Stacy

This is the Day – Tim Tebow

Growing in Faith / By

Every morning, I spend 20 minutes on my treadmill and watch a Bible study series on RightNow Media. I love taking this time to learn about God and pray. It just starts my morning out right.

The past few days, I watched the “This is the Day” by Tim Tebow series. Here are my takeaways:

Life isn’t about ONE day. It’s about THIS day.

Question: Are you living out what God is putting on your heart?

You have today so you need to make it count. Live the extraordinary life and not the comfortable one. This means risking what people think about you to do what God is putting on your heart.

You can be extraordinary & humble all at the same time. This is what Jesus was. He did extraordinary miracles and always humbled himself with others. It’s not about the fancy exterior and external actions. It’s about the interior motives and your heart. Strive to have a Jesus heart.

When you get out of your comfort zone, the giants will come. Giants of self doubt, criticism, fear, ….. Remember that God is bigger than any giant that can come at you. Pray about it and more importantly listen.

We are not guaranteed tomorrow – only this day so live it to the fullest.

Here are some great verses to go with this message:

““When you are invited to a wedding feast, don’t sit in the seat of honor. What if someone who is more distinguished than you has also been invited? The host will come and say, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then you will be embarrassed, and you will have to take whatever seat is left at the foot of the table! “Instead, take the lowest place at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees you, he will come and say, ‘Friend, we have a better place for you!’ Then you will be honored in front of all the other guests. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Then he turned to his host. “When you put on a luncheon or a banquet,” he said, “don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors. For they will invite you back, and that will be your only reward. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then at the resurrection of the righteous, God will reward you for inviting those who could not repay you.””
‭‭Luke‬ ‭14‬:‭8‬-‭14‬ ‭NLT‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/116/luk.14.8-13.NLT

“How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.”
‭‭James‬ ‭4‬:‭14‬ ‭NLT‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/116/jas.4.14.NLT

Weekly Challenge – Face It

Weekly Challenge / By

We hear it all the time – Fake it until you make it. Well my challenge to you this week is to FACE IT until you make it.

Which of these do you feel when you fake it:

  • Dishonest with yourself
  • Inadequate
  • Goal is too far away that you will never get there

This list can go on, but I think you get the point. We can’t be our true self and grow into what God wants for our life when we are just faking it.

Facing the hard isn’t something you want to do, but it is something you NEED to do. You learn new skills as you try to figure it out. You are humble because you don’t know it.

Surround yourself with like minded people that are interested in the same things you are. Create a support system of 2-3 people that you can really trust and be honest with.

Don’t worry if people know you don’t have it all figured out because they don’t either. We are all going through life one day at the time.

Count your blessings.

Learn from your mistakes

Be yourself because there is no one else exactly like you

You are loved by a creator that will never stop loving you no matter what.

4 Steps to be a Goal Getter

Changing Your Life / By

Step 1:  Visualize

Take 10 minutes and allow yourself to dream no matter how big or scary.  Anything that pops in your head write it down.

What is something you always wanted to do?

What is something that you are interested in or passionate about that you’ve never dared pursue?

What would you do if nothing stood in your way?

What excites or motivates you to get out of bed?

What did you dream about doing before life got in the way?

Where would you like to see yourself in 5 or 10 years?

What does your dream life look life?

Step 2:  Focus

Rank each of your items from 1 – 10.  Narrow down your to options to your big 3.  (Must be at least 8’s)

Why does this excite me?   Why is it important to me?

Do I feel a flutter in my belly or tightening in my chest when I think of this?

Step 3: Commit

Write it down & say it out loud . This makes it real!

What will it take for you to commit to these things?  Reward, punishment, tracker, etc…

Post your goals where you see them daily.

What will make it real for you?

Step 4:  Execute

Rearrange your schedule and put your big goals first every single day.

Start doing whatever it takes to make your big goals a reality.

Get up earlier.

Take a class, get a certification.

Block out time for what you want to get one step closer to the finish line.

Give it a Quarter Twist

Changing Your Life / By

When you start to get out of your comfort zone, you move into the unknown. At least unknown for you. This means that it will get tough and you may fail or not go exactly as you wanted.

If you are “in the tough,” first you need to remember why you started in the first place. Getting back to your why and reflect on where you want to go. Then give your next step a quarter twist. Figure out what was working and what isn’t and keep on going.

Sometimes the tough is happening not by anything you are doing, but by getting negative response and feedback. You start to care more about what they think of you than your big dream. Recognize what you are doing. If they are true friends, they will support you if they understand why you are doing. Make it known to them.

If you are still struggling to find that ambition – here is some advice from Bob Goff:

Find ambitions that will positively impact the lives of others and get you fired up to pursue a few more ambitions for yourself. If you’re going to spend your time, talent, and treasure to get some of those dreams off the ground, isn’t it worth the investment of time and conviction to find the right ones?

I don’t want to be an advertisement for Jesus; I’d rather be proof.

How do you spend your time?

Changing Your Life / By

How you spend your time is how you live your life.

This was a quote from a Bible study video session. It’s one of those things you don’t really think about, but it’s kinda deep.

How do you spend the hours in your day? We all have the same 24 hours each day. Let’s say you are at work for 9 hours + 8 hours sleep. That still leave 7 hours EVERY DAY!! Do you spend that time scrolling your phone on social media, binge watching tv, running your kids around, working out, ….. ?

Think about this past week. What did you do? Were you doing things that gave you joy or were you numbing your brain?

Think about your core values. Does your life reflect those values?

If faith is one of those values, did you spend time with God reading his word or doing a Bible study?

If family connections is one of those values. Did you spend meaningful time with them? Can you recall the conversations you had?

There are so many different values you can have. Ask the hard questions to reflect upon if you are truly spending your time where you should.

It’s easy to caught up in the day to day. After a long day at work, you want to just watch a cooking show with a glass of wine. (Or is this just me… ). It’s setting your intentions and following through with those intentions.

Here are some tricks that I use:

  • Start your morning WITHOUT your phone. Use it for an alarm, but leave it on the charger until you are ready for work.
  • Start the day with intention. How do you want to show up today? What might stress you out & how will you handle it?
  • Make a plan for after work. When you get home before you walk in the door. Take a few seconds or minutes to reset your mind. Again how do you want to show up for your family?
  • Doing a weekly reflection or even a daily reflection. What went well today? What could have been better (if you are an over thinker don’t spend too much time on this)? Did you follow your intention for the day? What are you grateful for that happened today or this week? Don’t fluff it…give yourself honest answers.

Size Your Ambition

Weekly Challenge / By

This week’s challenge – Take time to think about your ambitions and rank them in three sizes: easy, kind of hard, and seemingly impossible. Then rank them according to the magnitude they would have on your life and others.

Here are some great excerpts from Dream Big. I couldn’t say it better than Mr. Bob Goff.

“Finding your genuine, lasting ambitions is not an easy task. If it were, you’d have already accomplished it. It requires asking the questions What do you care about? What are you willing to risk everything for? and Why are you so afraid? All at the same time.

It’s going to take some digging and sorting and thinking and rethinking. But the effort is worth it, because when you figure out what lights you up and will outlast your other ambitions, this will inform most of your next steps. Trust me when I say the answer probably won’t come the way you want it to—all downloaded in a nice and clean package without any rough edges or hard chapters.

God often wraps His presents like a guy did it. (Guys, it’s okay—we know most of us are bad at this.) The ambitions worth pursuing usually come a little crumpled and Scotch-taped together at first. Don’t let this vetting process bum you out; let it spur you on and steel your resolve to do what it takes to get after your beautiful ambitions.

When you’re vetting your ambitions, you’ll likely end up with a number of possibilities in a range of sizes and difficulties. Let’s say your dreams come in three sizes: easy, kind of hard, and seemingly impossible. The size of your ambitions doesn’t necessary indicate the difficulty of achieving them. Think instead of the magnitude of the impact they’ll have on your life and the lives of the people around you. Small ambitions can be things we’re just curious about. These will stretch us personally, physically, intellectually, or relationally. They may not be laden with the kind of purpose that defines the arc of our lives. For now, they’re just something fun and worth the effort to accomplish.

Small Size

It’s helpful to have some ambitions on this smaller, easier scale because they’ll invigorate you and give you the momentum you’ll need to carry you toward the harder stuff. These things will also fan the flames of your other desires and make you spring out of bed in the morning. Small ambitions can sometimes lead to larger ones.

Don’t confuse small ambitions with tasks or tasks with small ambitions.

Medium Size

medium-sized, kind-of-difficult ambitions. These were things that were going to take some additional effort. You have to remind ourselves why we do it.

Large Size

Large and seemingly impossible ambitions are going to require equally large sacrifices. They’re not going to be achieved easily or quickly, so don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ll stumble upon them some day.

Your big ambitions may exact a high price as well. Don’t expect your biggest ambitions to walk into the room like a puppy and lie down by the fire. These ambitions are the fire.

Do you have the right ambition for you?

Is your ambition meaningful? Stated differently, Is it worthwhile and lasting? Don’t busy yourself with things that merely occupy your time. “Try on” your ambition as you decide whether it’s worth the time and sacrifice required to make it happen.

Ask yourself if your ambition lines up with something God said He valued for our lives. Remember, your ambition will only have value to you if you give it space in your life. If you’re not willing to try it on first, maybe it’s not worth pursuing.

Will it last? The ambitions worth pursuing are those with the longest shelf life.

Will it matter in a year? Ten years? How about in one hundred years?

Is it all about you or will it help others?

Your greatest sense of fulfillment will come in the service of others, not yourself.

What do you want to be remembered for? Think about what kind of legacy you want to leave behind.

Is it possible? Don’t discard an ambition because it seems too hard or is seemingly impossible. There’s a difference between “my ambition isn’t realistic” and “I’m afraid to try” or “this will be really hard.” Don’t let the scale of your ambitions head-fake you into abandoning them.

Do your ambitions live up to your abilities, attributes, desires, and willingness to act?

Your abilities are unique to you; they’re a mixture of how God made you and the life experiences you’ve had up to this point. Does your ambition at least feel adjacent to things you already know or have experienced or can learn?”

Are you Available?

Changing Your Life / By

Availability usually means that you are engaged and engagement gives you a greater chance for success. This availability isn’t just focused on the tasks, but it’s also focused on the people around you. It also means being available to yourself to give yourself the rest time you need.

Start with these questions:

  • How do you I really feel?
  • Does God feel near?
  • Am I working on the top priorities to achieve my goals?
  • Do my choices and actions reflect my values?
  • Am I allowing others into my life or pushing them away?
  • Where am I spending my time & energy?

The choices and actions we make will define our legacy. How do you want to be remembered?

I love this section from the Dream Big book:

“A porter’s job is to get up early each day, walk down to the city gate, and greet people. Porters ask travelers this question: “What can I do to help you on your way?” Taking an interest in people means asking the same. If you want to make progress on your ambitions, ask other people about theirs. It was this kind of reverse economy Jesus spoke about often. It worked then, and it works now.”

Become their student, not their teacher.

Your goal isn’t efficiency; it’s presence.

Are you Sleep Walking through Life?

Changing Your Life / By

It is easy to get caught up in the day to day to do list. You have your routine that you don’t even have to think about it. You could be sleep walking and no one would know the difference…. Ouch….did that hurt a little bit?

We wake up, do our morning routine, we do our jobs and have surface level conversations, maybe run your kids around in the evening, and then back to bed. You felt busy the entire day, but you can’t remember the conversations you had, the things you experienced, and the beauty you saw? If this sounds like your life today, this message is for you. You are sleepwalking through your life.

Did you Know?

According to Bob, “there are thirty-seven recorded miracles in the New Testament.

Instead of looking at just the miracles, but what was happening around the miracles. At the wedding, Mary leaned over to the host after he spoke to Jesus and whispered, “Do whatever he tells you.” This is my hope for you as you pursue your ambitions. Whether faith is important to you or not, whether you talk to Jesus all the time or almost never, I hope you will take the ideas in these pages about pursuing your ambitions and then do whatever God tells you to do with them.”

Your Challenge

Here is your challenge – “enter each day assuming there’s a thirty-eighth miracle waiting for you if you fully engage life and the people around you with love, honesty, and an unreasonable, almost annoying heap of expectation. What would happen in your life if you started doing the same?”

Dream Big & Progress Those Dreams

This next section is excerpts from the book:

If you want to make progress toward your ambitions, live in constant anticipation of what might happen next. Look constantly for opportunities to give your ambitions some lift, and when an opening comes along, be ready to do something about it. People who actively anticipate opportunities don’t just sit on the edge of the chair hoping. They stack books on the chair and stand on top of them looking for an opportunity. Try it. The view will be great.

If you want to press through the resistance you’re facing, you need to identify your own “tells” like a good poker player. To do this, you’ll need to do a little excavation and take some action to figure out what is keeping you stuck. You may have to break with some routines, identify some of the stress in your life, and get the tools you need to clarify your ambitions. I’m not suggesting you blow up your whole life. But doing something startling to shake yourself awake should definitely be on the table.

One lesson I’ve learned, though, is that sometimes the best way to make progress is by sitting still. It feels counterintuitive, but it’s true.

Any person I’ve ever known who’s chased and accomplished an ambition knew that some days were about gathering strength instead of exerting it. Make no mistake—it’s easy to confuse a lot of activity with a bunch of progress. Rest is wise; preparation is wisdom. Don’t think that taking care of yourself—lying down for the nap, lounging in the hammock, or sitting on the park bench—means you’re slacking. Stop reading the junk mail telling you this. You’re not a startup and you don’t sleep under your desk. You’re on a mission, but you’re not lazy when you rest. You’re plotting your next moves and giving yourself the strength and perspective needed to finish the course. The path to your ambitions is not one long race; it’s a series of wind sprints that eventually covers the distance of a marathon. There’s a reason sprinters don’t break world records in five-thousand-meter races. They stay focused and run their short race then rest before their next one.

Let Go of the Old You

Weekly Challenge / By

We can’t become new versions of ourselves if we don’t let the old version go. The old version is probably comfortable and trying something new is well…scary. Here’s the thing though – It’s a good kind of scary. It’s the kinda scary that makes your ambitions come to life.

I love this t-shirt I have – “If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.” That’s exactly what this is about. Challenging you to become who you want to be.

Bob Goff puts it best in his book, “God endowed each of us with something unique. The trick is to figure out what your thing is and how you’re going to get it in play. Some people make careers out of these things, and a lot of people spend their whole lives trying to figure out what they are. We’re moving targets. You are not who you used to be, and thankfully I’m not either. Our desires and interests can and should change and be revised along the way.”

Learning from our past is what helps us make better decisions now. It’s those capabilities that we learned that we can put to use towards our ambition.

Here is the challenge that Bob gives us:

One of the hardest things to believe about God is that He loves you completely and unconditionally. Do you have trouble with this? Is there anything lurking in your heart that says you have to change, be better, or do something different to earn God’s love? How would a complete and enduring belief in God’s love change your life and fuel your dream? What we do with our days will eventually become how we’re known and remembered. If you looked at everything on an average Tuesday, what would it say about your faith? Fear is a part of all our lives.

Even the most fearless among us have to stare it down and decide to act anyway. On a scale of one to ten—with one being “very little” and ten being “all the time”—how much does fear have a hold of your life?

Knowing your talents is a great starting point for thinking about your dream. Write down ten things about yourself that feel like your innate talents. Maybe you’re naturally friendly or optimistic. Maybe you are great at geometry or have a heart for homeless people. Things like this may not seem like “talents” as our culture defines them. They’re so innate to who you are that they just feel like second nature. But they are your talents. Make a list and give yourself a high five. Oh, and if you’re having trouble coming up with ten things, just ask a few people in your life what they think your talents are to give you some hints. My bet is that you’ll have a list a lot longer than ten things. Some people think their talents are the only thing making up their identity. They lean heavily on them for success or approval. Do you think you’ve given your talents and gifts too much weight in your sense of self-worth? How could overreliance on your talents give you a “false positive” that you’re moving in the direction of your dream?

I decided to let this earlier ambition serve my next ambition. You can do the same.

We can’t be the new version of us if we’re stuck being an old version, and we’re going to need to change some things that have worked in our past in order to make way for our future. Cut those past capabilities and ambitions loose or put them in service to the new ambitions you’re chasing.

Digging Deeper on What you Want

Changing Your Life / By

The final big question, “What do you want?”

Hopefully you took the time to answer “Who are You?” & “Where Are You.” If not, go back to the last 2 blog posts and do those exercises.

You figured out what your core values are and did some self reflection to start and continue living out those values. The big dream that you have aligns with your values. What could wrong? (Insert laugh here)

Living out our dreams is not easy. You will be discouraged when it doesn’t go exactly as you hoped or someone made you feel like your dream was silly or didn’t matter. That’s why you have to understand “your why.” Why do you want to achieve that dream? Why does it matter so much to you? If it doesn’t matter, guess what? You probably should figure out something else.

Life is too short to keep going with dreams that don’t make sense anymore. Dreams are hard! It’s takes hard work, courage, discipline, and a deep down “why” that pushing you forward. Dreams can be different based on the season of your life. What mattered to you 10 years ago may not matter as much today. Assessing your goals is another good way to know that you are doing what God has in mind for you.

“Don’t pretend to be noble. Be real and it will be the most noble thing you’ll do all year. Trust me, heaven will be doing cartwheels if you will finally get real about what you really want.”

“Some of your ambitions are going to take time or a little creativity to figure out. Don’t quit on them. Wake up to new ways to get there, then do what it takes so you’re ready when your time comes.”

“If you’re in it for the long haul and want to live a life steeped in purpose, a better long-term approach is to figure out who you want to be and let that inform what you do. Don’t settle for what you’re simply able to do; figure out what you were made to do, then do lots of that.”

“Remember the passage in the Bible where the blind man called out to Jesus so he could be healed? Jesus’ friends tried to help out by telling the man to stop yelling, but the blind man just yelled even louder. Maybe you should do the same if people have been trying to get you to quiet down about your ambitions. Quit whispering them to yourself and, instead, start shouting them into the world. Jesus asked the blind guy the same question He asks all of us every day. “What do you want me to do for you?” The answer must have seemed pretty obvious to the blind guy. But just like God in the garden with Adam and Eve, I don’t think Jesus needed to hear the answer. He wanted to make sure the blind guy was clear on his ambitions and knew what he wanted more than anything else. He wants the same thing from you too.”