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Decisions

Stephen Covey says: 

“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”

We have seen in the first section of this series the Mindset of Discipline and what it requires to have and continue in such a manner.  Following we came to our second section titled, Decisions.  A decision is defined as a “conclusion or resolution reached after consideration.”

The first Decision we must make is to set the “Bar”.  Having a Discipline mind will naturally lead one into the lifting up of a standard, to set the Bar in their lives, which brought us to our second phase which is to simply “Be Better”.   This was our last topic, where we are encouraged to just be better than we were before,  outworking yesterday and being better than last month, last year and even last week.  It will require work, but anything worth doing will always require labour.

The third and final decision we must be willing to make, is another refusal, as we strive to Be Better by setting the Bar to a higher standard than those found as a societal norm, therefore we must decide to:

Blame Not

There is a character in mankind which naturally searches to cast blame on others.  Society has ran with this notion for years by developing new pseudo-diagnoses in droves.  Children grow up blaming the parents; parents blame the schools; the schools blame the government; the government  blames the different political parties and around we go in this vicious circle blaming others for our mistakes.  The reality is yes, children are at fault… yes, parents are at fault and yes, the schools are at fault… and yes, the government is at fault and yes, political parties are at fault…Why? Because we live in a flawed world!  We are all at fault, therefore we must make the decision to BLAME NOT!

The choice is ours today, we can continue to hold to problems, pain and predicaments of the past or we can forget them and press toward the mark, but you cannot do both.

The reality is we cannot do one thing about what happened yesterday, this morning or even the next second (look for it…here it comes…did you see it? Did you stop it?  Nope).

All we can do is prepare and perform for what is in front of us right here, right now.  It is a decision we must make today, for tomorrow.  When we do so we are provided with: 

Protection

When we look back at the past, we hold to what has happened allowing the weight of someone else’s decision to dictate the direction of our own.  It is our choice for change, it is our decision we must make.

Most often we equate “forgetting the past” or “leaving things behind” when it only applies to the negative, but what about forgetting those things which are positive?

Great if you are the greatest salesman in Wales or the best athlete in the country, those things are wonderful, however, by holding to those things it becomes ever too easy to live beneath the shadow of past accomplishments thus hindering our sight to focus on future aspirations and achievements.  

So let’s move forward from what used to be, positive or negative, and focus on the future so we may reach beyond to goals which lie before us.