Deferred Gratification

Have you given some thought to your potential? Do you know what your potential is? All of us have potential—not all of us maximize our potential. More distressing is that some of us actively destroy our potential with our behavior and the pursuit of QUICK FIXES and an unwillingness to delay gratification. The credit crisis is an example of how instant gratification can destroy your potential! Another way to destroy our potential is to focus on your past mistakes. By looking backwards you will miss what’s in front of you. You cannot change your past but your past should change you—face your failures and correct the flaws that lead you to the failures. Here are some helpful hints:

see yourself clearly;
admit your flaws honestly;
discover your strengths joyfully;
build on those strengths passionately.

You can reach your potential tomorrow if you dedicate yourself to grow today. Remember, to change your world, you must first change yourself. You DO HAVE THE POWER to change YOU.

Hope

One of the traits of a WINNER is the ability to hold on to HOPE. Never underestimate the power of HOPE. Winston Churchill was once asked by a reporter what his country’s greatest weapon was against Hitler’s Nazi regime. Remember, England had to endure daily bombings from Germany that decimated structures and took many lives. For years, England lived under a “Black Out” situation and had to ration food. Families were torn apart as children were sent to the country to live so that they wouldn’t succumb to the bombings.

Without pausing for a moment Winston Churchill said: “It was what England’s greatest weapon has always been – HOPE.” People will continue working, struggling, and trying if they have hope. Your ability to maintain an attitude of hope comes from seeing the POTENTIAL in every situation and staying positive despite circumstances. POSITIVE THINKING will lead to POSITIVE OUTCOMES! Never be discouraged that you can’t see the outcome today, your seeds of positive thinking are growing right underneath the surface.

Know How To Be Positive

I often listen to Joyce Meyer in the morning as I am getting ready for my day. I am always fed and today was no exception.

Her message centered on a period of time in her life that she wanted to put her faith and beliefs into practice and wanted to change her propensity to be negative. She stated that she consciously, daily worked not to be negative as this was her major “speed” when confronted with any challenge. She in other words, would react negatively to any challenge or perceived disappointment. She was convinced that this approach to life was 1) bringing negative events into her life because when you are stuck on your negative channel this leaves you OPEN to negative events; 2) making her less effective in her ministry; 3) not uplifting to others; and 4) preventing positive events and thoughts from blessing her.

After about 6 months of making a concerted effort not to be negative, she was still wrestling with the fact that this new behavior was not bearing fruit so began to question why. It was revealed to her that although she had made a conscious effort not to be negative, she had made no effort to be POSITIVE! She hadn’t gotten stuck in the POSITIVE Channel yet. This principle is so simple and yet very PROFOUND! JUST BECAUSE YOU STOPPED BEING NEGATIVE IS NOT A GUARANTEE THAT YOU KNOW HOW TO BE POSITIVE. You have to work at BOTH. PHEW! WHAT A REVELATION! WHAT AN “AHA” MOMEMT!

If we all practice being positive look at all the possibilities that we will be blessed with. It starts with you and it starts with me!

Roots

When you think about your future what process do you use? Do you take time daily to think about where you want to be with your life’s pursuits next month, next year or tomorrow? When you think about the future you want to provide for your family, what do you picture?

All success starts with your thinking and forming a mental image. During the early stages, your vision for your future is always incredibly fragile. New hopes and dreams are fragile because we haven’t had time yet to let them grow or develop. New dreams, just like new seedlings have to be nurtured daily. When a seedling oak tree is only a year old, a child can tear it out by its roots, but once it’s had some time to become firmly established, even a hurricane can’t knock it down.

Do you notice that if you share your dreams too soon with some folk, they spend their time telling you why something can’t be accomplished? It is easy to deter you in the beginning on your quest, however once your dream takes hold LOOK OUT WORLD. Some times failure is just a matter of not taking the time in the beginning to create good root structure!