Action And Motivation

Many people want to change their life for some reason or another. We want to turn it ask around and ooze with smooth confidence while they have an impressive job, expensive car and a great partner, and a dog.

When most people’s eat out to change their lives, they often focus on all the external stuff, but in reality we need to change how we see everything in our lives.

Here are some ways you can start changing your life right now:

1. Do something. Anything.

A lot of us get stuck when we try to change our lives because we don’t know where to start or what to do. There is a simple answer: do something anything, really.

The motivation to do anything- like change your entire life around doesn’t just come from some magical, mystical place with in you. Action is both the effect of motivation and the cause of it. You’ll figure out whether or not it’s right or not in good time, but only if you stop procrastinating and start engaging with the world.

2. Recognize That Everything You Do Has A Cost- Be Will To Pay it.

A lot of life amounts to a series of trade offs. Everything has an opportunity cost, and the big things we want in life like happiness and healthy relationships and wealth. They all have big opportunity costs. You don’t get to have the dream career at the top without putting in your time at the bottom, then taking a risk it ten and breaking a few hearts along the way.

The most important question you can ask yourself isn’t about what you want it’s about what you’re willing to suffer for. Doing what you love is not always loving what you do. Think about it do you really want that dream in the first place. Example: I decided when my children were young, that I wanted to go to college and get my bachelors in criminal justice. But I hadn’t thought about having to leave my children for two years to get my bachelors degree. I ended up graduating with an associated degree in science. Because I could not bear to leave my children. I had a dream of being a crime scene investigator. But I not willing to suffer the consequences.

3. Embrace The Fact That No One Gives A Hoot.

Look, I know you were told that you’re a special little snowflake in a sea of otherwise normal people, but the bad news is very few people actually care about you and that your special. To them you just a regular person, People are more concentrated on themselves to begin with. But before you take your back and hit the back bottom on your browser, I want you to consider just how liberating that is. I want you to consider just how liberating that is. No one gives a hoot. You are free to do you want to do and no one will care either way. If anything they will respect you for a few minutes and then go back to caring only about themselves.

Instead of basing all of your life decisions on what others think about you or what you do or how attractive you’ll appear in you new car, figure out exactly what it is you value most in your life and cut all the other stuff out.

4. Focus More On Habits, And Less On Goals.

A lot of books on self development advice focuses on goals and systems of developing like “SMART” goals are creating an unrelenting focus on accomplishing every singe goal you ever set no matter what your are. An unmotivated individual.

The truth is, in and of themselves, goals are pretty over rated. There is nothing wrong with having goals, but obsessing over them is counterproductive be, in reality, achieving a goal isn’t always what it cracked up to be. Instead, focus on creating heaven habits that focus on the most important, highest impact areas of your life. I found out my goals pretty much took care of then at that point. And It all happened when I decided to change the way I look at thing. I changed my perspective on the world and it made a huge impact on my life.

Brutal Truths That Will Improve Your Life

Truth hurts! When someone confronts you with brutal truths about life, they may sound harsh and it can be hard to digest. But if you want yo get the best out of your life and be a better, stronger person, you need to cut the craps and focus on the real and important things.

We are all on our own journeys to become better versions of ourselves. But at times, we stagnate. And we become dissatisfied with our work, our relationships, and many other aspects of our lives, which is basically a manifestation of our dissatisfaction with ourselves. During such demotivating periods, you need to introspect and get to the core of things.

Here are a few Brutal Truths that will make you a better person.

1. Nobody is actually too busy to respond to you. That person you like hasn’t been talking to you isn’t answering you texts because they are too busy. You employer isn’t replying to you because they are too aren’t caught up with work. If it’s been a while and your not getting a response from someone, it’s most likely because they are deliberately trying to ignore you. They have chosen not to answer you. You needs to face that truth and move on.

Stop making excuses. There is no point in justifying the people who don’t prioritize you and ignore you. The sooner you do this, the sooner you can find people who actually make you a priority.

2. Everyone has his or her own best interests at heart.

No matter how authentic, kind and generous a person is, their one in a million that are going to prioritize their own needs over yours.

Even the lover who is good to you otherwise, will not realize that he/she is being selfish and having things their way unless you point it out. Even the most caring boss may not understand that they are overworking you if you don’t make it clear and just be okay with more work being piled on you.

It is totally you responsibility to define and protect you boundaries. Other people even if they realize that they are over burdening you, won’t stop until the face resistance from your side. Most people will try to drain you as much as possible if you let them have your way.

You have to learn to say “No” sometimes.

Nobody will stick up for you. You need to stick up for yourself at all times. People who are powerful understand this. That is why they aren’t afraid to say “No” when they don’t want to do something.

3. It is impossible to please everyone.

If you were to actually listen and follow advice everyone in your live gives you for free you’d likely end up a lifeless and confused mess! And then another well-wisher would come along asking you to be more interesting and lively.

The reality is, it’s just not possible to please everyone you know. No matter you need to follow the most conservative life path or the most eccentric one, there will always be someone who won’t be okay with he way you lead your life.

Understand this: whatever it is you do, you’re going to be judged and criticized. So you might as well face all that for doing what you actually love to do. The only person whose judgement should matter to you is Your and God’s.

4. The world owes you absolutely nothing.

You might be one of the smartest, kindest, coolest, and most intriguing people to be alive- but if you’re not making use of those traits, if you’re not putting you abilities to work, you’re not entirely to anything at all for possessing them.

There are Either really strong people who understand that there are two fundamental choices on which everything depends: You can waste your entire life pitying yourself because you think you deserve better in life that you’re getting or you can actually go out there and take what you want and know it belongs with you.

It’s a no-brainer that the most successful people always opt for the second path.

5. The prize for arguing on behalf of your restrictions is getting to keep them.

You can spend your life complaining about how you don’t have sufficient resources, like money, time, and energy to pursue the life you want to achieve the things that you dream of. And I believe, all of those reasons might be valid. But here is the harsh truth. Every single human being on this planet has a least one solid reason for not living the kind of life they want to.

The only difference between successful people who achieve what they want and people who don’t is that the achievers ignore all the excuses.

They find a way to overcome their limitations, instead of complaining about them, and that is exactly why they are successful.

How To Pray Dangerously.

We all know how we should pray, but all to often, we come before the Lord with safe prayers. We ask God to bless us, help us, provide for us and these are good prayers; but what happens if we come before God with more dangerous prayers?

Bold prayers that will challenge us, make us uncomfortable, break us, transform us, and entirely change our lives. This type of praying will not hurt us per se, but they will take us into new levels in our faith walk. They will make us more like Christ and draw us into intimacy with God.

I once heard a sermon on Daniel’s three friends and their “even if” faith. The kind of faith that can make you say “even if you don’t, Lord I will still believe” (Daniel 3:17-18.) That sermon inspired me, and I also desired to have even if faith, but I didn’t know that I had just said a dangerous prayer.

I was a naive new Christian, and I assumed I would simply wake up with even more faith. But that couldn’t even further from the truth. What I didn’t know is that to have even if faith, you must be in an even if situation. Trials test, refine, and improve your faith (Peter 1: 6-7.) There is no way around it.

If faith is like a muscle, then trials are light weights that help us work it out and get stronger. And once you we can comfortably lift one weight, God will level it us. That’s what happened to me. I feel into the darkness season of my life and struggled immensely to hold on to what little faith I had. Whenever I had a secure grip on it, the situation would get worse and send me tumbling again.

At one point I wondered if God was indeed behind my trials because it looked like he wanted me to lose my faith in him. But He was strengthening it by making me able to bear more and more. Now when I look back to when I was a baby Christian to now. I can say without a doubt, my faith is so much stronger, and my relationship with God is much more closer. And I never would have gotten here without going through what I had to go through.

Faith is extremely important for without it, we cannot please God. But prayer asking for more or stronger faith are dangerous prayers. How ever if you daring and prepared to go through fire to get there, say this prayer:

Abba Father, increase my faith and strengthen it so I may believe in you even in my darkest hours. Let me trust you even if you don’t answer my prayers how and when I want it,

Humble Me.

“But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” ( James 4:6)

Since becoming a Christian, pride has been one of my biggest struggles. Pride of self-reliance. I learned along time ago, I could count on no-one, not my mother, my husband, friends. And it was because I was hurt by them so badly. I had to be completely desperate to humble myself and ask for help. But as a Christian I couldn’t keep it up for God opposes the proud. So one day I ask a dangerous prayer “for God to humble me.

I believed I would wake up one morning and be humble like Moses, but again, I was painfully wrong. When God humbles you, it’s not passive. The Greek word used to oppose means to set oneself against, to range in battle against. God will attack your pride by putting you in humbling situations.

When God attacked my pride, He put me in many situations in which I felt utterly powerless. I had to depend on people frequently and needed help for almost everything. I was a blow to me independent nature. Afterward God put me in a season where I had only Him. I decided to run and leave everything behind because my husband would listen to anything I needed. I didn’t know where I was running I just got in my car and started driving, with only $90. to my name. I learned I had to depend on God’s strength instead of mine.

As unpleasant this season was, it was incredibly beneficial. It changed a lot in me, so much that I was not proud of who I used to be. I learned that I really loved my husband and he really loved me and we have to meet in the middle and allow God to help us both. Now every day knowing I need Jesus and His strength to empower me daily.

We all deal with pride in one way or another, it is the oldest sin in the book. If your willing to humble yourself before God and allow Him to expose and attack the pride in your life, repeat this prayer:

Lord, rescue me from the pride in my life and teach me to be humble like you. I bow down before you and acknowledge that you are Lord, and everything I am or do is by your strength alone, not mine.

Search my heart and break it from what breaks yours.

“Search me O’God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous ways in me, and lead me in the everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-25)

I said this prayer because everything I do flows from my heart (Proverbs 4:23), but it is desperately deceitful and sick. Asking God to search your heart is a crucial but dangerous prayer because God will reveal to you things you might not want to hear or like.

He did it to me then and He still does. The Holy Spirit convicts me of more things that I care to know. For example, He revealed to me that my playing bingo every couple days had become an idol. I didn’t believe it at first, but when I began to research idols and more I realized I was putting this game before God and everything else in my life. A idol is anything that takes your attention from God. I know people who are on social media for 6-12 hours a day. Social media has become their idol.

I had been playing bingo 3 or 4 times a week thinking I would win and give me the money I needed. But it took me away from God and my family and was also, causing me to lose more money than I would ever win.

Another things God revealed to me was that I had more worldly friends than friends who believed in God wholeheartedly. I tried Everything I could do to blend in with my worldly friends but I didn’t feel right with some of the things they did. God calls us not to conform to this world and I had to learn to follow Christ in public. Even if I was the odd one out or didn’t fit in.

I have to tell you my life has difficult from birth to the present, but I am far better off following God and going through the trials I go through with him than without Him.

Know Your Worth

Knowing your worth is really an insurance policy for your mental well-being and it affects everything in your life.

Know your worth, then add tax.

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Low self-confidence makes us doubt our abilities. It prevents us from setting big goals and having any ambition to go after them. This can all lead up to a poor quality of life.

When you know your worth, you trust yourself and the decisions you make. You have more confidence and don’t question yourself. And it causes you to act quickly and seize the opportunities that can come up.

Know your worth so that people treat you the way you deserve to be treated.

As a child I felt I was nothing, not worthy of love from anyone. When I starting drinking alcohol and doing recreational drugs, It make me feel like I could do anything. I thought everyone loved me.

After I was married I stopped and drinking and the drugs. So hence I began to feel worthless again. I felt worthless and felt I didn’t deserve love. It took me 20 years to start feeling y worth.

Knowing your worth is especially important in our personal relationships. I nearly destroyed my marriage and the relationship with my children by always pushing them away.

You need to stop settling for feeling mediocre and not feeling worthy of anything. I’m not saying it all starts with you because there are some truly horrible people out there who will never see you for who you are and treat you unfairly or just plain wrong.

But here’s the thing self-worth is self-respect which leads to a stronger self-esteem.

The stronger Your self-respect and self-esteem will allow you to identify those horrible people who try to tear you down. You are better equipped to deal with them, you know you don’t have to settle in the situation that your in.

The most difficult time for me, is when I constantly tore myself down. Once you can get your self out of that rut, you start practicing how to not allow others to do the same to you.

When you know your truth worth no matter what people try to make you believe it won’t bother you, because you know the truth.

This gives you confidence. This higher confidence level can help leave a bad partner or job, or just leads you to making better decisions for yourself. Because you know you can do better.

But knowing your worth is not a scapegoat for an entitlement. It doesn’t mean that one day you decide you are perfect and deserve so much more that what you already have. That is not the point at all. It an empowerment to self-growth.

Be honest with yourself and make a realistic assessment of who you are that includes areas that can be improved and worked on. We are constantly evolving. Recognize the areas you need to improve on, working on bad habits and introducing now ones the good ones will take your self-worth to a new level.

I can’t tell you how much better you will feel, when your boss or anyone else for that matter tells you you’re an amazing person.

How To Win The War In Your Mind

The Bible tells us in Romans 12;2 that we are not to be conformed to this world.

In a world gone wild, and surrounded by the enemies of our soul seeking to distract and destroy us, we desperately need the truths of the gospel applied to our minds daily.

We need to Challenge our thoughts daily.

Have you ever slowed down to pay attention to what is going on in your mind?

What are you hearing? What are you thinking? What are you believing?

Last week was a bad week for me, I was very busy with work and organizing the making of the Veterans St. Patrick’s day float. It was difficult to keep my mind on God. I came home Saturday night feeling drained of energy and very distracted from my mind. I had a argument with my thoughts. I struggled to concentrate on the things of God. My thoughts were, I was a horrible person because I didn’t do Gods work the entire week, even thought I prayed and ministered to hurting people. Satan can be very tricky.

We are constantly being informed by words and ideas, world views and philosophies. Our personal stories are filled with disappointment, brokenness, and pain. And our hearts and heads have been informed by lies, deceit, and accusations from the world, the flesh, and satan.

We need to take captive of our thoughts and examine them. To take something captive is to take control of it and put it in a controlled environment like putting a ferocious animal in a cage. (That’s how I was feeling last night. I knew whatever was in my mind had to get out). Then, we need to take a closer look at our thoughts and consider what we are thinking or believing and why.

We need to consider if our thoughts line up with what is true of Jesus and our life in him. Do our thoughts conform to the truths of the gospel. Ask yourself; Am I thinking or believing the good news about God, others or myself?

The enemies of our mind tells lies about God to tempt us, to breed distrust in relationship to divide us, and to rehearse accusing words in our ears to destroys.

What kinds of words are you hearing in your mind?

If your thinking bad thoughts about anyone, or planning on doing something that it wrong. This is Satan getting to think Ill of others. God loves, you, nothing bad or evil can come from God. It can only come from Satan.

Regularly invite the Holy Spirit to witness to you regarding who Jesus is, what he has done, and who you are because of his work. If you’re thoughts or beliefs you are having do not line up, the Spirit will make it known as He brings to remembrance what is true of God and of you because of the gospel.

Here are some questions we can ask the Holy Spirit to address in me.

  • Is that really true, or is it a lie?
  • Does this sound like Satan’s accusation or the Spirit’s conviction?
  • What am I putting my hope in now-God’s word or work, or someone else’s?
  • How do the truths of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection address this thought or belief?
  • What about Jesus do I need to remember right now?

Praying brings our requests to God. Prayer also submits our thoughts and beliefs to God’s Spirit, so that our mind can be renewed by the truths of God’s word as we submit and listen for God’s Word.

The war of our mind is not a passive activity, but an active, vigorous fight, fought with the power of God and spiritual weapons made available to us through the gospel. As the Spirit makes the truth of Jesus known to us, we must hold fast to them.

This is where putting the whole armor of God comes in. With this we have a readiness to run from evil and chase after God’s obedience Because we know we are free and unhindered by guilt, shame, and fear. Because of Jesus, our guilt is removed, our shame is covered, and our fear is demolished, for He is victorious over our enemies.

Do You Have Godfidence?

Even though we know God has been good to us in the past, sometimes we struggle with faith and confidence hat He will still be good to us in the future.

I have been worrying about an up-coming surgery that may turn into two. I have a mass in my throat called a “Schwannomas Tumor in my neck that is right neck to my carotid artery. I have had a overwhelming thought of the doctor nicking carotid artery and me bleeding to death.

But that’s the time I have to have Godfidence. I know deep down that God has this, he has never failed yet.

We need to fix our eyes on Jesus and have confidence in his word. We must see that our problems are nothing in Comparison to God. God can do anything. He can change our circumstances in an instant. After all he has taken my cancer away.

Just as Jesus said “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26.) No matter how bad the situation is God can turn it around. We have to believe God can fix anything. I know I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for Him.

Have faith or believe that God will act in a right, proper and effective way.

King David wrote in Psalm 27; “Light, space, zest -that’s God. So with Him on my side I’m fearless afraid of no one or nothing. When vandal hordes ride down ready to eat me alive, those bullies and toughs fall on their faces. When I am besieged, I’m calm as a baby. When All Hell breaks loose, I am calm and collective.”

I’m asking God for one thing; to live with Him in His house my whole life long. I’ll contemplate His beauty; I’ll study at His feet.

That’s the only quiet, secure place in a noisy world, the perfect getaway for from the buzz of traffic.

God holds my head and shoulders above all who try to pull me down. I’m headed for His place to offer anthems that will raise the roof. Already I’m sings God’s songs; I’m making music for God.

Listen, God, I’m calling at the top of my lungs; “Be good to me! Answer me!” When my whole heart whispered, “Seek God,” my whole being replied, “I’m seeking Him!” Don’t hide from me now!

God has always been right here for me; don’t turn your back on me now. Don’t throw me out. My mother abandoned with, but God took me in.

Point me down your highway, God direct m along a well lighted street; show my enemies who’s side you’re on. Don’t throw me too the dogs, those liars we are out to get me, filling the air with deceits and threats.

Stay will God. Take heart. Don’t quit.

How To Have Godfidence

Read God’s Word, read the scriptures that show us the faithfulness of God.

Spending time in worship so our focus shifts from our problems to the promises of God.

Pray our fears out loud.

Share your struggles with believing friends and family do they can encourage you to pray. That they may pray for you.

Remember that our confidence doesn’t come from people or things but from being a royal child of the Most High God.

Remember our worth is not determined by other’s perceptions of us but by the Godfidence that we have in the one who delights in us.