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Have you ever found yourself totally motivated? Have you been so excited about something you have done or you were going to do that you were so full of energy? What about when you were reading a book or heard a quote or sermon? Where did all of your energy go? Did you do something about that motivation or did you just hold it all in? Did someone else benefit from what you learned and what you were so excited about or did you keep it for yourself?

When we get motivated from whatever…either self motivation or others motivating us, that is our cue to do something. It may as simple as writing the feelings down and capturing them. It may be getting out and talking and encouraging others. It may be helping someone with whatever they need. The key is that we get motivated, we need to get busy!

Motivation is our internal self telling our external self to get busy. Some people sing. Some people work out. Some people read. Whatever ever motivates you, use that to fill a need for someone else. Writers get motivated by an idea or a concept and they begin to write. What they write may be something they learned and want to share, but sometimes when others write they are helping themselves better understand things.

Those who play sports are motivated by action. They play sports to entertain others who watch. The spectators are motivated by watching and hoping their team wins. Watching the game feels good because it is a relaxing time and there is an anticipation of something good about to happen.

There is bad motivation and good motivation. We want to focus on the good motivation so that we can make a difference in other people’s lives. Some people who feel strongly about a cause are motivated to share the concern, raise money by having fundraisers and even get out and helping people who need it.

The secret is to not sit to yourself when you are motivated. Share what you have with others. It can be contagious!

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We are in our last three months of the year. It is the fourth quarter. Have you been in the game or on the sidelines? Now is where the rubber meets the road. Are you going to get something done this year that will be more than your regular routine? Are you going to make a change? Are you going to make a difference?

There are 12 weeks before Christmas. One action a week can make a difference. It’s a busy time of year with holidays, but one action a week is all you need to commit to.

We have 90 days left of the year. Every day, you can stop for a few minutes and do something for someone.

There are 24 hours in each of these 90 days. With sleep and grooming that leaves us with 15 hours a day. Yes, we do have to work and go to school, but what about the other time? Most of us have 5 hours a day that we do other things besides, sleep, eat, work, or go to school.
What do we do with our 5 hours?

We have 1,440 minutes in a day. We can do something, anything in 30 minutes that would be productive toward our goals. We can set goals in 30 minutes. If we broke down our 5 hours into 30 minute increments, that would be 10 things accomplished in one day!! Wow….that would be a change for sure. It doesn’t have to be all active things. One could be reading a book. Another could be cleaning out a cluttered area. One could be visiting a friend.

Have you ever looked back at the day and thought about what you did? Did you do anything on purpose? For a reason? Did you commit 30 minutes of any time during the day for helping someone else? Take 30 minutes to write a list of what all you need to do.

Did You Forget? Do we get so busy with what we have going on that we forget to be grateful? Take 30 minutes to write down what you are grateful for.

No matter how you break it down, we all have the same amount of time remaining in 2010. What you choose to do is up to you. Take time to schedule something different to do each day, week or month. Don’t let another hour, day, week or month go by without doing something different. Make a change. Stop doing things that are time wasters. Start now. Set your time for 30 minutes and write down ten things you want to start and finish in 2010. We have 90 days. We have time, this year, to make a difference.

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There are so many people out there who are struggling right now. We all have problems that we have to deal with on a daily basis. Some of them are job related. Some of them are people related. Some of them are financially related. We have issues that go on in our lives for a day, a week, a month or sometimes years. The struggles we have may be new to us but they aren’t new to God. We are blessed that we have a support group of God, our family, our friends and we have hope.

When we feel that our pain is so deep that we just can’t make it, we need to remember God and all of His strength and wisdom. We need to pray for His guidance to lead us through the struggles. Whatever we are facing God is with us. This problem will pass and we will move on, but we have to get through it. To help us get through it, we have God, we have family and we have friends and we have the great revelation that our pain and suffering will one day be gone when we are living our eternal life with Jesus in heaven.

Knowing that our suffering is only temporary and that God has a plan for us through our struggles, we can turn to Him in faith and ask Him to show us what He wants us to know and learn from our struggles. We can use this time to write and to search for wisdom from God. We can take what we are going through and share it with others.

We are blessed with families who will be there for us through the good and the bad. Our families know us and will take care of us. We have mothers who will give us love and care. We have fathers who will give us wisdom. We have brother and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins all who will support us in prayer.

We have friends who want the best for us. We can talk with them about things that sometimes we can’t talk with our family about. We have friends that will love us no matter what. We have their support and each of our friends brings something different to us that we can use to get us through our pain.

There are others out there who are going through what we are going through. They may not be as strong as we are. They may not have God in our lives. We need to find out about others who are struggling with the same issues we have and talk with them. Knowing what they are struggling with and sharing commonalities will help us endure.

There are others out there who have had loved ones who have gone through the things we are going through. We need to share with them. This may help them understand what their loved ones went through. Giving of ourselves to them to help them will help us deal with our own problems better.

There are others out there who have gone through and made it past where we are right now in our struggles. We can learn from them. They have stories to tell. They have lessons we can learn. We can find them through support groups. We can find them through their stories in books and blogs on the Internet.

God has us on earth to learn from each other and to help each other. We all can’t know and experience everything that God does but we have Him and each other to lean on. Whatever you are struggling with today, don’t try and handle it alone. You have a support group in God, others and all the resources that are available to you through books, the Internet and organizations.

Take advantage of what you problems you have as a way to learn, a way to share and a way to give God all the glory for the great things He has done and can do.

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Have you ever felt really bad about something you did? Have you felt like you tried to resist temptation but you failed? Good news! You can resist temptation! The reason that you can resist temptation is that you are smarter than your thoughts. Your thoughts are just a part of you. Just like you can control the movement of your body, you can control what you think about.

Have you ever told anyone, “Hey, you are smarter than you think you are?” Of course you have! Well, it’s true. We are smarter than we think we are and we are certainly smarter than our thoughts. That is just what temptation is. Temptation is our thoughts telling us that we ought to do something that we really shouldn’t do. Instead of trying to avoid temptation, realize that it is just your thoughts and you can control your thoughts. What are some ways to control your thinking?

Well that’s something that you do with practice. You have to train yourself to think differently. There are books on this subject, websites as well as other resources. We can control temptations by pre-thinking or preparing what we will do when we have these “tempting” thoughts. Here are some thoughts on how to begin to train your brain:

One way to prepare is through words. Write down the opposite of whatever your thought is and the reason. For example, if you are thinking about eating a piece of chocolate cake. Write down, “I will not eat a piece of chocolate cake right now because I want to feel good about what I have eaten at the end of the day.” Another example is if you are out shopping and see a dress you feel like you need to buy, write down (or say) “I will not buy that dress right now because I may need that money later this week for groceries.”

Another way to resist temptation is through actions. If you walk into the kitchen wanting something to eat, instead of reaching in the cabinet for cookies, reach in the fridge for fruit. When you are in the mall shopping for gifts for others and you walk into a store where you see something you just have to have, walk out of that store and go somewhere else first.

Finally, if there is something that is a really bad habit that you want to overcome like overeating, drinking or smoking, then you may have to write down a plan of action that will help you when you begin to feel like you need that drink or smoke. What other things can you do instead of eating too much? Search the web, take up a hobby, start a puzzle…anything to occupy your mind for a while until that temptation passes.

Remember, practice makes perfect! Don’t beat yourself up if you fail a few times. It will be an ongoing process to train yourself to think differently. You may want to write down a plan of action for when you start to get down when you feel like you have failed at something. A good plan is to make a list of what you are grateful for. Another plan is to see what you learned from your mistakes and write a blog or write in your journal about it.

The main thing is to know that you are smarter than you think! Temptation is in the mind and you can control your thoughts! It takes training and discipline but just like everything else, it is definitely possible! Now that you know you are smarter than your thoughts, “think” about having a great day!

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There are so many reasons why we remain still…especially when things get tough. But we also may get stagnant when things are going well. Success and struggles are a little the same in the fact that we don’t know what lies ahead for us. It is easy to stop and just let things happen to us rather than taking action and making things happen. With struggles, we are afraid of what bad could happen. With success, we are afraid of what good could happen and if we can handle it. Either way, we have a way to move forward by planning for good or bad and knowing that we can handle either one. The key is to plan and know that either way; you are going to make it. Pray and ask God to help you to handle whatever happens. We can always learn from our experiences. But we have to keep moving forward!

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