drawn to this need to find a Church home.
After finding a Church that was recommended to me by someone that I trust, I became a regular attendee, most times staying for two of the three Sunday services. Because my head would clutter with such garbage; I was fighting so hard to hear what the Pastor said; it was exhausting.
Most Church services end with a call to give your life to Jesus Christ. To confess, you’re a sinner and that you accept Jesus as your Lord and savior. For a few weeks, I had faithfully attended sitting mostly in the back of the sanctuary.
One Sunday during this altar call; I raised my hand. The Usher came and gave me a CD, and I confessed and prayed the short prayer to accept Jesus Christ. At the end of this part of the service, the Pastor headed across the stage stopped and turned.
He began to say “sir, sir,” not realizing he was trying to get my attention for a moment. As I realized he was trying to get my attention. Pastor Don said to me God had put in his heart for whatever I was doing artistically to keep going, don’t stop.
Here is the real kicker to the story. I had been blogging, take pictures with my camera and stating to myself that for the last half of my life I was going to do what I wanted to do not what I have to do. I wanted to be a freelance writer and photographer.
Not one person in this Church, including the Pastor, knew me from Adam. I stayed to myself and never said as much as a good morning unless first approached.
No way could the Pastor know that I was doing or working on anything artistically. This Pastor stopped in the middle of the ending of this service to tell me that God told him to say to me, keep doing what I love to do.
To say the very least, I was utterly in shock. It took a bit for this to sink in. Nothing in my life to this point was so profound.
This event helped me to go further and keep trying. Freely I admit stumbling and falling post this event. However, remembering that God has come into my life then and several times since then.
When I thought a couple of times all is lost something would happen to show me that even with a Mustard seed of faith left, God would bless me so that I knew he was still protecting me.
My point of this is even in your darkest moment when you see nothing, but my life is worthless not also worth being here. God if you try, if you fight through when you cannot see anything but dark, let God know you are trying to hold on, God will answer.
Today after many events from small to abundant miracles. God has convinced me that if I focus my faith, he will lead me through anything. Now I run after God.
The old me would not have hung in the darkness to realize the blessing. I would have long before quit and moved on. That is the old paradigms I must break. When enough-is-enough, you will change. My time was when I moved to West Texas, once you make that decision, you will be amazed at how life opens for you!
No matter what happens, you cannot quit. Take one more step, always.
Let me share with you why having patience will serve you well.
The dream job of a lifetime is something that you now focus your attention too — searching far and wide for this wonderful job. Some time goes by with nothing happening, and you cannot see any hope.
What you don’t know is that a beautiful person occupies the job you seek; someone that has had a fantastic career, beloved by all at the job. This person is getting ready to retire; the job will come available for you to apply for and get!
This person is another thirty days from retirement, and well-deserved retirement. God has you in mind so that this job will cross your path. Your search has gone on for five months with no results, so you quit thirty days before the position of a lifetime comes available.
Your focus moves on to something else, and the Universe moves on because you did.
Stay in faith even when you don’t see a way God is making a way. You won’t know what is having to take place in front of you before God can move this part of your destiny to unfold for you. The Universe won’t cut you in line. So have patience!
Here is the real kicker that will blow your mind. You can’t move yet because God is blessing someone you don’t know with something you currently have. He is driving your life around to be a blessing for someone you don’t even know.
Point is none of us know. So why stress over a fair outcome that may take a little more time. How many times have you quit than if you had not your life might be completely different? Think about that. Patience can make all the difference in your life. Faith, Hope, resolve, need to be your mantra!
A chapter from my book Tying It All Together. Click the book cover to see all my works on Amazon.
One of the hardest traits in my life to learn, from my New Book: Mastering Life God’s Way:
Patience!
“I believe that a trusting attitude and a patient attitude go hand in hand. You see, when you let go and learn to trust God, it releases joy in your life. And when you trust God, you’re able to be more patient. Patience is not just about waiting for something… it’s about how you wait, or your attitude while waiting.”—Joyce Meyer
Without which, you will stifle growth by imposing your own will that goes against what your destiny shall become.
Keep in mind that life, you must allow destiny to adjust itself, change trajectory, for your destiny to unfold. Changing your life means a whole new direction, so you must allow God to move things around to fulfill your destiny.
Let’s say you want a fantastic job that is currently filled by an amazing person. Someone that has left a real mark in this life. Someone, that if you knew them personally would be a friend! Let’s say this person is going to retire in six months. God’s plan is for you to fall right into this job that currently you are totally unaware of. Without patience, you may give up just a few yards from the finish line. Don’t be that person!
Nothing worth having happens overnight. Shortcuts get rich quick; you have to work seven days a week; it is all garbage. Beautiful flowers don’t bloom overnight. The sun does not rise all at once. Everything in our lives happens in the time our destiny is supposed to unfold before our eyes. Any faster, and you lose the real blessing.
God’s will, not our will. Let that naturally happen, and wow! When you impose your own will, we tend to want everything right now. Do this, and you will receive, tension, stress, overwhelmed mind, and misery. Then you’ll quit, instead of receiving the beautiful blessings headed your way.
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