Don't make your New Year's Resolutions yet!!! I say this with all the urgency I can muster. Belief is the most important key in staying motivated… it creates passion… and passion is what keeps you going when things get hard- and I fear that if you set your goals without considering what I'm about to say, you will likely find yourself walking in the same circle that we all have experienced time after time while setting goals.
I wanna talk to 3 types of people today:
-The person that sets goals and achieves them... but deep down you know that you have been selling yourself short.
-The person that sets goals, and a month later, you find that your goals have fallen by the wayside- causing frustration and despair.
-The person that doesn't set any goals, because deep down we can't find the belief in ourselves to achieve those goals.
I firmly believe that setting goals is NOT the first step in ACHIEVING your goals. I wanna challenge you today to take some time to set the foundation that will keep you believing your goals are possible. There are several steps to setting this foundation, and they are:
1.Dream about what could be
2.Discover what's important to YOU
3.Prioritize those things that are important to you
4.Set your goals!
Here's what I want you do for the next few days... Dream about what a day in your life will look like when you have achieved your goal. Get specific. If you want to lose weight, picture what it will feel like to get out of bed 10 or 20 (or more) pounds lighter. Dream about what it will feel like to not have that inner battle raging while you're making cookies for your kids or when you go out to eat with your friends. The cool thing about dreaming is that you don't have to have it all figured out. The point is to allow yourself to ask 'what if...'- it's to allow yourself to get excited about the possibility.
It's a simple step, but I would wager that very few of us actually really dream. I believe that dreaming is the first step in believing in yourself. It doesn't even matter if your dream ends up looking like what it started out to be. In fact, it probably won't. You will discover things about yourself along the way that you didn't realize, and that will change the dream as you go!
The hardest part right now is being patient and taking the time to really dream- to really take time to set the foundation! If you're reading this, you have already decided that you are going to set goals...
So, let's go dream!!!!!!
This is a question I hear from time to time in my house. My 7 year old is a very curious boy, and there are few questions I love answering more than questions about God. “How can God be everywhere all at once?”
“So, He's big enough to hold the oceans in His hands, and small enough to live in my heart?”...
As much as I try, I will never be able to answer these questions to my son's satisfaction- because I don't fully know the answers! Oh sure I know that God is Omnipresent, but I can't really fathom what that means. I know that He is in control of the Universe, and yet is personal enough to live in me- but I can never really GET IT.
We all wake up every day and put on glasses. We all see our world through the lens of our experience. We would call this our paradigm or our worldview. Everything is filtered through this. The way we respond and relate with people, our habits, our belief systems... AND OUR VIEW OF GOD.
So, what does God look like to you?
I'm going to make a bold statement right now, and please hear it's heart. There isn't a single one of us that understands God. Not one. God is far too infinite, far too complex, and far too objective for us to ever have a full understanding of His Holiness. Our minds and hearts see God through the lens of what we have experienced and what we have been taught. We have at best, a very subjective view of Who God really is.
Now let me back that up by saying this is also what makes God too awesome to comprehend! In 2 Corinthians 12:9 the Lord spoke to Paul saying “ My grace is sufficient for you. My Power works best in weakness.” How wonderful is our God! We can't possibly reach Him in our strength, and so He has reached out to us. He is a holy God who cannot look upon sin, and so He sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sinful nature.
Get this: “God, whom I can never fully understand, whom I could never merit favor with, whom I could not reach in my strength (deep breath) wanted relationship with me- that's right, YOU- enough that HE made the way to have relationship. God has reached out to us who were weak in regards to reaching God.
Here's what I'm trying to say. There's more to God than what we have experienced or ever can experience. We wake up every day with an idea of how we think God works... what we think He looks like. It doesn't matter if you're Atheist, Agnostic, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Christian... We ALL have a view of what God looks like. The question we need to ask ourselves is are we going to be humble enough to let Him tell us what He really looks like?
HELLO 2014- Current Location & Desired Destination When I want to drive somewhere I haven't ever been, I do what most people living in the 21st century do- I type the address into my Google Maps app on my smartphone! Once I have the desired destination set, I have one other piece of information to enter in- my current location. Without both pieces of information, my app is useless. The same is true with the process of setting goals. Oh! Did I confuse you with that last statement? That's Right! Setting good attainable goals is a PROCESS. We have to give our goals these 2 coordinates before they will have any oomph behind them: Where do I want to end up?
Where am I RIGHT NOW?
By asking myself where I want to end up, what I'm really doing is allowing myself to dream... And when I really allow myself to dream about what could be, I give passion to my goal... And passion is what keeps us motivated when things get hard. By taking an honest look at where I am now, I'm taking a look at several things: What do I BELIEVE about myself What are the things that are important to ME
WHY do I want to set this goal
Sounds easy enough right? But let me tell you that the journey of self-discovery is difficult and perilous. Over the next couple of weeks, we will talk about what it really means to ask yourself these 2 questions- and what impact honestly answering them will have on our journey of change.
Don't WASTE Another New Year's Resolution EVER!!!
What if I told you that you never have to see another New Year's resolution fall by the wayside again?
What if I told you that the frustration you feel with every failed attempt at reaching a goal can actually be the fuel that propels you to success?
WHAT IF MEANINGFUL, LASTING CHANGE REALLY IS POSSIBLE?!
How many times have we all made a New Year's resolution only to see it fall by the wayside a month later (at best)? I know I have! We get all gung ho and set a goal to lose 10 pounds, or quit smoking, or whatever it is- and before we know it, we're right back where we were on New Year's Eve.
Oh, and let me tell you that the failed “goal” isn't the only thing that has taken a hit here. Every time we set out to do something and we don't accomplish it- every time we fall down- it is harder to get back up. It becomes harder to believe that success is possible the more times you fail.
But dealing with failure isn't what we're gonna talk about today.
This new year, I invite you to join me as we embark on the
HELLO 2014 Campaign
Whether your goals are to lose weight, kick the “habit”, make more money... the principles we will talk about this year will help you attain those goals.
HELLO 2014 is all about looking ahead. We are NOT going to say goodbye to the old me- we are going to say HELLO to the new me.
Stay tuned for more.....
Do you ever want to change, but find that you don't know if you can? This blog is one of those things for me. I have always loved to write, but it's usually for myself in journals that are piling up around my office and house. Oh sure, I've written a few songs over the years, and post a little something every now and then… but by and large it's been kept under raps.
I wouldn't say it has been fear that has kept me from writing more publicly. I would say it's been more ignorance… or maybe this is just God's time for me. I don't know, and it doesn't really matter. The point is, I'M STARTING TODAY. Do I know what I'm doing? Absolutely not! Have I ever started anything online that involved more than signing in and posting a status update? Nope. But here I am. God spoke to me, I wasted a little time (let's just be honest), and now I'm doing it.
Here's the lesson that I'm learning in all of this: You have to come to the edge of what you believe in order to believe something new and greater. If I want to believe something greater, I have to first challenge my current belief. I have to ask myself "What if…" If I'm used to running a 5k, and want to run a marathon, I have to ask myself "Do I believe I have what it takes to do this?".
This is true for any area of life. If I want to improve my financial situation, I have to ask myself if I believe I have what it takes to spend less or find a better job… If I want to lose weight, I have to ask myself if I believe that I can change my eating habits and if I believe I can make it through a hard workout.
You see, belief is what drives our behavior. The way you behave, the way you talk to and about others, the way you talk to and about yourself, and the way you talk to and about God are the best indicators of what you believe. You may not be willing to admit a harmful belief, but if you're willing to really look at your words and your actions as objectively as you can, you might just surprise yourself.
The problem is that most people have it backwards when it comes to standing at the edge of belief. When we get to a place where we have never been before, we instinctively say "I can't…." Let me encourage you in this: Just because you haven't accomplished your goal, or experienced God in a certain way, or lived at a new level- doesn't mean it isn't possible! Instead of saying "I can't…" when we stand at the edge of belief, we should be asking ourselves "Can I?" We should be asking, "What if there is more? What if God is bigger than I have experienced?"
One thing is for certain, we all come to the edge of belief. The question is, how will we respond when we get there. Will we take the risk, and do those things that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable in order to experience more of God and greater things for our lives? Or will we retreat into the comfortable and stay the same?
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