Tag Archives: challenge

Blogroll, Control, emotions, faith, Growing, Healing, judgement, life, mindfulness, Miracles, self help, self improvement, vision

The Only Person You Can Change Is Yourself!

We live in a world that is always trying to shape us into what someone else thinks or says we should be and the real problem with that scenario is that the shape is always changing depending on who happens to be holding to loudest bullhorn at the time.

Most of us have things we would like to change about ourselves and most everyone at some point in their lives can come up with a pretty good list of things they would like to change about others, but if you live your life long enough, you will learn pretty quickly that you cannot change others, no matter how much you think you love them and/or how much you think they love you.

There have been times in my life when I have convinced myself that I could love, encourage, inspire, educate and motivate others to change to be their best self and live their best life, only to eventually come to the realization that the only thing that can change another person is themselves.

If a person does not want to change, then they won’t, it is as simple as that. There is nothing you can do to change someone else, so stop trying to fix everyone else and work on yourself, because we all have enough of our own stuff to deal with.

If you don’t like or love someone the way they are, then that is your problem, even if they are wrong and even if they are cheating or hurting themselves, because their life is their life to decide for themselves. You do not have the right to change anyone else, just like no one else has the right to change you.

Think about it for a moment: God has the ability to change anything and anyone He wants to, but He does not do it. Instead, He gives us time and space to learn and grow through the ups, downs and sideways of life. If and when we are ready to make a change, then God is ready to empower us to do what we need to do, to live the better life we were created for.

“Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” -Ephesians 4:22-24

Stop blaming others and quit getting caught up in the delusion that you can fix others. If you are honest with yourself, you have to admit what a hard time you have fixing yourself. In fact, take your eyes off of others and give your life and living a hard and honest look. Determine what you need to change, decide what you can do about it and get to work.

It is true that we can’t change anyone else, but we can change ourselves and the change in our lives can serve as motivation for others to think about changing themselves too…

Blogroll, Creativity, Enlightenment, Expectation, Growing, life, love, mindfulness, personal growth, self help, vision

Confidence – You Cannot Fail At Being Yourself!

I try to have a word for the day for most days and today my word was confidence. There are times when confidence seems to come easy for me and there are others times when confidence seems to be an illusive animal that I just can’t seem to track down. It’s kinda funny, because there are times when I am pretty confident of my confidence and other times when my lack of confidence really throws me into a state of confusion. So today, I wanted to think a little about confidence, what helps me to be confident, what gets in the way of confidence and the price I pay when I can’t figure this confidence thing out.

So one of the first things I needed to figure out and why do I want to develop my confidence, if that is even possible? And of source I think it is possible, so in order for me to figure out, I started to think about where my lack of confidence comes from and what it may be costing me, so that I could figure out if this was really even a battle worth fighting.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. -Psalms 139:13-14

I want to develop more confidence, because I know that I don’t like the feeling of limitation that a lack of confidence produces in my life. You know that moment just before and right after you walk into a room full of people. That time and space, where you just don’t feel like you are enough. Not smart enough, good looking enough and we could fill in the blanks all night long. One of the major problems here is our getting caught up in the “comparison game”. Do not play this silly game, you will lose every time and if you don’t lose, you still lose!

I feel like I lack confidence when I am around people, because I want to be accepted and loved by everyone, but don’t always feel that I deserve that, because of past experiences. In so many ways I was loved and encouraged by my family and friends growing up, but that never seems to be what I focus on. Rather than focusing on the acceptance, encouragement and love I did have, I tend to think about what I didn’t have and it takes me straight down the road to a lack of confidence and often paralyzes me where I stand. We know this is not a right way of thinking, but it is the way that most of us do it, so now what?

One of the things I have been doing that has been a big help to me in a lot of different areas is taking time at the very beginning of my day to focus in on my day, who I want to be, what I want to accomplish, where I want to go, when and how I’m going to get there and why all this really matters. Thinking through these questions help me to put together a workable plan to get more meaningful things accomplished and this emphasis on meaningful work over busy work has contributed to me feeling more confident.

We have a choice, we can get distracted by who we are not, by what we don’t have and how we can never get there or we can find confidence in our success, build upon it and dream of growing better.

Think about just three words. Three words that help you to think about who you want to be, who you are going to be as you grow in your confidence. My three words that describe my future best self is blessed, confident and successful.

Everyday that I get to do what I was created to do is a blessing. The by product of growing is that I develop confidence that helps me to become even more effective in all that I do. Living this life and being happy is the greatest form of success that I can ask for and I have discovered that I have ll of this and more when I am fulfilling my called and created purpose…

Blogroll, Creativity, Enlightenment, faith, Growing, life, mindfulness, positive

Watch Your Talk And Your Thought!

“We have the same spirit of faith, according as it is written. I believed and therefore have I spoken: We also believe and therefore speak.” -2 Corinthians 4:13

In my role as a Minister, Master Life Coach and Mentor, I see people everyday defeated by their thoughts, because of what they believe. And I see people defeated by their words and what they say. It is true that most of us are our very own worst enemy. The idea that our talk and thought decide the life we are going to experience is really such a simple truth with very powerful implications. We really need to get this, because it has the potential to change our life and living in a very positive way.

Our thoughts – what we believe matters, because it impacts what we say. Our talk – what we say matters, because it impacts how we thin and what we believe. This is why it is very important to get our thoughts and words right, because they empower and feed off of one another, creating an infinite loop of positive direction up or negative spiral down. We are feeding a beast of blessing or a beast of burden, the choice is ours???

Faith/belief/trust is a powerful gift of God that enables us to shape reality with what is in our heart that flows out of our mouth. In Mark 11:23, Jesus put it this way: “If you believe in your heart that what you say will come to pass, you’ll have whatever you say.” And this is just another reason why it is so important to read and meditate on God’s Word, because what we continually believe and say is what we will believe and receive.

To believe something is to speak it and to speak something is to believe it. And this is why all the great teachers remind us to: Watch your thoughts, because they turn into words. Listen to your words, because they become actions. Pay attention to your actions, because they turn into habits. Be careful with your habits, because they become your character. Make sure you are in control of your character, because it impacts your destiny…