A person I know believes every person in her family hates her because she believed her mother hated her.  When her mother passed away she found a note in her baby book where her mom explained she really didn’t want a girl.  Her mind stopped on that phrase and it has increased to everyone hating her.  What she fails to mention is the rest of her life.  Her mother may not have wanted girls but she got two, both of whom knew the boys were favored as they were growing up, and both who were raised and loved just the same.  One sister loves her family and spend time with them every year, the other shuns them and blames them for her troubles.

When you put bad, evil, and scary lies into your head, what do you believe will come out of your thoughts.  If you watch only news TV, Fox or CNN, do you think you will be more or less likely to respond hatefully to the other sides arguments?  You will more than likely be aggressive toward anyone who does not share your point of view.  I am not saying you need to stop watching the news, that is a start, but not what I am saying.  What I am saying is, you need to be aware of what you are putting in your mind.

1. Get control of your thoughts.  When you find yourself dwelling on an untruth or something you don’t want to think about write that thought on a 3×5 card and write lie or un-truth or stop or whatever will help you realize that is a bad thought.  On the other side of the card write the truth and start reading that and putting it in your mind.
2. Change the channel.  Watching television can depress you many studies show.  And others show that stopping can make you feel better about your world.  I assume if your kid sits on the couch and watches one man have sex with different women until he finds the one he likes (The Bachelor) he or she will assume that is the best way to find their soul mate and maybe you will too.
3. Read good books.  This is a hard one, because over 40% of all Americans didn’t read books unless they are for work or school.  From my own life I know most people read infrequently at best.
• When you read look at the comments, praise, bibliography, or other content to find other authors to read.
• Don’t get caught up trying to read crap. I started trying to read from the Great Books of the Western World and realized I didn’t need to know that material. My brother ate it up, but it is not for me.
•  Don’t overwhelm yourself.  Just start by reading ten minutes a day and go from there.
4. Don’t listen to negative people. Friends and family are a trap.  Spend as little time with the negative ones as you can.  I know this is hard when your father is a world renowned cynic and you feel obligated to see him every week, but you have to take responsibility for yourself. If he is tearing you down then you need to cut his time down to a minimum just to show respect.  If a friend is this way then reduce the time you spend with them and eventually just stop seeing them.  It isn’t a marriage, you don’t have to have a reason to get new friends.

Start becoming aware of what goes into your mind and take control of it.

When I was in my 20′s I spent four years in the US Navy.  While I was on the ship I did everything I could to grow as a leader.  I learned all the systems and procedures.  I worked on every qualification I could get.  But I neglected on thing, studying for the advancement exams.  While I was busy learning about my ship and everything on it, my peers were studying for advancement.  I knew so much about the ship my higher ranked peers had to stand watches under my authority because of my qualifications.  They did outrank me, but they did not have the respect attributed to the watches I stood.

Leadership isn’t about money, it is about respect.  I couldn’t learn anything from Donald Trump because I don’t respect him.  If people don’t respect you, you can’t lead them.  Knowing where you are in life leads you to growth. Even if you work in the mail room, learning your trade, doing your job well, and treating people with respect will allow you to lead people.

The flip side is where are you mentally.  I got out of the Navy because I knew I could do more with my life outside of the structured environment.  Many of the guys who advanced ahead of me stayed in because they saw themselves as thriving within the structure.  My brother-in-law just retired after 20 years in the Navy, and he thrived not only physically but mentally in that structure.  He was also a leader of men and women.  His list of accomplishments was longer for things he did outside of his duties than within his duties because he also knew that the Navy was not his be-all-end-all.

No matter where you are in life, you can become a leader if you want to.  It may take time, it will take learning, but when you wake up in ten years and you realize you aren’t where you started it will all be worth it.

When you find people doing what you want to do get as close to them as you can. For me it was tapes and cd’s, but today you can get blog posts, and podcasts from just about every type of business in the world.  Don’t just try and imitate these people.  If you try to “Fake it, till you make it” you’ll end up just going in circles at best, broke and discouraged at worst.  What you want to do is learn from them and pay the price of personal growth.  You may not see the change today or tomorrow, but one year from now you will see a difference, five years from now you will look back at the person you are now and not know that person.  But it starts with finding people to learn from and applying the principles to your life.

Give back what you learn.  One of my goals is to personally mentor two people every year and challenge them to pass that on to someone else.  If you are a leader I believe you should pass on what you know. If you are an aspiring leader find someone to come along side you and learn together.

To turn it around we have to take responsibility for ourselves.  When you realize you are the only person you can control and you take responsibility for that, you will begin to change.  You can only control you and no one else can control you, unless you let them. Chose what you watch, chose what you listen to, chose who you hang around, and you will see a difference in your life.  When I stopped watching the political news everyday I began to see a change in the way I thought about politics and people on the other side.  Instead of thinking of them as stupid or bad or dumb, I began to see their point of view. I also realized that most politicians are just talkers who have no goal but to stay in power, so now I have no party affiliation. Sorry for the digression, but don’t miss my point.  When I started taking control of what went into my mind, my thoughts changed.

Paul ends his letter to the Philippians by telling them to think about the good things,

Finally, my friends, keep your minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper. Don’t ever stop thinking about what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise. You know the teachings I gave you, and you know what you heard me say and saw me do. So follow my example. And God, who gives peace, will be with you. (Philippians 4:8-9 CEV)

Put the good stuff in your head and the best stuff will come out of you.

First of all has to be books.  We are a book buying society.  Whether or not we read the books we buy is another story, and that is part of the self-discipline problem.  If you buy a book to help you then at least take the time to read it.  You can read five pages a day and complete a 200 page book in a month and a half, so reading is not hard.

Next you can get apps on you computer or phone to help teach you discipline.  I have an app that I enter every bite of food that goes in my mouth on.  It tells me how many calories i need, what I take in, and how much exercise I have done.  I use it because I needed discipline in that area, and it is great.

Find someone to keep you accountable.  If you can’t hire a coach then get a friend, but make sure he or she is willing to ask you tough questions, and make sure you are ready to give truthful answers.  If you are not willing to be honest, you will never do this.

The bible says Knowledge begins with respect for the Lord. but Foolish people hate wisdom and discipline. (Proverbs 1:7 NCV) Get smart, learn to discipline yourself, and get growing.

Don’t Try To Do To Much. You can not change your entire life at the beginning of the year so don’t try to.  You are going to set one maybe two life goals for the year and one personal goal and that is it.  Life goals can be:

• Stop Smoking
• Stop Drinking
• Eat Better
• Get healthy
• lose weight
• You get the point

Personal Goals can be:

• Give Blood Regularly
• Save More Money
• Volunteer more
• Pray or read a scripture
• These are things that affect not just you but others as well

Sticking to a few things will pay dividends over the next year.  You can keep track of your progress easier and you do not feel overwhelmed.  If loosing weight is your goal I would suggest that and 1 or 2 personal goals should be your combination.

Get Someone To Keep You Accountable. This can be with people you share a goal with or people who have completely different goals.  The main thing is that this person or people will ask you the tough questions, and you will be honest with them. I coached two women who were supposed to be accountability partners.  While they did ask each other if they were keeping the goals, come to find out they never challenged each other when they failed to hold-on to their goals.

Experiment With New Ways of Seeing Your Goal.  Are your goals really your goals?  If you are trying to do stuff you hate then it is better to find out who you are than try to change who you are to fit the goals you think you need to have. (That’s a long sentence, make sure you read it right.)

Write Your Goals Out.  This seems simple at first, but writing your goals down will help cement them in your subconscious.  I rewrite my goals at least once a month and try to do it every couple of weeks.  I write them in the present tense so it sounds like I have already accomplished them.  I don’t know if this helps in the long run, but it does help me visualize them better.

Read Your goals Daily.  reading is like writing.  repetition gets them into your thinking so your mind can work over the ways to accomplish them.  This may be the hardest part of the whole process, because it is the easiest part.  When you read your goals they become real to you and when they become real you will accomplish much more.

Do Something Every Day.  Even a small step is one step closer to your goal.

Take A Big Step.  While small step will make up most of your effort.  If you have an opportunity to take that class, or change your workout routine, Do It!  If this one thing can propel you closer to your goal then you need to jump on it with both feet.

Act fast.  If an opportunity arises pertaining to a goal make your decision on it quickly.  Yes or No, it doesn’t matter, but do it quickly.  Then forget it. Accept what you decided and gain strength from it by not rehashing it.

Use Accountability Software and Apps.  Most people have a smart phone of some sort today.  Use them to your advantage not hindrance.  Get an app to keep track of your habits you want to change.  Download Habit Forge, or Focus Booster to your computer.  Find something to keep you focused on the task at hand.

Celebrate your Accomplishments.  You deserve this.  You have worked hard to get where ever you are right now so celebrate that.  Set your celebration markers before you get started.  these should be relational to the goal and at intervals that take effort to get to, but not so much you miss the opportunity.  Celebrations should feel special, and make you feel special for doing what you have done.

Let’s start this year off right, and get those goals accomplished.  You can do what ever you set your mind to and that’s not just a load of crap.  You really can accomplish the goals you have.

When we disciple people we should focus on building up as often as we can.  If we are discipling people who are young in their Christian faith, they will more than likely do things that our church culture will think inappropriate.  Discipleship is a time for building up and correcting, but understanding how to correct without tearing down.  It is the Holy Spirit who will convince them they are doing wrong not you or I.  When we try nd tell people they are doing things wrong they may quit for a short period of time but then restart only to find it is harder to quit the second time.

Encourage those you disciple to search the scriptures for the truth.  remember, “A man convinced against his will, is of the same mind still.” (Dave Ramsey)  If they do not come to the conclusion themselves, it won’t stick.

Churches aren’t meant to make leaders.  Leaders come from discipling new believers  to maturity, not teaching leadership course to people who don’t know Christ very well or stealing leaders from other churches.  That is just a fact.  I love reading leadership books that talk about all the good leaders being somewhere else and how they need to be persuaded to come help us.  While that can be a quick fix and help now, what happens when they are stolen by another church?  Mature leaders who have been discipled in your church will stay with you through thick and thin, and they will make more disciples as they grow.

The church community must be mature.  This is where many churches are struggling today, and it comes from trying to use programs to disciple our people, not people to disciple our people.  We fell into the trap of the quick fix and the pastor who is hands off, and new believers we left to fend for themselves at worse, or given DVD curriculum at best.   We must relearn disciple making and begin to disciple one-on-one.  You know you have a core group of believer you can work with to start the ball rolling.  Two things I recommend, one is Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time <Affiliate Link>this is the book that lays the groundwork for making disciples.  The other is Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ  this is the workbook to go along with the book. Both of these are by Greg Ogden and are great for starting a disciple making program.  I also believe we should not reinvent the wheel.  If something is good and it works, then use it.

Coming from the southern United States we have a saying about being friendly to people we don’t agree with,

It’s easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar.

If you are hard and judgmental to people you disagree with, you will do nothing but reinforce their belief that Christians are jerks. It wasn’t people outside the church that Jesus was harsh with, it was the church leaders that Jesus scolded.  He was friendly and welcoming to those that did not fit into the culture of the day.  He had dinner with the sinners and tax collectors, and instead of judging them he welcomed them and judged the leaders who said he was doing wrong.

Jesus talked to the woman at the well, who was not only a woman normal men of that day would not talk to, she was also a different nationality the Jews thought were dirty and hated.  Jesus loved her, and was very straight forward with her about her sin.  He gave her real life, but none of this could have ever happened if he closed his mind to people his culture said was less than human.

If you grew up hearing that God was waiting to strike you down, and punish you for anything bad you did, I want to urge you to read the New Testament and see the love Jesus showed.  Being friendly is a trait we should all have as Christians and not just on Sunday Morning.

We are bombarded with information and advertisements.  what you see many times is a blur, unless the ad is about something you are looking for.  Marketers know that you see what you want to. If you set up a website and want to advertise you know that what you see is not what others looking at you site see.  In Your life, you see what you want to. If you believe your boss is a jerk you will see everything he or she does as a behavior leading you to know that you are right. If you believe a certain stereotype about another race, everything you see or hear will steer you toward the deepening of that belief. If you believe all poor people are lazy then that is what you will see.

We are called not to have these general beliefs about anyone.  We are called to love not our friends but also our enemies. Every day I hear Christians say they hate the leaders in congress, or hate the president (present or former you chose). We can’t hate, we must love people whether we agree with them or not. 1 Corinthians 13 says:

  4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

One of the first steps you must take is freeing yourself of beliefs of other people and cultures that are destructive to your growth as a Christian. We have become so caught up in the political name calling we see each night on our news or hear on our radios that we have carried it into our Christian churches, and it must stop. Defend your message, but you must still love the other messenger. When a Christian makes a derogatory statement about someone they disagree with they hurt the church as a whole not the person they are attacking.

We have been called to a higher standard and we have lost site of that. Change the way you think and you can change the way you see things. Paul tells us this in Romans 12

2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Love your neighbor as yourself.