Monthly Archives: March 2018

Welcome back!

As a recap, here’s what we’ve learned about making our destiny our reality:

Claim your destiny. It’s a vital part of God’s plan for our larger community. Every time a destiny is fulfilled, the world advances.

Begin or begin again. No matter what comes after, once you take that first step – or dare to try again – you’ll build momentum, gain support from unexpected places, and encounter divine assistance.

Create defensible space. Not everyone will be in favor of your new life. You can’t leave your destiny exposed and at risk. You need a safety zone around it so that any fires that come will sweep around rather than tear through.

Claim your resurrection power. The resurrection wasn’t a one-time deal and there’s no earthly problem you could possibly have that He can’t overcome. I know too many stories of miracles to believe otherwise.

Find healthy support. Everyone needs the benefit of wise counsel and encouragement from people they can trust. One positive voice can be enough to power you through any turbulence you might encounter and see you safely through to the other side.

Unshackle yourself from the past. Every day you wake up you’re given a chance to create yourself anew. You won’t be able to make progress if the weight of the past has you stuck in place. Things you went through  or mistakes that you made may have permanent consequences, but they do not define who you are permanently.

Discern the vision for the future. Your dreams come from God and are how He directs you towards what you’re meant to do. It’s easy for those dreams to get buried under burdens or obligations. But if you get still and quiet, you’ll hear your dreams whisper that they have been waiting for you all along.

Chart your course. Planning your destiny requires knowledge of the terrain, an understanding of current environmental conditions, and a map that will get you where you want to go.

Set a sustainable pace. Create a mindful, strategic plan for minimizing any potential negative impact, by setting a pace that you realistically sustain over time. Building your destiny at the expense of your health or your family defeats the purpose.

Show up and work your plan. This is the step when your destiny finds life or is relegated to the scrap heap of what could have been. All that’s left to do is show up and carry out the plan.

Overcome challenges. Sometimes the greatest resistance you’ll encounter happens right before a major breakthrough. When you are birthing something new for God the dark forces don’t want you to succeed. Problems are not necessarily a sign of doing something wrong, they can be a sign of doing something very right.

Finish the race. After everything it’s taken to reach this point, the only way to fail is to quit. You’re right on the verge of enjoying the fruits of your labor. You’ve faithfully sowed the seeds of your destiny and it is time for your bountiful harvest.

Friends I hope you have enjoyed this teaching series. It’s been an honor to have you here with me. I am praying that your amazing destiny makes your life complete, and our world a better place. From my heart to yours, forever and always, Namaste!

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There isn’t much work left to do now. Eventually, the race will end! The finish line is in sight. After everything it’s taken to reach this point, the only way to fail is to quit. The journey has changed you and transformed your life. You’ve survived some arduous challenges. You’ve persevered when others gave up. You stayed true to God and faithful to your gift. Now you’re right on the verge of enjoying the fruits of your labors. You’ve faithfully sowed the seeds of your destiny and you’re about to reap a bountiful harvest. This is an exciting time!

All that’s left to do now is make regular progress checks to be sure the course you’ve charted is still the one that will get you across the finish line. Don’t be afraid to discard parts of the plan that are no longer relevant. As you and your destiny grow and evolve, God will bless you with new ideas and new resources. Make adjustments and incorporate any new direction into the overall plan. Continue to honor your sustainable pace as much as possible. Similar to your start-up phase, the final hours of building your destiny may require you to temporarily live out of balance. Keep repeating the steps for success we’ve already talked about, as many times as is necessary to reach your goal. If something unexpected happens and significant delays are unavoidable, get back to your destiny as soon as you can and pick up where you left off. You’ve already demonstrated long term sustained progress and shown that you have what it takes to see things all the way through.

Friends, our world needs your destiny. You’re equipped now with the tools to make it your reality. Don’t give up in the final hour. Keep running and you will eventually finish the race God called you to. I wish you God’s abundant providence to power you all the way across the finish line. No regrets!!

Until next time, I’ll be praying for you to start visualizing running through the tape and claim your victory.

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Along the way we will face obstacles and resistance. If we are realistic about the inevitable challenges, we will be better prepared to overcome them when they arise. We may need to do a new round of realigning relationships, reallocating time, or revising the budget. We may need to temporarily push ourselves harder than ever to break through the barrier before us. People may appoint themselves our adversary. Previous advocates may do a complete reversal and abruptly start trying to tear us down. Financial challenges can leave us scrambling to meet basic expenses, let alone invest in our destiny. Illness or loss may come and leave us reeling, ripped loose from the moorings we once knew. Logistics may frazzle us to a breaking point. Time may become the scarcest commodity of all. We may question ourselves, our destiny, our sanity. We may seriously entertain the notion that it just isn’t worth all the extra work and turmoil. If you hit that point, you are not alone, a lot of us have felt the same way. We worked our way out of the stress and the mess by taking a break and shifting our attention elsewhere until we could regain our bearings. We thoughtfully considered how to overcome each obstacle. Then we grabbed our hard hat and lunch pail and showed back up, to work hard once again. The changes we have to make to work through this difficult phase will not be permanent. We can be confident that whatever pain we are going through right now is temporary.

When we are birthing something new for God, the dark forces don’t want us to succeed. The greatest resistance we encounter can happen right before a major breakthrough. Problems are not necessarily a sign of doing something wrong, they can be a sign that we are doing something very right. Just because we have a new direction and increased self-awareness, it doesn’t mean our problems go away. In fact, they can actually get worse. The greater our destiny is, the harder the devil will fight against it. He will try to distract you, scare you, frustrate you, shame you, and wear you down, to get you to quit. If that doesn’t work, he’ll sometimes make one last major stand in an attempt to send you screaming in the opposite direction. He does this because he is God’s adversary. The last thing the devil wants to see is another piece of God’s kingdom being built here on the earth. If he can bully you into quitting, he’s won. He is the master of broken dreams and broken hearts. But you hold the ultimate advantage. You are a child of God. You have the Divine Warrior Spirit within you. God is sovereign ruler of the universe, the devil is not.

The devil likes to mess with you and make you think he holds more power than he actually does. When you rise up and take a stand on holy ground against him, he’ll back down. When he sees you can’t be lured away from or thrown off the road of your destiny no matter what, when he sees you have more staying power than he does, he will move on to someone else. This is not an easy or a pretty process to go through. Most likely you’ll emerge from it with some battle scars. Think about the story of Joseph in the Bible. He was thrown into a pit by his own brothers, he suffered betrayal, hatred, deceit, and multiple attempts to rip his destiny away from him. His scars became badges of honor because the devil couldn’t defeat him. It can be like that for you too. When you claim God’s power and protection, the forces of heaven stand alongside you and ensure that ultimately, you’re going to win. God doesn’t just give us back what we lost. He makes the enemy pay for messing with us in the first place. Stay faithful like Joseph, and one day you’ll be freed from the traps that were set for you, and you’ll discover that suddenly you’re standing firmly upon holy ground.

Until next time, I’ll be praying for you to see the difficulties you are enduring right now as the prelude to the flourishing finish of this chapter of your life. Keep the faith!

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Another reason to keep working hard early on is because it’s the time when you’ll typically experience minimal obstacles. If you’ve done a good job of not broadcasting your plans then you’re still running in stealth mode. The beautiful thing about that is it delays the inevitable phase when everyone starts to weigh in with their opinion about what you’re doing. At some point, you’re likely to become the subject of talk around the water cooler at work, and the holiday dinner table in the family. We’ve already discussed why some people react negatively rather than supportively, and those reasons still hold true. You’re going to have to rely on that wisdom to get through the phase when people start talking. Remember that you’re just the subject of the day. The phase will pass and they will move on to other subjects. Remember for some its about the excitement of the gossip, rather than truly having any kind of investment in the topic itself. Most of them won’t possess any knowledge about the industry you’re working in anyway, so not only are their words unsupportive, they’re uninformed. Stick with what you know in your heart and what you’ve learned from others in your field about the work you’re doing. The longer you can operate under the radar, the more of your destiny you’re going to be able to build without unwanted scrutiny and unsolicited advice.

At some point you will have run through your initial resources and knowledge. Then it will be time to replenish the supply. Breakthroughs in progress can be made when we take the necessary steps to gain knowledge and build skills. Even if money and time are tight, chances are excellent that you’ll be able to find options for taking the next step forward. Online classes and seminars allow people with geographical or scheduling restrictions to learn anytime they want without ever leaving home. Some even find online classes more productive; for example, 66% of students report that digital learning improves studying efficiency. Many of these options are low cost, and some are free. Perhaps you’re an artist and you’re doing a great job of creating paintings. You’ve set a goal to have a showing in a gallery, and you’re halfway through the number of pieces you wanted to produce before you began approaching local businesses with your work. You’re masterful at your craft, but you have no idea how to deal with the business aspects of your industry. Look for local or online classes in marketing, negotiations, entrepreneurship, or business management. Of course, should you want to some of these processes can be outsourced, for example you could look to improve your marketing strategies by looking at employing a marketing agency. You might even find that some agencies are happy to educate you with some knowledge that you may be lacking, after all it’s your business venture they are also wanting to flourish too. Finishing college or attending graduate school may not be the level of education that’s required to succeed in your field. Tailor what you need to learn with the options, time, and money available to you. If there is absolutely no money or time for classes, go to the library and check out books or read magazines related to your industry to learn more about it. Even if art, for example, is a hobby, the idea of attending an online art class is not out of the question, especially if skills can be learnt along the way. There are many online courses, but it’s about finding the right one for you.

Ask around to see who is a success in your field. You may run across a few folks who are territorial about their achievements, but you’ll run into far more who are generally happy to serve as mentors. Many of us enjoy sharing what we’ve learned and encouraging other people to make their dreams come true too. We also typically know several other key people who are well connected and willing to help out. Find one of these people and take them to lunch. It will be some of the best money you ever spend, and the most individualized of workshops you will ever attend. If you live in a remote area, then look online for credible people who have achieved the success you are working towards. In today’s ever evolving business climate, more and more people are establishing an online presence and are looking to connect with their fans and customers. When people think about having an online presence, the first thing that comes to their mind is social media. Social media is becoming vastly popular amongst individuals who are looking for ways to connect and engage with a variety of different people, and that’s why businesses have decided to implement something similar too. As a result, you will need to have a social media strategy that is effective, and if that means looking for the best instagram growth service that you can find, in order to reach and expand your account to the right people, then that is what you should do. Sounds good, right? But this is just a handful of things that you can do to help maximize your online presence. A lot of these folks offer free e-mail newsletters that contain a wealth of knowledge that can prove to be exactly the education you are looking for. Regardless of which method you choose, finding training that advances your skills ensures you build progressive forward momentum.

Until next time, I’ll be praying for you to have fun exploring options for creatively learning what you need to take things to the next level.

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As for your own mindset, get up each day with a hard hat and lunch pail mentality. That means getting up expecting to put in the time and effort necessary to build your destiny. Every day will be different. Some days the best thing you can do is take a break and rest your mind and body. Other days it will mean you get up early for a full day, plus however many hours it takes late into the night to finish the task. Learn to enjoy this kind of variety rather than getting bogged down in carrying out the perfect daily plan. No two days will be the same and that’s half the fun. Give yourself the gift of realistic expectations or you’ll hate the journey and never reach your destination. Stay flexible and resilient and there will come a tipping point when you’ve made enough progress that you know you’re going to make it. At that point you’ll shift from feeling like you’re always scrambling to make everything work, to feeling honored to see your project through to completion.

Rapid progress can be made when we leverage the resources we already possess and stay alert for the opportunities that arise. Perhaps an event in your calendar will get postponed and free up an afternoon for you. Perhaps a bill will end up being less than you first thought and you’ll have a bit of extra money to use for your venture. One thing you can count on is that God will send people across your path who will enthusiastically support you and offer to help. You’ll end up making connections you never could have anticipated, that will move you much closer to your goals much more quickly than you could have accomplished on your own. Stay mindful not to focus so intensely on the work at hand, that you miss these critical moments of Divine Assistance. Sending kindred spirits to us is part of how God makes His supernatural power manifest in our lives. When we do all we can to help ourselves, we can trust Him to take care of the rest. Part of how He does that is by sending us people who will do the things for us that we can’t do alone.

Work backwards from your ultimate goal and break it down into yearly, monthly, and daily goals. Breaking down the larger goals into those kinds of manageable steps ensures you’ll stay on course. You’ve already put in so much prep work you don’t need to labor over this particular point. Have fun challenging yourself with daily goals and learning what works for you.

Until next time, I’ll be praying for you to break out the hard hat, fill up the lunch pail, and have fun putting your plans into action!

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At this point all the preparations have been made and all that’s left to do is show up and carry out the plan. This is where people’s destiny finds life or is relegated to the scrap heap of what could have been. If you get this far and don’t put in the work, you’ll regret it. Someday you’ll look back and be really disappointed in yourself, or you’ll be angry about wasting such a great plan. Worse yet, you’ll have a flash of insight about what life could have been like for you and your family if only you’d have finished what you set out to do. Now is the time to fire up your self-discipline and make good things happen.

Resolve not to allow anyone to interfere in your destiny again. By now you’ve made amends, and cleaned up the messes you’ve made. You’ve let go of the pain others have caused you, mended fences, adjusted boundaries, realigned relationships, or walked away. You’re starting with a fresh clean slate, and this time around you’re well equipped to keep it that way. The past has been left behind, you’ve shoved off from shore, and from here on out you get to choose who accompanies you on the trip. Don’t take someone along who will deliberately poke holes in the raft or throw the paddles overboard. Take people along who respect the river and will work in tandem with you to navigate the rapids and arrive safely at your destination.

Until next time, I’ll be praying for you to have faith in yourself, your plan, and the God who gave you the dream in the first place.

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There is one other critical element of setting a sustainable pace we need to consider. Setting reasonable expectations for ourselves regarding how quickly we’ll bring our destiny into reality can prevent a lot of unnecessary mental strain. We need to take the long range view and focus on steady forward progress rather than overnight success. We can do everything else totally right but if we mess up in the area of setting expectations, we’ll end up demoralizing ourselves. We can have the best attitude, support, and plan, but if we crush ourselves under the relentless pressure to succeed immediately, we’ll end up quitting. If we quit, we guarantee our failure. Don’t stress yourself out unnecessarily. If you are diligently putting in your best good faith effort, that’s enough. Everything happens in God’s time and in its own season. You can relax, because you don’t control the outcome anyway. God does. It’s like gardening. You plant the seeds, and then let God work things through to their natural conclusion in His timing, not yours. The only sustainable pace is measured and relaxed, so you might as well get used to it early on.

Until next time, I’ll be praying for you to set truly realistic goals for yourself, and then relax and enjoy the trip! 🙂

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While in pursuit of your destiny, you don’t want to ruin your own health. Some of us with Type-A personalities have to learn this lesson the hard way. Sometimes it takes a serious health scare to get our attention and slow us down to a more sane pace of living. The human body was made for cycles of rest, work, and play. It was not designed for non-stop effort. Chronically pushing it beyond the pace of what your particular body can tolerate spells disaster. Eat well, exercise, and get enough sleep to feel rested. If your destiny requires you to put in extra-long hours for a period of time, that’s fine. But take a break when you need to and know when to get back to a more normal routine. You want to be alive and well to enjoy the fruits of your labors.

One essential way to conserve energy is to ignore distractions. You don’t have time anymore for other people’s pettiness or squabbles. If you’ve been involved in drama, exit stage left on the run! Nothing will throw a person off course quicker than drama. Some people lose endless amounts of time because they are entangled in problems that aren’t even their own. Unless it involves a beloved friend or family member and your direct involvement is absolutely necessary, let people fight their own battles. We do bear a responsibility to protect our loved ones. However, if the person’s crisis is self-generated and there’s no real danger involved, it may be best to just stay out of it. Some people will never learn to make better choices until they begin experiencing their own consequences. We actually do them more harm than good by bailing them out of their endless scrapes. Give them the dignity to solve their own problems. It is not your job to fix other people’s lives, it is your job to fulfill your God given destiny.

Another major energy drain is general negativity. You don’t need to hear all that’s wrong in the world right now. You need to be thinking about the positive. Better yet, this can be a vibrant time of celebrating all that is going well in your world. You can’t afford to have someone put doubts in your head, tell you that you’re crazy, or try to subtly convince you that you’re in the wrong for even trying. Attitudes are contagious and you want to make sure you aren’t unintentionally adopting anyone else’s discontented worldview. You’ve carefully crafted your thinking and approach to your destiny, so guard that well, by not hanging around negative people or situations and absorbing their unhappiness. A few people enjoy the attention that stirring up trouble brings them, but they don’t realize that their reputation spirals further downwards with every incident that takes place. Others love to gossip, and live for the wagging of their own tongue. You can end up in the middle of a mess before you know it. Don’t take this particular form of manipulative bait, or fall into the trap like prey.

Until next time, I’ll be praying for you to map out a plan that protects your health and provides you with the greatest degree of well-being possible.

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Your ability to stick with a budget of both time and money, and cooperate with your family about the logistical choices you’ve made, is a major predictor of your success. One wonderful aspect of pursuing your destiny is that normally you won’t have anyone standing over you making you be accountable. It’s all on you. However, that can be a downside for people who need structure and direction to help them get things done. If this is your situation, think about enlisting the help of an accountability partner, coach, or mentor to regularly check in with regarding your progress. When you’re rafting you learn to play the current and let it do a lot of the work for you. That means you don’t paddle across it sideways, row backwards, or pull the raft over to the shoreline repeatedly. You strategically position yourself so the current carries you where you want to go. Unless you’re on an unusually calm or windy stretch, the paddling isn’t about moving the raft, it’s about guiding it.

In the same way, you want to build forward momentum with your destiny and ride it for all it’s worth. As your destiny develops a current of it’s own it will carry you steadily along, as long as you don’t paddle upstream against the realities of your finances, time, energy, or logistical obligations. The only way you’ll create favorable conditions is through the self-discipline of accepting conditions for what they are and not flailing pointlessly against them. There is only so much of you to go around. Invest your energy wisely. It is a very tall order to juggle career, family, and personal well-being while building your God given destiny. Huge kudos to you for reaching this point and going for it! Just like on the river, you’ll need to learn how to conserve energy when and how you can. One of the sweetest parts of rafting is jumping into the calm stretches of water, letting the gentle swimmer’s rapids carry you over the boulders which are submerged deep below. It brings a whole new meaning to lying on your back and watching the clouds go by, when you float with your feet downstream and let the current carry you along the natural course of the river. It’s a time of rest and play, which are vitally important to the success of the trip. After all, nobody would go rafting if it wasn’t fun.

Make sure you conserve your energy by taking time out from all the hard work and having some of those refreshing swimming-in-calm-waters times with your friends, family, and in your own personal way. Go to a ballgame, take the kids to the park, play with the dogs, surprise your spouse with a candlelight dinner, or whatever else will rejuvenate you and build the most important relationships in your life. Remember a huge reason you are doing this is because of them. If they are supporting you while you build your destiny, if your spouse is gracious enough to back you, and your kids and friends are cheering you on, then you owe it to them to be self-disciplined enough to build in break times with them. You want to look back and say you did right by people when you built your destiny. You want your support people to feel as good about the process you followed as they do about the finished product.

Until next time, I’ll be praying for you to block out some time in the calendar with friends and family, and then stick with those plans!

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After you’ve charted your course, you’ll want to set a pace that can be sustained over time. The effort and energy required will vary depending on your task at the time. No whitewater rafting trip involves paddling nonstop at maximum effort. You spend a lot of time on the water conserving energy and paddling your hardest only when you really need to, otherwise people get exhausted. If someone is spent and unable to paddle it weakens that side of the boat, which can be dangerous depending on the size and complexity of the rapids. Don’t weaken your efforts or endanger your destiny by paddling full tilt the second the raft gets on the water. You’ve charted your course, and other than dealing with the unexpected, you’ve already plotted out the spots that will require more effort than others. Give yourself time to settle into the raft, get a feel for conditions, and trust your plan enough to follow it.

It is true that great achievements can sometimes mean we are out of balance for a short time. But those times need to be truly temporary. Building our destiny at the expense of our health or our family defeats the purpose. It may be that your start-up phase requires the most adjustment from you and your family. Time, logistics, and finances may all need to shift. But if you’ve done a mindful, strategic job of thinking things all the way through, you’ll have come up with a plan to minimize the impact. This is when self-discipline becomes a defining characteristic of your life. Some folks never come up with a plan to achieve their goals. Even fewer have a plan and do what it takes to get started. Even less get underway and stick with it when it gets hard. That means the self-disciplined person’s changes of success are pretty darn good! It’s going to take discipline to follow your plan. You’re going to roll out of bed some days, see the next rapid on the map and declare “not today!” That’s fine, breaks are absolutely necessary, but get right back to it as quickly as you reasonably can or you’ll lose both your focus and your progress.

Until next time, I’ll be praying for you to wisely discern the pace that genuinely works best for you at this point in the journey.