How does one weave great success from their life story?
Simply follow three gauges.
Success gauge #1: Tally your blessings
You are rich with a special body and mind to create and bless everywhere you go.
What ailing rich man wouldn’t trade gold for the health we assume every day?
See your success in today’s blessings.
Recognize your . . .
- eyes with 6 million cones and 120 million rods
- ears which capture the wind, birds and rain
- tongue which teaches, counsels and heals
- heart pumping more than 600,000 gallons every year
- lungs with 600 million creases filtering oxygen
- brain with more atomic energy than the largest cities
Pause gratefully every morning and peer through your car or room window.
Success gauge #2: Shape your transitions
We spend a big part of our lives in transition. Voluntary and involuntary.
Failure haunts folks who are jailed by transitions.
Maybe that’s because transitions take longer than we expect.
But, as William James said, “life is in the transitions.” Work with them. Shape them.
According to New York Times best-selling author, Bruce Feiler, the average person runs into disruptions of work, health, family or accidents once every eighteen months.
And when a blunter (three life quakes in a year) arrives, we need tools to repair the ship.
Instead of being stuck, transform your pain into power by molding a new story.
How?
- Lean into the transition
- Focus on reliable anchors
- Peel-off addictive behaviors
- Respond with creativity
History is filled with folks who shaped their transitions with activities like writing, music or art.
Shape transitions with creativity and generate new power.
Success gauge #3: Engage higher power
The mark of true success is in the handling of suffering and despair.
Everyone navigates illness, tragedy, loneliness and grief.
But, the advantage for those in Christian faith is their optimism coming from a higher power.
“The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of today) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that.” Gilbert K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, (New York: John Lane Company, 1909), 48–49.
Christian faith is mystical and historical because it is attested by many witnesses who documented the life changing-nature of Jesus Christ. Optimism is at hand even in suffering and loss because a “gracious favor” from God is always possible.
“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.” 2 Corinthians 1:8-11
Reach for success in 2024.
- Count your blessings daily
- Shape your transitions with creativity
- Enlarge hope with your faith in God
What are your resolutions for success?
A great one for the start of 2024.
Happy New Year Jeff!