Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you

Deuteronomy 31:8 NLT

What is your purpose? Over 70% of Americans do not like their jobs. Yet this indicates that those same people know how to do what they must to put food on the table.

What if we made operating in our purpose the same must? Maybe we would have started working to find and function in it as soon as we first started to work. But nothing can be done about the past.

What if we moved toward our purpose with purpose? Then every action we make would be a vote for that purpose. Maybe most people cannot do better than where they are or maybe most people do not think they can. Maybe they cannot see a way out.

Daily we must envision or imagine the future we want and act. At the beginning of his career, Jim Carrey, the comedian, wrote himself a $10 million check “for acting services rendered.” He dated it Thanksgiving 1995, which was ten years later. Just before that date he learned he was going to make $10 million on Dumb and Dumber. In an interview with Oprah, he disclosed that the real key to success was hard work. “Well, yeah. That’s the thing, you can’t just visualize and then, you know, go eat a sandwich.”

Yes, we will envision or imagine, daily. Then we will make one or more steps toward our purpose, daily. If we have not yet, we will start with writing it down. When we have found our purpose, we will encourage someone else to envision and act, with purpose, for purpose. We too will have them first write it down.

You may not be interested in sports in the least but stick with me here. In 1980, the Los Angeles Lakers were playing in the NBA Finals against the Philadelphia Seventy Sixers. Lakers’ leader Kareen Abdul-Jabbar suffered a sprained ankle in Game 5 of 7 and the team felt deflated because he was not going to be able to play in Game 6. They were already leading the series by three games to two and wanted to clinch the title so they would not have to play a Game 7 tiebreaker. Rookie Earvin Johnson started to think about what he could do to encourage the team.

Typically, when the team was travelling on flights, Kareem sat in the front row in seat one. But on the way to Game 6, Earvin sat in Kareem’s seat, turned back at the team, and said, “Have no fear, Magic is here.” Earvin Johnson, who was given the nickname “Magic” by a reporter while he was playing in High School, had convinced head coach Paul Westhead to let him play center, Kareem’s position, instead of his current point guard assignment. At the conclusion of Game 6, Magic scored forty-two points, made fifteen rebounds and seven assists. The team won the finals.

Michael Cooper, a teammate on the Lakers, during the “They Call Me Magic” documentary interview said, in Game 6 Magic was “making everyone on the team better.” For example, Jamaal Wilkes had a career high of twenty-seven. Michael Wilbon, ESPN Sports Journalist in an interview in the same documentary said he considered Magic’s 42-15-7 “the greatest performance in NBA history.” If the unfortunate incident of Kareem’s sprained ankle did not occur, who knows how different Magic’s game and the team’s outcome would have been.

It is so easy sometimes to become incapacitated with hopelessness when something devastating happens. But somewhere in chaos or tragedy, there is an opportunity. The better we are at finding it, the more likely we are at authoring a positive unforgettable story for our future.

We must not allow setbacks to extinguish our flicker of hope for magic in our future.

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.

Jeremiah 17:7

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God

Philippians 4:6

How do you create lasting change? There are thousands of words which have been spoken and written on this topic and it would be impossible to create a complete roadmap in this short thoughtpager. However, I want to leave some things to consider.

Tony Robbins, the country’s leading expert in behavior change, said there are three things needed to create lasting change. One, the new behavior should be a must not a should. Two, you must believe that the change depends on you, not anyone. Three, you must believe that you can change.

James Clear, author and speaker, advocates that change starts with small shifts in behavior. They are so small that they could be thought of as atomic. Imagine you want to start exercising. Your atomic habit might be setting out your shoes and socks the night before. Then the next day it might be putting them on. The next day it may be putting them on and walking up your street then back to your house. Eventually you can transform into a person who runs in your neighborhood or on the treadmill at your gym.

James also said there are days when you may slip from your routine for whatever reason. Get back up as soon as you can and keep going. “We do not rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems,” says James. If we continue to execute on the habits, processes, and nuances required to reach our goal, getting there is inevitable.

Change takes time. So do not thwart your progress by getting so frustrated or irritated with yourself that you stop chipping away when you do not realize the change as quickly as you expected. When a tree cutter keeps hacking away at a tree trunk it may appear that it would never fall. But there comes a point after many chops when the cutter needs only to push on the tree with one of his hands and it will come crashing down because of all the prior effort he made.

Angela Duckworth, author, educator, and speaker, says in exchange for a fixed mindset we should strive to adopt a growth mindset. If you think that your intelligence is fixed or you cannot change, this indicates a fixed mindset. If you believe that you can learn and improve, that shows a growth mindset.

In summary, to create lasting change, believe that you can do it, continue to take small steps and do not be frustrated by how long it takes.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go

Joshua 1:9

On a night last week, I added three items to the app’s cart of a restaurant from which I was going to get food on my way to work the next morning. On the morning of the pick-up, I completed the order without checking the items in the cart. When I picked up my order, to my surprise I was handed an extra bag. I checked the bags and remembered that I mistakenly added an item but was sure I removed it the same night. Although the extra cost was minimal, I was still irritated at myself for not checking the cart before finalizing the order, causing me to waste money and food, since I threw away the unwanted thing.

Probably you double-check your orders routinely or do not even make mistakes when you order. But are there habits you practice or beliefs you have which you have not given a second thought as to why you do or have them, respectively? It might be your working style, how you think about people, expectations of yourself, how you raise children, how to deal with conflict, how to handle uncertainty, to name a few.

Today, rethink a belief that you hold to determine if it is serving you optimally or if it is still serving you at all.

Cheers to your progress.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2

Happy New Year!

Imagine it is a year from now and you are reflecting over the past year. What must have happened for it to have been your best year ever? Now, what is one step you can take today to move in that direction? This method of approaching what you do now is taught by Dean Graziosi, a successful real estate investor, author, and speaker.

Have you made a new year’s resolution already? Or have you simply decided you are not going to make any this year? Next week, you will be one week older. What do you want to have moved closer to or improved upon? Again, what do you want your life to look like in a year?

Here is another perspective. When you reflect over the past year, 2022, would you say you ended up where you are now, on purpose? If so, way to go! If not, what are you going to do less of, more of, stop doing or start doing, to affect a different outcome, as taught by Jim Kwik, a learning and brain development expert. As you have heard it said multiple times, if you keep doing what you have always done, you will keep getting what you have always got.

The word for today and tomorrow is progress.

Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.

1 Timothy 4:15