Recently I tuned in to a special broadcast by Les Brown, one of my favorite speakers. Just thirty seconds in, Brown dropped this amazing bomb. He said our lives will be governed by three things in the New Year: habits, fears and the opinions of others.
I immediately took out a pen and pad and wrote this essay to guard against this likely assailant on my peace of mind in 2020. I am sharing this piece with you so that we as believers may stand in the vanguard and that we may live in the miraculous! After all, that is our sacred space, according to Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.”
Habits
General Colin Powell writes, If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude. My attention hangs on the word ‘prevailing’; it means “having the most appeal or influence”. A prevailing period of one’s life is often where habits are nourished. It is the thing we do best when we are at our best.
Take your best habit and weigh it against your worst. Which one prevails? I’d bet that your best habit was something minute, barely noticeable; something you did with your eyes closed. Your worst habit, though? Likely it was raiding the ice box at inopportune times of the evening and seeing the pounds add up as a result.
Do not be governed by bad habits in the New Year. Endeavor to do the small things until they end up as big differences.
Fears
Remember those immortal words of Marianne Williamson of a generation ago? When she wrote: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frighten us.
Those words have held sway for a reason: they resound with truth.
Our dreams wilt and die not because we fear our dreams will fail, but rather because we fear the success they will become. The truth is our greatest ignominy is fear of success; that we cannot and will not be able to handle success. It is why we talk but are slow to act. It is why we dream but fail to put feet under those dreams. It is, regrettably, why we end up blending in with the excuse crowd as we pitifully attempt to rationalize why we didn’t publish that book, open that business or enroll in that course at the local college.
In 2020, step into the final frontier and destroy your fears.
Opinion of Others
Pay attention to the person who has always talked about it but failed to be about it. There’s a lesson that person brings to life every day. I guarantee you that that person took a poll of his or her dream among their closest five associates. They took their dream, their ‘baby’ to “others”; asked for their opinion and guess what? Four of the five had negative feedback; one said it couldn’t be done; two said it could be done – just not by you! The fourth one never got the gist of the dream and just nodded in approval. Just one person in five – on average – will see your dream.
What will cause you to live defeated in 2020 is listening to the overwhelming naysayers in your life about your biggest aspirations and goals.
One of the last things the venerable Steve Jobs said before his death was this: Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life…don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
Let’s work together as not to be governed by our habits, fears and opinions of others in the New Year. Let’s live in the miraculous 2020!
Pastor W. Eric Croomes can be reached PastorCroomes@Outlook.com or Pastor W. Eric Croomes on Facebook.
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