My brother-in-law is a racecar mechanic. Having built drag racers from the ground up, he appears to know everything there is to know about cars. On the other hand, I am helpless around cars. He and I can be looking under the hood of the same broken-down car, trying to diagnose the problem. Every sight, sound, and smell gives my brother-in law information that helps him diagnose the problem because he is a master mechanic. The same sights, sounds, and smells give me nothing because I don’t know about cars. Therefore, he and I can be both looking at the same engine, but we aren’t looking at the same engine! Only the master knows the fundamental design of the auto.
It is the same with work and life. People who experience success and joy in their life look at their careers, relationships, and life differently from those who do not. They understand God’s fundamental design of human beings. They know what works from what doesn’t and focus on what works.
12 Steps to Godly Success
If you are not experiencing success or freedom in certain areas of your life or work, you are either missing knowledge or not properly executing the knowledge you possess. If you practice the following 12 steps, you will improve your knowledge and experience growth.
1. Know the power of the present moment. All you are guaranteed is now. If you are not taking action now on what you say is important and worthwhile, you are designing a life that guarantees what you say is important never will occur. Remember, “Give us THIS DAY our daily bread,” and “Don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself.” Focus on today, and let God take care of tomorrow.
2. Choose a powerful attitude. Remember, your attitude gives birth to your actions. All actions are thoughts and emotions manifested. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” Jesus holds you accountable for your attitude; it is wise to do the same.
3. Be responsible for how you perceive people and events. It is commonly said that perception equals reality. How you perceive people and events determines your attitude towards them and how you will react to them as they occur. By regularly opening yourself to new information, you will change your perceptions, which alters your reality. There are people, perhaps you were one of them, who live the reality that God is dead and Christ was only a nice guy. Reality changes as we open our hearts and minds to new information. Find someone who is winning in an area where you are losing, and you will find someone who is living in a different reality than you are. What do they see that you are blind to? What do they know that you are missing?
4. Seek the value in people and events. You judge everything you experience as either good or bad, the way it should be or not. Everything you say is the way it should be, you feel good about. The others create frustration. However, if you think about the things that have created the most stress in your life, you will find your greatest learning experiences. Ask, “What lesson will I be learning from this?” If you get ahead of the lesson, your frustration will become fascination.
5. Be responsible for how your words and actions impact others. If you wish to create a new result, you must first design a new action. Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again, expecting a different result.” King Solomon said, “As a dog returns to its vomit, a fool returns to his folly.” If you don’t like your results in a given area of your work or life, pay careful attention to what you are now doing. Then cut it out. Jesus said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.”
6. Serve a higher purpose. In Man’s Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl describes a hierarchy of three “wills” which drive all behavior. The lowest is pleasure. If you are not responsible, you will spend your day trying to either feel good or avoid feeling bad. The second is power. If you can delay gratification long enough, you will graduate to controlling other people and your environment. This control is an illusion because there is no freedom in it. The last will is purpose. Frankl asserts that the highest state of existence is to offer yourself in sacrifice to serve God, others, or a cause. Satan tempted Jesus with pleasure (food to remove hunger pain), and power (call on your angels to save you; bow down before me and I will give you kingdoms), but Jesus resisted. Jesus was always giving himself away in sacrifice and serving his purpose.
7. Act in accordance with your deeply held beliefs. Strong beliefs birth powerful actions. Selling out on your belief system is the existential equivalent of amputating your own limbs. There is no power in pretense or compromise. When you praise God on Sunday and pursue power and pleasure on Monday, you are being a house divided against itself. You will not stand.
8. Accept who and what is, without wishing they were any other way. This summer we watched the Olympic Games in Athens. One by one, gold-medal athletes stepped up to microphones and acknowledged someone as “the one person who always believed in them.” Those people who give the ordinary room to be extraordinary alter the world.
9. Be loving and forgiving. If this were your last day alive, whom would you call? What would you say? Most people answer some version of, “I am sorry,” or “I love you.” Remember step one. All you have is now. Consider this is your last and only day. Make peace. The Bible says, “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” Therefore, take a risk and get right with others. Do it now.
10. Be thankful. Make a list of ten things in your life that are bad or not quite right. Make another list of ten things in your life that are perfect as they are now. Which list was easier to compile? The default settings of humanity require us to seek suffering over thanksgiving. You change settings when you choose a powerful attitude. Lock onto what you are thankful for and you will lock out regret and dissatisfaction. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. The peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and your minds.”
11. Remember—any outcome is possible. You may decide what is possible for your life by looking back at your past and predicting what will occur in the future. Therefore, you design your future from your past, usually repeating some version of the past. If you pay attention and believe, God will send people and resources into your life which may change your current circumstances, thus altering what is possible in the future. Consider what Jesus said, “With God all things are possible.”
12. Serve others well. A surgeon once told me that medical school professors have a saying called, “See one, do one, teach one.” The best way for a medical student to master skills is to observe others in action (see), practice (do), and instruct others (teach). You master life and work skills the same way. Find someone to teach and serve. Jesus said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
When you feel out of balance, refer back to these 12 Steps and identify which step you have not taken. Immediately take that step, and you will restore your life balance. If you don’t manage your life according to your values, life will manage you according to your emotions.
Joe Mathews is a personal performance coach with over 20 years experience in small business. The Meaning of Life Project is a Free, 12 Week, God-centered, human effectiveness program available for your Sunday school class or group fellowships. For more information, visit www.meaningoflifeproject.com.
To contact Joe Mathews, call 860-567-3099 or email joe@meaningoflifeproject.com
