Sometimes you have to take a step back and celebrate your wins. It's been several years since I started on a journey to become all I can be and taste the depth of what life can offer. If you rewind 4 years, I was traveling across the country with a friend in a car that never should have left town. No job. No money. No way of going forward, but somehow we did. If you rewind 3 years I had convinced my brother and his family to move to Nashville, and now all of us were broke and living place to place with friends.
Rewind just 2 years and everything was falling apart. I had just gotten fired for the first time. I was politely asked to leave the homeless ministry i was a leader in. My choices and actions had gotten me to the point where just about everyone I had once called a friend, now wanted nothing to do with me. At this point i was waking up at 4:30 am to walk an hour to the bus stop. I would ride the bus for 2 hours to work where I arrived a few minutes late most days due to the bus. And then I would attempt to make cold calls to businesses selling them our product. I doubt my life has ever tasted the depths of darkness like it did in those times.
Now, lets rewind a year. I just got promoted to my current position joining the training team at the company I work for due to my outstanding performance taking calls. I now owned a car for the first time in about 3 or 4 years. The car I owned was the first brand new car I had ever owned. I had an apartment with a friend and no longer needed to couch surf place to place. The relationship with my brother and his family was starting to be repaired. Things were turning around.
Fast forward to today. I've just had, what felt like in the moment, one of the hardest weeks of my life. I haven't been sleeping well. I've been working nights which means I haven't been able to see friends and family like I'm used to doing and I found myself fighting depression on a level that I have not felt since before I started this whole journey.
But let me paint you (and myself) a true picture of where my life is at and headed. I laid out several goals for myself at the beginning of the year and am on track to making most of them. The small things like buying a bed or buying the MacBook I'm currently typing this on, to the big things of doubling my income from last year and being intentional to read and work out. I set a goal to leave town and travel once a month for the year and I am on track to hit that goal as well. I have over $1,000 set aside waiting to find something to invest it in. I've started an online business that I just laid out some goals for myself today. I have a group of friends who see me like family and would do anything for me. My relationship with my brother and his family is basically repaired. I live in an amazing big house where people come over and have great times filled with food and laughter.
And here's the kicker. I'm just getting started. Yes, I had a rough week. That is very real. You're going to have rough weeks. It's just part of life. You have the choice to take that rough week and turn it into a month or 6 months or a year if you choose to stay there. Or you can choose to step back and celebrate yourself and the wins you have. Remember, happiness is really only a perspective away.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Friday, September 8, 2017
Expectation = Reality
I was talking with a friend tonight about the progress he's made in his life over the last year and a phrase he said sent my mind into a flurry of thoughts. The phrase he said was, "All the stuff that controlled me was who I was never created to be." All the stuff that controlled me. Hmm, that really got me thinking. If humans are as powerful as I think they are, do things really control us? Can other external forces actually FORCE us to do anything more than what we give them power or permission to do? I believe the answer to that question is no. And let me explain why.
I've heard people blame their circumstances on "bad luck", "demons", "curses", etc. I don't buy it. I used to haha. Boy did i used to. There was a time I was spending so much effort on trying to stop the bad stuff that I didn't really have time or expectation to create the good. The more I go on, the more I am convinced we live in the reality we create.
You expect bad things because you think you're possessed, cursed, haunted, whatever, those things will happen. I know because I've lived it. There was a time in my life where I was thrown around my bedroom pretty consistently by "demons" I was convinced were after me. As soon as I stopped focusing on defeating the darkness, it stopped. And it hasn't ever come back since. What we believe in, what we perceive, has life. Has power.
Now lets take the overly spiritual aspect out of this for a second. You all know someone who never has things go right for them, who always has crisis after crisis after crisis. Now, flip the coin. You know that person who always has everything go right for them. Promotions, friends, opportunities. It's like they wake up every day and life is just easy for them. C'mon you know who I'm talking about.
Now, I believe both of those people create their reality whether they understand it or not. And those who do understand the power of creating their reality, succeed. And now, before you go all up in arms about me saying that I believe people just think their way into anything, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying your belief system, how you perceive and view the world and yourself, determines what you will see and experience. And those beliefs determine your thoughts. Your thoughts will determine your actions. And ultimately your actions will determine your results.
Don't believe me? That's ok. I challenge you. Find the thing that doesn't work in your life. Find the wall you can't cross. And I want you to BELIEVE differently about it. Not just hold a thought in your head for 10 seconds once to prove me wrong, but truly BELIEVE a different story and see how things change. It may not happen over night. It may take months. But I'm telling you, things WILL change. As I've believed differently about myself and about the world, things have changed for me quickly and drastically.
I constantly find things about the world and about myself that I believe a "less than" version of. And when I identify it, I change my belief. The more I do it the easier it is. Anyways, I hope this helps you. I hope it challenges you to think differently than you have been thinking and believe differently. Ultimately leaving you with a different result.
I've heard people blame their circumstances on "bad luck", "demons", "curses", etc. I don't buy it. I used to haha. Boy did i used to. There was a time I was spending so much effort on trying to stop the bad stuff that I didn't really have time or expectation to create the good. The more I go on, the more I am convinced we live in the reality we create.
You expect bad things because you think you're possessed, cursed, haunted, whatever, those things will happen. I know because I've lived it. There was a time in my life where I was thrown around my bedroom pretty consistently by "demons" I was convinced were after me. As soon as I stopped focusing on defeating the darkness, it stopped. And it hasn't ever come back since. What we believe in, what we perceive, has life. Has power.
Now lets take the overly spiritual aspect out of this for a second. You all know someone who never has things go right for them, who always has crisis after crisis after crisis. Now, flip the coin. You know that person who always has everything go right for them. Promotions, friends, opportunities. It's like they wake up every day and life is just easy for them. C'mon you know who I'm talking about.
Now, I believe both of those people create their reality whether they understand it or not. And those who do understand the power of creating their reality, succeed. And now, before you go all up in arms about me saying that I believe people just think their way into anything, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying your belief system, how you perceive and view the world and yourself, determines what you will see and experience. And those beliefs determine your thoughts. Your thoughts will determine your actions. And ultimately your actions will determine your results.
Don't believe me? That's ok. I challenge you. Find the thing that doesn't work in your life. Find the wall you can't cross. And I want you to BELIEVE differently about it. Not just hold a thought in your head for 10 seconds once to prove me wrong, but truly BELIEVE a different story and see how things change. It may not happen over night. It may take months. But I'm telling you, things WILL change. As I've believed differently about myself and about the world, things have changed for me quickly and drastically.
I constantly find things about the world and about myself that I believe a "less than" version of. And when I identify it, I change my belief. The more I do it the easier it is. Anyways, I hope this helps you. I hope it challenges you to think differently than you have been thinking and believe differently. Ultimately leaving you with a different result.
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