Keep Going, You Got This!

I will become stronger
I will become healthier
I will become a better listener
I will train hard 
I will work hard 
I will stay disciplined
I will not take shortcuts 
I will be consistent

I will use my time wisely
I will be accountable to myself 
I will do what it takes to become successful
I will grow in ethics, integrity, honesty, and holiness
I will make better choices 
I will make healthy habits
I will choose to be happy whether it rains or shines

I will accomplish challenging tasks even if I don't feel like doing them

I am becoming more loving. More patient. More forgiving. and More understanding. I choose to be more. 

I am committed to my goals and creating healthy systems
I am focused on making progress and taking action
I am resolved to become the best version of myself

There's a reoccurring theme that I keep thinking about lately. I'm not even sure how to put it into words. It has to do with the will to fight. It's about having this inner flame within you. To become more than you are. To never give up. To better yourself. to pursue your goals and passions with hard work, drive, discipline, consistency, and dedication. I want to be the very best version of myself. 

I gave two speeches today to young high school students. it felt powerful. They actually seemed interested and understood the things I was saying. It was hey, I'm a counselor here. I'm here to support you. My services for counseling are free. I'm here to help you become a stronger version of yourself, to pursue greatness, and to help you accomplish your goals in life. And I went on to talk about mental health, spirituality, overcoming challenges in life, becoming stronger to be prepared to help others in need, etc.

A lot of times we only turn to therapy when things are really bad. But I argue it's helpful for all people to express and share their thoughts and emotions to better understand themselves, as well as look for areas of self-improvement.

If you become just 1% stronger and better in health and happiness, over time all that accumulates & compounds. I talked about how investing in themselves starts now, creating good habits starts today, as early as you can. To learn communication and life skills. To learn how to manage your emotions, to grow in virtues, character, ethics/ morality and how to treat yourself and others. I talked about putting in your best effort, the importance of managing finances, and why it's important to have a positive mindset and self-talk. 

I told them that you can't control the weather, traffic or other people. But you can control yourself and how you respond. I told them that as cheesy as it sounds, Self-Love is important to becoming your best self. Self-love is Self-discipline and vise versa. Your best self is the one that gets stuff done even when they dont want to. Your best self is forgiving and kind. Your best-self is one that lives with integrity. Your best-self keeps fighting to heal and grow. Your best-self is when you begin to develop confidence and actually start to like who you are. 

Negative thoughts & emotions do me no good. 
I only welcome positive thoughts & emotions.

God is my refuge
God is my strength
God is my joy
I will find healing, rest, and peace in God

God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.

Not everyone has God in their life. Sometimes I shy away from talking about God to others. As a Christian, I often feel guilty for not giving Him the worship, obedience, trust, and acknowledgment that God deserves. At the end of the day, we need God's help just to honor, glorify, and praise Him with our lives. God doesn't demand our perfection, but he does want our heart. God doesn't look upon us with anger, but with grace. God delights in His children. Our greatest joy, our greatest strength, our greatest power, and our greatest good is found in Him. 

There is a power, strength, joy, peace, and love that is only found in God. As fallen people, we seek to fill ourselves with worldly desires. Even something that is good can become an idol if we place it higher than God. If we train ourselves to develop deep meditation, prayer, and communion with God I believe we can manifest these spiritual fruits. To concentrate and ask for God to fill us with His Holy Spirit. To know that God dwells within us and is for us.

It's almost too profound to describe it in words. These virtues and gifts are but a byproduct. The true reward is the relationship with God Himself. God's attributes and character are actually inconceivable. God is infinitely greater and more than we can even imagine. And if we have the one and only almighty God within us and for us, therefore we have all things in Him.

Holistic health is being well-rounded in all areas of health. Exercise, nutrition, sleep, business, your social and spiritual life. I asked them what things do you learn in school? How can you apply what your learning to help you succeed in life? I challenged them to become more, to prepare themselves for hard times, and to explore & discover their potential, their purpose and meaning in life. 

I felt like one of those inspiring guest speakers. Maybe it's the calling to pastor, teach, counsel, heal and shepherd others. God keeps motivating and driving me to not only push myself but to push and inspire others to become better as well. And there's something about it that fulfills my own purpose & meaning. It's easy to sit here and blog this. It's another thing to follow through and put in the hard work.. not for the approval or validation from others, but to do good things for yourself.

What does it take to learn from our failures and shortcomings? What does it take to press forward through our daily challenges? It takes a lot of faith in God, self-belief, and confidence that you can overcome your weaknesses. It takes perseverance to grind towards creating the life we want.

More than having what we want in life, I believe it's more important to become the person we want to be. That requires non-stop self-development, self-improvement, and sanctification in holiness. It’s funny how we already know what’s healthy for us, yet we don’t follow through by making healthy habits. Sometimes even the smallest of changes can really be the first step in creating healthier changes.

Enough sleep, exercise, nutrition, meditation, visualization, positive affirmations, healthy relationships, and putting all those into practice.

If you can visualize what you want, you'll begin to piece together the required steps it takes to make it happen. Sometimes we dream too small. If you really set a goal for yourself, you'll begin to piece together the necessary steps it takes to get there. It's a process. And it takes time. But if you can accomplish micro-tasks and accomplishments, it increases your position. 

It's easy to talk the talk. It's not easy to walk the walk. When no one is there. When your success is dependent on you. To get hard stuff done even when no one cares or no one is watching. 

If you want to make more money, get healthier, have a closer relationship, grow a business, or develop in a skill.. what are the steps it takes in order for that to become a reality? Steps add up to miles. 

What will it take? What are the practical steps? Who can you learn from? Who can help you? What specifically can you do in a day with your time? Visualize and then take action and intention to make progress.

Sometimes I get a haircut. There's something about a fresh cut that feels like a reset. Something about sitting in silence and waiting. While people entertain themselves on their smartphones, I sit there allowing myself to reflect and think about who I am and what I want in life. I think about what I want to accomplish, how to make progress in business, and health, and how I can learn to be happy just being me. It's easy to point at our flaws. But how often do we recognize all of our strengths? all our good qualities, and positive things about ourselves? Speak confidence into yourself and spend time with good people who add to your life. 

Here's some questions I constantly ponder. 

How can I become more organized? What will help me make more sales and grow my business? What does success look like? What can I do to improve my systems? how much money would I like to make this month, this year? How often will I commit to exercising a week? What will my workout consist of? What habits will condition me to stay consistent and disciplined? What do I need to accomplish today? What are distractions? How can I use my time more purposeful? Who or what can help me succeed? 

Who are the people who add happiness and support to my life? What healthy foods do I want to eat? What foods do I want to cut down on? who are the people I want to spend my time with? How will I grow in integrity and spiritual disciplines? How will I practice meditation and affirmations daily? What will make me feel happier in life? What will help me manage my thoughts and emotions? How will I handle stress? What changes do I want to make? What would I like to see in my life in the short and long term? What or who are distractions? What sacrifices might I have to make? What are the hard things that I need to do even if I don't feel like it? What resources will help me gain knowledge? How can I make better use of my time? 

Holistic health is something I always advocate for. We need to be intentional of our habits. We need to surround ourselves with the right people. We need to focus on growing in virtues to become better versions of ourselves. To be more patient, kind, understanding, and better communicators. We get caught up with circumstances that we can’t control rather than controlling our thoughts, emotions, and how we respond. We are in charge of our inner character, our morals, ethics, and how we treat each other.

Life gets challenging. There isn't always easy answers to hard problems. Regardless of what circumstance you find yourself in, if we can love God, ourselves, and others, I think we're on the right path. There's a voice in me that keeps pushing me to become more. To fight for what's meaningful. To work hard and become more. To control our emotions, to develop a stronger mind and self-talk. To create space for meditation, prayer, and rest. 

Apply gratitude, patience, and awareness. The more time you put into a craft, relationship, career, education, etc, the more it tends to produce. So it only makes sense to invest in things that are valuable to you, because we only have so much time in a day. Invest in yourself. Invest your time & money. Invest in healthy relationships. Invest in what's important to you. Take care of those who are important to you.

Money doesn't buy happiness but it can be used for good
But it can be used to help others
It can be used to take care of others
Work hard so you have money to bless others

It seems we all have our personal challenges we face. Even if life doesn't go exactly how we expected, it's okay and I believe that we can get through these times. You are stronger than you think, you're extremely powerful, keep going, keep fighting and do what it takes to be your best self. Ease and comfort are a threat to progress. Do what's right and not what's easy.

Become unstoppable
Become relentless
Fight for the life you want

Put in the thought, time, work, and intention into following through with your goals. Without goals we are aimless and don't make much progress. Productivity requires focus, action, and commitment to stay consistent with self-development. Eating healthy and exercising for one day doesn't show results. Long-term habits equal long-term gains of health. Transformation and change happen with discipline + consistency. 

if you were to track how much time we've truly spent in meditation, in self-improvement, in physical exercise, and taking care of our mind, body, and soul, many of us would see that our time is invested elsewhere. 

We need to relearn empathy. With empathy comes understanding. With empathy, people feel heard and seen.

No man or woman is responsible for your happiness. You must take responsibility for your own happiness. I don't think you should wait till you have XYZ, until you feel happiness. I believe you can choose and decide to be happy & grateful for even the smallest blessings.

You can choose to think positively or negatively. Yes, you can gain better control of your thoughts and emotions. It starts with believing that you can.

Stop allowing your anger, anxiety, depression, and negative emotions take control of you. You control you. And when you don't control yourself well.. apologize to those you hurt and forgive yourself. 

You can choose to complain about stressors, or you can start working towards finding solutions. You can choose to look at what everyone else is doing, or you can put your head down and grind working on yourself and your own personal development..

You must fight and manifest what you want in life. It's easy to get discouraged when it feels like life isn't going your way. But it is in this challenge that God is sanctifying and teaching us to become whole, full, and abundant within ourselves. 

I watched a video of a guy training in the gym by himself. He said, look around. There's no one here cheering me on. No one here to encourage me. I am my own best friend, and I will celebrate myself, and discipline myself. If you want love and happiness in your life, we must learn to first give that to yourself. And to some degree I don't think we ever fully reach this highest form of self-actualization. There is always the potential for more within us. 

Whether or not people recognize or acknowledge your personal development, transformation, and positive change, it don't matter. You don't become a better person to gain approval or attention. You become the best version of you for you. You take full accountability and responsibility for making better choices. You push yourself to become stronger so you can be proud of yourself. You become your best self so you have more to give and serve others. You become more abundant to take care of those who are important to you.

It's so weird how we can treat others with kindness and yet struggle to direct that towards ourselves. There is an infinite capacity and potential for us to become better. I really do think it stems from truly focusing on loving yourself, trusting yourself, believing in yourself... and from there you will begin to make better choices that increase your abundance and mental strength. 

I was sort of thinking of pregnant women. Like mothers actually avoid smoking, drinking, and start to eat healthy because they want the best for their child. I know it's weird, but pretend you're pregnant. This is super weird for guys to even fathom. Imagine there’s a baby within you that you need to nurture. If u had a baby in you, wouldn't you treat it with the highest care, and protection and provide it with the health it needs? 

What are your needs? What are healthy things you can do to take care of yourself, love yourself, and find peace and healing? If you’re not feeling well, perhaps it’s your way of telling yourself what you need to feel better, and instead of looking for someone else to give it to you, find ways to direct that love, approval, nurture, validation and kindness to yourself.

Surround yourself with people who add a sense of health. If people do not add, increase, support or challenge you to become better, the answer is pretty easy.. Who are the one's who are there in your corner when you're down? Who are the one's who will take the time to listen? Who are the one's who will tell it to you straight?

Belief can change your inner and outer world. Believe that things can and will get better. Believe you'll find those who will treat you the way you deserve. Believe that God has our best interests and plans for us. Speak the words you need to hear for yourself.

Stop focusing so much on what others are doing. Invest in yourself and what you're doing. Unless it's to observe, learn, and grow in ideas, you should be using your time to work on what's important to you. Focus on what will better you. What do you need to do to be proud of yourself for today? What or who will fill you with energy? Stop complaining, stop avoiding, and do what needs to get done. It doesn't matter if anyone recognizes you. Hard work pays off. 

I'm good at encouraging and supporting others, but when it comes to myself, I find that I sometimes break down. I can doubt myself. I can get paralyzed with discouragement. I can get disappointed when things don't go as expected. It doesn't matter what other people think of you, it only matters what how you see yourself. Our self-worth is not dependent on if others like you or not. Be true to yourself. 

Choose how you will live.
If something isn't the way you want
Take full responsibility for your life
Choose how you will respond
Choose to make the best out of every day
Speak the affirmations you need to hear
Believe in yourself and you can become the very best version of yourself
There is always potential and room for you to become even more
Manage your inner life, and maximize the time you have
Pour love into yourself so you have more to give
Savor the moments and quality time you have with those you love

If people don’t see you for who you are, It doesn't make you any less. you can choose who you want to be. We all have our issues, bad habits, areas of improvement, and weaknesses. These are opportunities and areas in our life where we can grow. The goal isn't being perfect. The goal is making progress. The goal is making atomic micro habits of healthy change that are moving us in the right direction.

Do what it takes to heal. Do what it takes to truly treat yourself with love and kindness. Accept things you cannot change. Take responsibility for yourself and what is in your control. Whatever you might be going through, you'll be okay, take a deep breath, you'll be fine, keep working towards becoming your best-self! Keep going. You got this!