Want to change? Here are six basic tips
In my last blog I touched on the fact that the most googled question last year was “Can I Change?” I explained how I felt like that was great news! And I want to double down on the belief that it is admirable to want to change areas of your life, if not your whole life.
The idea that you should feel embarrassed or any other kind of negative stigma because you desire to grow and evolve is absolutely ridiculous. If you want to change your career, friend circle, health, fashion, or way of thinking, towards the positive, then you should be applauded!
Progress often leads to many emotions of happiness. And I don’t know about you, but if I had to pick between being happy or being sad, I’m picking the former.
So here are 6 tips for where to begin if you desire to change, grow, and transform your life. They are rooted in the belief that it happens best if we live from Grace, and produce with Excellence. Each category will come with three specific tips.
Live from Grace:
Having an operating system within your life that has you planted in the position of living from Grace means that you are functioning out of the emotional state that you are enough. That in the sight of God you are a valuable child. I know that can sound a bit churchy. But the practice of reminding yourself that your worth and your identity isn’t rooted just in your accomplishments, others view of you, and status is truly the only way we begin to live a fulfilling and joyful life.
My toddler contributes absolutely nothing to the financial success of our household. She doesn’t pay bills, go grocery shopping, make sure the doors are locked at night. All she has to do is be my kid, and that’s enough for me. That’s you to God. So here we go.
1. Find a rhythm for how to be God aware.
Growing a deeper spiritual life isn’t about just checking boxes, but far more about finding yourself in the presence of God. It can feel and sound a bit euphoric at times, especially if this isn’t a practice you have in your life yet. However, once you begin to take the steps you’ll begin to realize a peace, that maybe you haven’t felt before.
This is more than you trying to just read the whole bible in a year. Now, maybe that’s your thing, and no doubt I believe it will help you become more aware of God, who He is, and how He sees you. But there are thousands of ways to grow in your awareness of God.
Maybe its spending 5 minutes in the morning reminding yourself that you didn’t do anything to wake up, you just did. That you got to rest in your sleep and you didn’t have to remind your heart to keep ticking or your lungs to keep inhaling and exhaling, it just happened. Find tiny, nearly microscopic, things in your life to be thankful for and think about those and how God was a part of them. Maybe it’s for the sunrise, or the birds chirping, or that you can taste your coffee.
The goal is to just find more areas of your life that make you think about God.
2. Let your talk be encouraging
We live in a culture that is always looking for the flaws, the problems, and opportunities to cancel someone. What a boring, limited, and exhausting temperament.
What if instead, you chose to sow seeds of encouragement. Scripture tells us to think about things that are lovely, pure, praiseworthy and excellent. Can you imagine what your life might begin to transform into over just a 30 day period if you were the friend that avoided gossip, and was always quick to shine a light on others?
The book of proverbs tells us the world of the generous gets larger and larger! Often what we want, comes once we give it. I have seen in my own life that when I pursue a life of encouragement for others in a genuine way, that God turns it back in my direction. I love being encouraged, and if the cost is to be a great encourager, then sign me up!
There’s enough people out there pointing out the bad, negative, and fearful. You can be different!
3. Seek and you’ll find
Ever sense I can remember I’ve always had the attitude that good things are going to happen to me. Call it prosperity gospel if you want, or hyper positive thinking…I don’t really care. Because for the last 30 years it has seemed to have a positive ROI.
Jesus told his followers once that ‘if you as earthly parents know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does your heavenly father desire to do good for His kids.“
This doesn’t mean that there won’t be hard days, and challenges, it just means that you put in place a perspective before the day ever starts, that goodness will follow you wherever you go!
I’ve known people who live the opposite, and they expect bad things to happen. Can you guess how it turns out? They’re usually right. So, if God gives us the option, then ten out of ten times I’ll find myself on the side of believing that the best is to come.
This isn’t about manipulating God. Rather, it’s about trusting that he has his eye on you, and is doing things in the background that you can’t see.
It’s tough to keep data of spiritual things in our life. That’s why I’m always hesitate to put a number on any kind of spiritual practices. Yet, if you just start small with each of these three you’ll begin to see a change in your life that starts on the inside.
Now let’s move to the three tips for producing with excellence.
Producing with Excellence:
There is pretty much nothing in your life that will change without you producing (doing the work) to make it happen. Even if your life is going a negative direction there are usually things you are DOING that have leD to that outcome. So, let’s flip the script towards doing the things we know we should to create the outcome we want.
1. Admit that you’re a producer (ACTION FOCUS)
The very first step in working towards a change, is stepping into the courage that you actually can be the change agent. I can hear people pushing back saying “Well, some of the things I want to change are out of my control.” You may be right, but there is plenty within your control that you can change.
For instance, usually a great start for everyone is their home environment. If your house is cluttered and dirty, chances are your soul feels right behind it.
So, the goal here is to identify maybe the 5-10 things in your life that you have the control to change, and then give yourself the permission to be the agent of change.
Every movie has a producer, and when it comes to the movie of your life (the habits, disciplines, thoughts) you are the Producer. Quit giving that power away!
Accept that you can change, because then you’ll start looking for ways on how.
2. Imagine you’re the CEO of your life (VISION FOCUS)
Look I get it. If you’re a Christian, its going to be easy for you to maybe be like “Hey Bro, God’s the CEO of my life.” I see that and hear that all the time. Truth is, people usually say that because it’s a great excuse to live a life of inaction.
God gave you a brain, and the ability to have a vision, make decisions and take action. So, find the areas of your life that need a rehaul.
Bob Iger was the CEO of Disney for over two decades and he resigned a couple of years ago. The CEO who stepped in, didn’t do so hot, so they brought Bob back a couple months ago. He’s already cast a new vision, and started to make changes that have moved the needle towards progress. It may be time to fire the you that has currently been leading your life, then rehire yourself with new perspectives and fresh outlooks. As I said before you can’t escape yourself, so do the hard work of transforming your mind.
My example: I spent a lot of years going to bed with dirty dishes in the sink and on the counter. I hated them in the morning. So, I finally fired my existing self as kitchen manager, and hired a new version of me that saw my kitchen as a five start restaurant. Every night right around 9pm I do a full kitchen clean, dishes in dishwasher, sink clean, counter clean, and stove clean. It takes maybe 15 min max. But when I wake up in the morning to my coffee before doing some quiet time, I get to see the clean kitchen and it spurs me into even more of a desire to produce with excellence in other areas.
3. Measure your progress against yourself
Unlike spiritual practices, we are able to have pretty clear data points on whether we are producing with excellence or not. A glance at the kitchen in the morning will let me know if I am.
This is not new wisdom whatsoever, but the key to knowing whether or not if you’re producing with excellence doesn’t come from comparing yourself to people you maybe pull inspiration from. But rather, the only way to know if you are progressing is by measuring against yourself.
There are some people out there who truly can read a book in just a day or two. That’s not me. I really only read about 10 pages a day. But what does that make me? A reader. I use to not read at all. But now I feel like I read a lot of books! I don’t have to compare my reading abilities to anyone else but myself.
If you’re wanting to get in shape, don’t compare yourself to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Just get moving.
I’m not John Maxwell, Gary Vee, or Craig Groeschel. I’m Timmy Riggs. The content I make, and the frequency in which I make it only has to fit within the realm in which I operate, and as long as I am moving in the direction of progress that I set for myself, then that’s a win.
I’m not sure I could get more basic than these tips. But usually, it’s the basics that are done over and over that create the success everyone is hoping for. My goal is to write, and record podcast! I’m moving in the direction I want to go with this published article! Now it’s your turn to figure out what areas you need to lean into!