My life revolves around transformation.
I help people change their beliefs and their thinking.
All of the success I’ve seen involves faith, love and hope. There have been some instantaneous, miraculous examples of change but mostly they’ve been from persevering, intentional, daily choices that lead to change.
What do you want to change?
1. Change happens when we know enough to want to or hurt enough to have to. For most, it’s the “hurt” factor.
Pain is a powerful motivator. That’s just the way life is.
Pain can be a good thing. It’s one of God’s ways of getting our attention.
C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers in our pleasures, but shouts in our pain.”
You may be reading this because your choices have pained you. Too little sleep, too much eating, too hot of a temper, too little self-control.
Don’t waste your pain.
Bill Wilson founded Alcoholics Anonymous because of the pain from a lost marriage and failed business resulting from drunkenness. He put his pain to work. He applied what he learned through pain about faith, love and hope.
2. We are all a mass (or a mess) of habits. So much of what we think are choices are actually routine habits.
We’ve had our habits (or habits have had us) for so long that we don’t even pay attention to what causes them.
If you want to change you must find an alternative habit or routine.
3. Habits start with your thinking – “Ya gotta believe!” Change you thinking and change your living.
Are you one step away from giving up on the ‘try and fail and try and fail” cycle? Do you believe change is possible?
Belief, or faith that change is possible is the first step to powerful change.
If you’ve watched any NFL football games, you’ve seen fans holding signs with the saying, “Ya gotta believe!” on them. Believing is more than bravado – its about confidently knowing how to execute winning actions.
Tony Dungy was an NFL head coach who changed the way football was played by changing player’s habits. He coached his players to learn to execute in practice and then to trust their habits in games. They had to believe in their system and believe in each other.
Coach Dungy turned around two losing teams and led one to a Super Bowl victory.
Dungy said, “Belief is the biggest part of success in professional football.”
4. Belief is stronger when it occurs within a community. For most people who experience lasting life change, there are communities – sometimes just one other person – who make change believable.
What makes groups like AA so effective is they come together to see one another change. They teach each other how to believe.
We need each other.
There is emphatic encouragement in the Bible for believers to “…not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another…” (Hebrews 10:25)?
Do you have a group that will support your changes?
A group is your first step to powerful change.
Choose a group where you can come as you are but not stay as you are. Your group needs to be made up of one person or many people who share your desire to change in their lives as well. They should be further down the road to change than you but not so far as to forget what’s it like to be where you are.
The following are resourceful communities able to help bring about personal change.
Celebrate Recovery – help with addictions of all kinds
Edmonton Dream Centre – hep for women
AA Edmonton – help with alcohol addiction
Dr Simon Sheh – help with addiction to pornography
(‘The Power of Habit” is a practical resource for implementing change.)
APPLICATION: What do you want to change? What has helped you change? Please leave a comment below.
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