PUSH: Persevere Until Success Happens Through Prayer (15 page)

When he returned from his trip, the father asked his son, “Well, how was your trip? Did you see how poor people live?”

The son replied, “Oh yeah, I saw that we have one dog and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us; they have friends to protect them.”

The boy’s father was speechless. Then his son added, “Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are.”
⁶²

Isn’t perspective a wonderful thing? It makes us wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have instead of constantly worrying about what we don’t have.

This story demonstrates how life can be perceived in much different ways. Perception is contextually created through our past experiences, which color our current experiences. Perception has to do with perspective, or how we see things and view life. In order for us to really benefit from our experience, sometimes we need to be able to see our lives and situations from eyes that are as pure as a child’s. That is how God sees. God sees your life from the context of a completed work.

If you knew that God’s plan for your life is to cause all things to work together for good (Romans 8:28), would you be willing to do more, to push through setbacks, and to attempt more in spite of the challenges you are currently facing? I have lived long enough to know that life awards and affords us all daily lessons and that nothing comes to us unless God allows it. I have learned to view every circumstance as a blessing from God; the good is an obvious blessing, but as I examine my life retrospectively, many things I perceived as bad somehow all worked together for my good as well. I am sure the same is true for you too.

Seeing life from a child’s perspective simplifies everything. The captioned quote encourages me to put the awe back in my life and to see life from a positive perspective and not a negative one. In writing this section, I took some time to hang out with children. We caught butterflies, laughed at silly things, danced like no one was watching, and lay in the midst of wild flowers pointing out the shape of the clouds. I noticed that they never once talked about how bad the economy was or who did not believe in them, nor how they were going to get the money to pay for their next pair of socks. They absorbed their entire environment with the pureness of their heart and hopefulness of an untainted life.

Our examination of the clouds turned into a discussion of what they wanted to become when they grew up. Without hesitation they began to share, “When I grow up I…” Life had not thrown its curve balls yet, so their perception of selfhood and the unlimited potentiality that was divinely encrypted within their DNA became the context for their aspirations—not the current state of global affairs. If you dare to push through your current challenges with the innocence of a child and the experience of an adult, your proverbial life’s glass will never be half empty, but always half full.

The Chinese language combines two symbols to express our English word
crisis
. One has to do with
danger
and the other with
opportunity
. Hidden within the crises and challenges with which you are currently confronted are opportunities. You alone have the responsibility to perceive them as something that threatens your success, prosperity, hopes, and dreams, or as the coming of a divine opportunity. Refuse to give your personal power away to circumstances and situations. Do not perceive yourself inept. You serve a God who is bigger than your circumstances; One who will empower you with the wisdom to overcome obstacles and to change your setbacks into setups.

In Genesis 26:1-31 Isaac was not only challenged by a global economic crises, but also by social and relational jealousy and opposition. Never once did he give his personal power away, but instead trusted God. The story ends on a high note with Isaac benefiting from his experience. Each challenge pushed him into his ultimate place of blessing. His perception of who God was, who he was, God’s ability, and his ability caused him to triumph.

How do you perceive yourself? Do you allow others to determine your destiny or do you rely on God? Your perception, and yours alone, holds the key to your future.

Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.
—M
ARK
10:15 KJV

E
veryone in the world has two things in common: good habits and bad habits. A habit is a conscious or unconscious activity that we do over and over again. These activities create our destiny. If you are not where you think you should be at this point in your life, check your habits. There are two habits I believe are particularly important to breaking through the success barrier, which most people don’t usually place in the category of “habits.” They are the habits of putting off until tomorrow what can be done today, and not following through— or rather, quitting too soon.

When it comes down to it, I think the very worst of all habits is what I have come to call the “
mañana
(tomorrow) habit,” or procrastination. Procrastination is a very contagious and lethal character disease. Many of us who are infected with this condition may not even be fully aware of it. It took me awhile to put all its pieces together in my own life. When I understood what was at the root of my lack of success in a certain area, it was a big aha moment; and once the culprit was exposed, I could begin terminating it.

For years I battled taking off the extra weight I had acquired from traveling and eating late at night. Unlike most people, who are closet eaters, I am a social eater. Eighty percent of my time is spent in social settings. I can’t resist trying new foods and exploring the creative culinary expressions of internationally acclaimed chefs and restaurants. Nor could I resist any invitation to dine out, no matter what the hour of the night. It’s not that I don’t have a wonderful eating plan and an awesome personal trainer. But once I hit the road, I could not seem to break the habit of social eating and eating late at night. I would repeatedly say to myself, “This week is the last week I am going to eat like this!” I had discipline in all other areas of my life except this one.

This is usually the case with many people. It is that one area you have to conquer. Since acquiring the particularly bad habit of eating late, I often heard myself saying, “This is the last time because
mañana
I will start my new eating plan.” I have had this bad habit for a little while now, and my scale continues to remind me that I have not developed the eating habits of a champion. However, I am on my way. I am taking it one day at a time. The bad news is that it continues to be a daily struggle, at least for now. But the good news is that I’ve learned how to treat it and will teach you how you can kick the
mañana
habit too.

The secret to your success is hidden in your daily routine. Jenny Craig said, “It’s not what you do once in a while, it’s what you do day in and day out that makes the difference.” My secret is simple. I now routinely commit to sticking to my goal for only twenty-four hours—just one, singular, solitary day. And this is what I do
every
day. I woke up this morning and said to myself, “You only have to stick to your eating plan for one day—and today is that day.” I tell myself every morning that all I have to do is manage this one day, and this one day alone. You might be asking, “Is that it?” My response is, “Yes! That’s it!” You can only work on eliminating your bad habits and establishing good habits one day at a time. Tell yourself, “I am going to stop drinking, smoking, lying, stealing, being late for work, overeating for one day—today.” After all, today is all you really have to work with.

The other bad habit I mentioned is the habit of giving up too soon. Napoleon Hill said, “One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.” We have all been guilty of giving up too soon at one time or another. But we can all work on developing the habit of pushing beyond the point of giving up every time we are tempted to quit. When you are tempted to give up, take a deep breath and push yourself to the next level. You can always do just a little more, hang on just a little longer, press in for just one more day. Theodore Roosevelt famously said,

The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly; who know the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who at the best, know the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if they fail, fail while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
⁶³

Don’t let the temptation to procrastinate or quit all together derail you. The only thing you should be putting off until tomorrow is quitting. Switch it around and say
“mañana”
when it comes to throwing in the towel, and then may that tomorrow never come!

Get in the habit of minding your habits one day at a time. Develop successful habits and successful habits will develop you. As Christopher Robin said to Pooh, “You’re braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem. And smarter than you think.” All that is keeping you where you are is a matter of habit. Just think, you could be one habit away from breaking through to your best possible future. Ask yourself, “What is the seed of potential residing in the womb of my habits?” I believe you’ll be astounded by the answer!

Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.
—1 P
ETER
4:1-2 MSG

You’re one happy man when you do what’s right, one happy woman when you form the habit of justice.
—P
SALM
106:3 MSG

T
here lies within each of us a force of power that determines whether we succeed or fail. That force is our decision-making power. Failure, like success, is a matter of choice. Neither success nor failure is the result of a random set of coincidences determined by luck, fate, or right of birth. We are where we are today because of a series of decisions we chose or chose not to make over the course of all our yesterdays. In the timeless words of French philosopher and Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus, “Life is a sum of all your choices.” And in the words of the ageless Professor Dumbledore of Harry Potter
fame, “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
⁶⁴

The desire to succeed at something lies within every person. And just like the grand tree lies asleep within an acorn, so does greatness lie within us all. There is a genius in every person waiting to be born or born again. Through this we face only two options: First, we make the decision to let the genius within remain asleep, or second, we choose to awaken that inner genius. “If you want to make your dreams come true,” writes J. M. Power, “the first thing you have to do is wake up.”

The word
genius
is a Latin word meaning “the guardian spirit of a person, spiritual inclination, wit, inborn nature.”
⁶⁵
Steven Pressfield, author of
The War of Art
, writes, “The Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling.” He goes on to point out that “a writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul’s seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star’s beacon and Polaris.”
⁶⁶

Choosing to awaken your inner genius will lead you through life’s great adventures and on to adventures in greatness. If you are complacent and allow your inner spirit to remain asleep, you will only act when acted upon; your life will be governed by the apathy of an automated stimulus-response and you will create nothing. However, if you choose to be proactive rather than reactive, you will become the Christopher Columbus of your dreams, goals, and vision, with a prosperous horizon forever stretching before you—a horizon of unlimited possibilities.

You are not barred from achieving greatness because of heredity, pedigree, or lack of education. If that were so, Jesus would never have become the Messiah. He was a poor carpenter’s son from an obscure little town who was born in a barn of all places. Like Jesus, you can choose to pursue greatness regardless of where you were born or how you were brought up.