"Good thinkers are never at a loss to solve
problems, they never lack ideas that can build an
organization, and they always have hope for a better
future...A person who knows how may always have
a job, but the person who knows why will always
be his boss."
"I've tried to do all this on my own
Not thinking once of what you've shown
All that I've done has blinded me
To everything that you have for me
I want you to know I finally see
That you simply love
Despite all the stupid things I've done"
"How
you think when you lose determines how long it will be until
you win." -- G.K. Chesterton
I
was chatting with my good friend Katherine a few days ago
about focus and discipline. We talked about the strict regimen
she is following to become more organized and healthy. She is
reading, exercising, watching what she eats, and is well on
her way to becoming the woman she has been called to be. To
keep herself on track, she checks in with an
"accountability partner" on a regular basis.
While
a well-thought-out regimen is very helpful, as is an
accountability partner, neither one is a guarantee for
success. Why, then, am I so confident that she is going to
succeed? Because I've seen her fail.
Yes,
I said fail.
Sooner
or later we all fall short (see Romans 3:23 for a Biblical
perspective). But failing does not make you a failure,
any more than sitting in a garage makes you a car.
It
all boils down to how you think. You can choose to focus on
your stumbling blocks or focus on your goal. You can choose to
treat setbacks as defeat or as a chance to start again. Guess
which choices I've seen Katherine make?
Ask
yourself...
What
challenging tasks do I avoid out of fear of
"failure"?
What
can I learn and apply from setbacks that used to
discourage me?
What
- or who - is worth giving another try?
"Failure is success if we learn from it."
-- Malcolm Forbes
"What I focus on in life is
what I get. And if I concentrate on how bad I am or how wrong
I am or how inadequate I am, if I concentrate on what I can't
do and how there's not enough time in which to do it, isn't
that what I get every time? And when I think about how
powerful I am, and when I think about what I have left to
contribute, and when I think about the difference I can make
on this planet, then that's what I get." -- W. Mitchell
No,
dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but
I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting
the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to
reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God,
through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven. --
Philippians 3:13- 14
PrizeFighter subscribers live in Albania, Argentina,
Australia, Canada, India, Iran, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia,
Mauritius, Nigeria, Portugal, Serbia & Montenegro, United
Kingdom and United States!
