A Life-Changing Procedure

A few days ago I was having my devotion and came across an article by Zig Ziglar which I found really interesting.  I have started incorporating the following procedure in my life daily and already beginning to experience positive results. Naturally, I felt obligated to share it with you:-)

Every morning before you start your day, and every evening at the close of the day, stand in front of the mirror in a room by yourself, look yourself in the eye (the eyes are the windows of the soul) and say, “I am a child of the King (John 1:12) in the will of God (The Lord’s Prayer), and can do all things through Christ who gives me the strength (Philippians 4:13). I claim the following attributes because I have the mind of Christ ( I Corinthians 2:11), am a confidant of God (Psalms 25:14), and although I am weak in many of these qualities I am specifically told (Joel 3:10) to ‘let the weak say I am strong.’ By claiming, developing and using these Biblical qualities, I will become the person God created me to be and will glorify God and benefit mankind.

“I am an honest, intelligent, organized, responsible, committed, teachable person who is sober, loyal, and clearly understands that regardless of who signs my paycheck I am self employed. I am an optimistic, punctual, enthusiastic, goal-setting, smart working self-starter who is a disciplined, focused, dependable, persistent positive thinker with great self-control, and am an energetic and diligent team player and hard worker who appreciates the opportunity my company and the free enterprise system offer me. I am thrifty with my resources and apply common sense to my daily tasks. I take honest pride in my competence, appearance and manners, and am motivated to be and do my best so that my healthy self-image will remain on solid ground. These are the qualities which enable me to manage myself and help give me employment security in a no job-security world.

“I am a compassionate, respectful encourager who is a considerate, generous, gentle, patient, caring, sensitive, personable, attentive, fun-loving person. I am a supportive, giving and forgiving, clean, kind, unselfish, affectionate, loving, family oriented human being and I am a sincere and open-minded good listener and a good-finder who is trustworthy. These are the qualities which enable me to build good relationships with my associates, neighbors, mate and family.

“I am a person of integrity, with the faith and wisdom to know what I should do and the courage and convictions to follow through. I have the vision to manage myself and to lead others. I am authoritative, confident, and humbly grateful for the opportunity life offers me. I am fair, flexible, resourceful, creative, knowledgeable, decisive and an extra-miler with a servant’s attitude who communicates well with others. I am a consistent, pragmatic teacher with character and a finely-tuned sense of humor. I am an honorable person and am balanced in my personal, family and business life, and have a passion for being, doing and learning more today so I can be, do and have more tomorrow.

“These are the qualities of the winner I was born to be and I am fully committed to developing these marvelous qualities with which I have been entrusted. Tonight I’m going to sleep wonderfully well. I will dream powerful, positive dreams. I will awaken energized and refreshed; tomorrow’s going to be magnificent and my future is unlimited. Recognizing, claiming and developing these qualities which I already have gives me a legitimate chance to be happier, healthier, more prosperous, more secure, have more friends, greater peace of mind, better family relationships and legitimate hope that the future will be even better.”

Repeat the process the next morning and close by saying, “These are the qualities of the winner I was born to be and I will develop and use these qualities to achieve my worthy objectives. Today is a brand new day and it’s mine to use in a marvelously productive way.”

After 30 days, add the next step: Choose your strongest quality and the one you feel needs the most work. Example: Strongest-honest. Needs most work-organized. On a separate 3×5 card, print “I am a completely honest person and every day I am getting better and better organized.” Keep this 3×5 card handy and read it out loud at every opportunity for one week. Repeat this process with the second strongest quality and the second one which needs the most work. Do this until you’ve completed the entire list. Use this self-talk procedure as long as you want to get more of the things money will buy and all of the things money won’t buy.

The Law of Priorities – Put First Things First

Everybody must establish a list of priorities, and then learn to put first things first.

The very worst use of your time is to do something well what need not be done at all. The Pareto Principle says that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of the value of your activities. This means that, if you have a list of ten items to accomplish, two of those items will be worth more than the other eight items altogether. To achieve great things, you must always be concentrating on the small number of activities that contribute the greatest value to your life and your work. 

Determine the Consequences
The value of anything in your order of priorities can be measured by assessing the potential consequences of doing it or not doing it. Something that is important has significant consequences to your life and your career. Something that is unimportant has few or no consequences or significance to your life or career. The mark of the superior thinker is your ability to consider possible consequences before you begin.

Let me use a short illustration from the Bible which highlights how one of the wisest leaders of all time used the law of priorities to his advantage. When Solomon became King of Israel, he was given the opportunity to ask God for anything. Instead of requesting riches of fame, he asked for wisdom to lead his people well. What a fantastic answer! God responded by rewarding him not only with the thing he asked for, but also with all the benefits he didn’t request. This incident illustrates how effective prioritizing often works. When you put first things first, you frequently gain the time for nonessentials. Solomon narrowed his wedge, and got it all. No doubt, King Solomon faced the same options we have today:

• 1. Easy Things First: He could have chosen to focus on the easy tasks ahead of him.
• 2. Fun Things First: He could’ve chosen to focus on riches or fame.
• 3. Urgent Things First: He could’ve asked for help in building he temple.
• 4. Hard Things First: He could’ve sought favour with those who didn’t like him.
• 5. First Things First: Instead, he chose to seek wisdom so he could glorify God.

Ask the Key Question 
Bringing it closer home, we must be prepared to answer one key question when it comes to our day to day activities. Continually ask yourself, “What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?” And whatever it is, work on that. Your ability to discipline yourself to work on those few tasks that can make the greatest difference in your life is the key quality that makes everything else possible for you.

You can apply this law immediately by making a list of everything that you do as a part of your job or to do list. Now, analyze the list and select the three to five things that are more important than everything else put together. Remember to put first things first and get to work.

Begin With The Physical

 

Many of us have some improvements that we’d like to make in our lives - career, relationship, health, spiritual. The question is – where should you begin? My suggestion is that you begin with your physical body. Improving your level of fitness and/or diet will produce some positive results in the long run. This is because by improving your level of fitness and diet you will have a lot more extra energy available to you everyday. This will result in more energy to invest in your career, relationships, mental, and spiritual development.

It’s been said that people spend their first 50 years trading their health for wealth, and then they spend the next 50 years trading their wealth for health. This is not a trade that we should make at all.

A fact is that you take your body with you wherever you go. If you are overweight then you carry around that excess weight with you at all times. Now an extra 7kg may not seem like much, but if you carry around an extra 7kg dumbbell all day long, you will soon see that it feels exhausting and tires you out much faster. 7kg of excess fat weighs the same as a 7kg dumbbell, and carrying it around all day will definitely feel burdensome and drain your energy.

I remember the times in my life when I kept to a strict exercise routine and watched my diet. I was able to think clearer and could concentrate for much longer periods without getting tired because I had a lot more energy. One of the many advantages of exercise is that it provides an increase in blood flow, which helps oxygenate the body, especially the brain. Another key benefit of improving your body is that you will see the physical results within a short space of time if you are consistent with your routine. This is very satisfying and an important motivating factor. Loss of fitness appears gradually and you will hardly notice it. If you eat poorly and don’t exercise, you will pay the consequences.

I have read many stories and know about many people who have transformed their lives for the better – and physical fitness and diet was almost always a significant component from the beginning.