The laws of success have intrigued me for years and the more I’ve studied, the more repeating themes I’ve seen. We may not all achieve great wealth or prestige, but we can have some degree of personal success and balance in our lives that helps avoid craziness and catastrophes and starts moving us into our callings. We want to get to the point that our lives actually start positively affecting others in a greater way. I’ve listened to a lot of Zig Ziglar, Terri Savelle Foy, Clay Clark & Tony Robbins in my life and more recently added Jim Rohn – and they have helped shape my mind to get out of loser mentalities and believe and work for more! I keep the Bible as my main textbook though, as you can get to thinking that life is all about achieving your goals, getting more stuff, more money.. though all of those things can be really good – we must not neglect the main thing, which is a flourishing and full relationship with Jesus Christ, which will bring true joy into our lives, even while other things are unbalanced…
One of the main keys to a successful life is being a great steward of what God has given you. Your body, your relationships, your finances, your relationship with God, your time, the stuff you decide to accumulate. Neglect in one area turns into neglect in other areas, until you look around and your life is almost a graveyard – the cars are broken down, the house is piled with junk, debt is multiplying, and to make matters worse, you feel overweight! But one act of diligence often turns into more areas of diligence. Like when you start working out, you start wanting to eat healthier to not be wasting your time in the gym.. then you think, huh, I feel so good, I should clean this place up! You know what, why don’t we start selling those unused things in the shed and clean it out! Hey, why don’t we plant a garden! You know what, I think I want to start my own business…!
Below are are the habits and steps I strive to do in my life. I believe complete balance is actually unachievable, because the people we love, or people God sends to us to serve, will always need us when we could be “fixing” all the areas of our lives. And that’s okay, because people, not our goals or dreams, are the most important things in life – after our relationship with the Lord. But there’s something to be said about people who get things done and make history with the Lord’s help with commitment to excellence and diligence. A lot of them have employed many of the things on this list. Why live a small life when God has so much more available to us?!
Even if you don’t add all of of these to your life, try to pick something in here you can adopt.
Here’s My 20:
1. Spend an Hour with the Lord Every Day.
Start your mornings with Jesus. Read the Bible where God leads you or get on a Year Long Bible Plan. See my blog on how to love reading the Bible. Journal your thoughts, struggles and prayers. Listen to worship music and get your heart in a worshipful state. The goals is to learn to hear the Holy Spirit & to obey what He says. This is the path to blessing and abundance! It gets exciting! When God speaks to you my mom says it sticks with you. I’ve found that to be true. When you can’t shake something and it keeps coming back to you, it’s often God. One thing to note is that God doesn’t condemn you. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and leads us back to the path of life. God doesn’t stick your nose in your mistakes & plague you with guilt and condemnation. That’s the devil. We must learn the know the difference between God’s voice: speaking often subtly in you, your own voice: your own thoughts that are not necessarily inspired, and the voice of the enemy, the devil: who brings condemnation and wants to keep you feeling guilty to keep you in the cycle of sin. It’s a worthy quest! The sooner we learn to listen and discern God’s voice, the more we will stop going in circles in life & start moving toward who He created us to be. That’s where the fun is in our Christian walk! Just trying not to sin is not where the juice is. Actively pursuing righteousness & using our gifts to please God & benefit people is really where the joy of life comes in. I encourage you to make your pursuit of God your highest priority. Cut out social media for a while if you need to find or make time for higher activities. Do something different or drastic in your life to make time to find who you are in Christ and what God created you to do on this planet the short time you’re on it. You will thank me later!
2. Daily Declarations.
These are daily statements of faith, vision, goals, & scriptures that you speak over yourself in the morning. Something that you could preferably read in 2 minutes. I change and add to mine all the time. Some of mine are:
“I am a generous giver! I have the blessing of Abraham at work in my life! I live in abundance! I have the Joseph anointing – everything I touch succeeds & everyone who gets around me succeeds! I have boundless energy & passion. I don’t need coffee to be awake. I am focused & motivated & I get done the work of 2 people! I am a great leader and I’m growing in leadership daily! I have an excellent memory! I love that I can work from anywhere and visit all the people that I love! I will fulfill & do everything God put me on the earth to do.I have amazing friends & gain more all the time! I am in love with Jesus! He fills me with joy & direction daily! I am early to everything & I am a very clean & orderly person. I am a person of excellence. I walk in supernatural health! Disease & viruses don’t work on me. Everywhere I go, ministry & increase happens! I’m so glad I’m making over $5,000 a month! I love that my online music school is #1 in the world generating 100 sales daily! I love being booked to speak around the nation & world for $10,000 a speech!” Obviously the last 3 aren’t currently happening, and a lot of them aren’t yet – but that’s where I’m going! & It’s expanding my faith!
Write your own & speak them over yourself daily! Read my How to Make a Goal Card Blog to see more on this.
3. Make a Mission Statement for Your Life.
They say to make a mission statement that is preferably 25 words or less than sums up what you feel the purpose or driving force of your life is. My mission statement is: My life through Christ will touch, challenge & inspire millions & billions of people. Coupled with my new addition: I will make millions for Christ & bring millions to Christ. Ask the Lord to give you one and say it regularly! Put it somewhere – on your steering wheel, on your mirror, on your screensaver. Ya need one. 🙂
4. Read. Every. Day.
It shouldn’t be news to you that readers are leaders. There’s also studies that link your income to your vocabulary. Your vocabulary naturally grows by reading. Zig Ziglar read for 3 hours a day for 30 years to help the amount of people he did in his motivational seminars, but he encourages reading 10 pages or 20 minutes a day. Read something educational, inspiration or spiritually encouraging. The Bible first & foremost, devotionals like the iconic “My Utmost for His Highest” (which is online for free at www.utmost.org), books from great men, biographies, books on business, people, leadership, your field of interest. Learn from the best at whatever you do & become the best in your field. One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 22:29: “Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before obscure men.” We need to continually be eager to learn. Your mind needs brain food – education, inspiration, new ideas, better ideas. You need to be challenged. You need to grow. Study brings joy. I learned that from one of my favorite books: “Celebration of Discipline” by Richard J. Foster. I am continually looking for the next life giving book to pull into my brain. I just started reading this old, torn up cover, year long devotional that called out to me yesterday called “Christian Maturity” by E. Stanley Jones and found out that my grandpa and my mom have read years before me! Wow! Excited for that one! I love following in my grandparents and parents godly foodprints!
5. Get Up Earlier Than Anyone Around You.
Your morning routine may be the biggest key to your success. When I sleep in, I’m sad – because it’s hard to hide from my family when they wake up – they almost always find me! You don’t have any other uninterrupted time like the earlier mornings. Later in the day you have to fight for time alone. Ziglar said that successful people spend 1-2 hours by themselves everyday – thinking, planning, journaling, scheduling, reading, spending time with the Lord, exercising.. This is really the first habit on to the path to greatness. I read part of a book called “Hello Mornings” and it said there are 3 elements that make up a good morning routine: 1. God 2. Exercise 3. Plan Your Day. Do something toward all 3. She recommends starting by reading a verse, drinking a cup of water and looking at your calendar in 3 minutes if that’s all the time you have, and over time, extending the time. I recommend looking over your goals in this time, saying your declarations, writing down 3 things you’re thankful for to get your mind in a positive way first thing in the morning, and whatever else you’d like to add. A good morning routine can keep you inspired and out of a rut. It can keep you knowing your life has purpose and that you can do something or a few things every day to move the needle towards the life you ultimately want. Can you imagine how different the world would be if everyone sat down every morning, sought God, and thought about if the life they have now is the lifestyle they want to continue and asked the Lord for wisdom on how to proceed? Well unfortunately I can’t make everyone do that, but I can choose to regularly check in with heaven myself and reap the rewards. I’ve seen great changes in my life since I started this habit and I’m actually now starting to achieve goals that have been on my lists and in my head for years! I hope you will add this to your day too!
6. Schedule Your Priorities.
You have to schedule the things that are most important to you – including family time, time to look over your finances, me-time, time with relatives, exercise, meal-prep, writing your goals and cleaning out your garage. A quote from the successful world is: “What gets scheduled gets done.” People will always take the time you don’t schedule. I would never say “I’m not doing nothing” if someone asks. Zig often says: “Those who have nothing to do want to do it with you.” lol. I literally never have “nothing to do” – I’m never bored.. I know the things I want in life and if I have unaccounted for time, I’ve got my list of goals and priorities to guide me. Not that I use all my time efficiently, but if I give my time away, it’s a choice, not a default.
7. Workout!
I spent years working out, then I basically got around to what I want to look like – and I lost all motivation! What?!? But I’ve gotten back into it and decided that fitness needs to be fun. So this year I started back into fitness by doing ballet on YouTube. Then I recently started taking long walks around the neighborhood. Then I did a workout video for 2 days with my mom and aunts on facetime! Then I went jogging/walking/stretching with my sisters the other day. We just need to be active. Find a way to enjoy it. Tony Robbins says you need to score things you don’t like with something you do. Like a movie – it wouldn’t be the same without music. Listen to godly, uplifting music – or like me, listen to motivational audio! Motivational audio has made fitness a friend for many years. I’m going to start going hiking before too long and maybe get back into push ups and pull ups. I did litte pinterest workouts for many years – I did Insanity for a while.. Slim in 6 DVDs, circuit training in my living room, bought Alexa Jean Fitness workout plans (which are so cheap and I recommend! She’s on Instagram).. our family worked with a trainer for a few months – there are just so many options. Just keep it fun and workout regularly. Gyms are great if you can get to them, but I love working out at home. Fitness changes your life, makes you feel happier, releases good chemicals in your brain, gives you more self confidence, makes your clothes fit better, can lengthen your life and quality of life, and more importantly – it can make you more attractive to whoever you’re wanting to look your way. 😉 Moment of Truth: If you’re single and really out of shape, you might be dwindling your options if you’re trying to attract a more fit person. Healthy or healthy looking people usually want to be with other healthy looking people. At least I do. I want to know that whoever I marry values fitness and isn’t going to leave me working to look good while they decide to let their health go and make me sad I ever met them. Okay, I’m laughing. Often it takes a year to two of dedicated effort to get your body in decent shape, but it’s worth it!
8. Focus on Your Diet.
Calorie count if you need to. If you burn more than you eat, you lose weight. You burn calories just by living, walking, breathing etc, but usually we need to do more than just live to maintain or lose weight. Easy starters are to: 1.Cut out as much sugar as possible. 2. Limit your breads & flour products. Cut 3. Stop drinking all soda/pop immediately – it makes your body acidic & makes you a sitting duck for so many sicknesses to develop like diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure etc. It’s not worth it. Find a good substitute.They say you can’t stop a bad habit without replacing it with another one, or you will return to it. Try juices, water, water with lemon & strawberries, herbals teas, milk? (Thoughts vary on dairy’s goodness for you – but you do lose weight if you cut it out.), but bascially almost anything will be better for you than pop. They say shop the perimeter of the store. Usually that stuff is more living. Fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy.. maybe. lol. Try to get as much living foods in you as possible. Dead foods are things like boxed mashed potatoes. Even canned vegetables are not as good as frozen or of course fresh. It’s not very hard to figure out what food is good and bad for you, but I would make a concerted effort to make most of your diet healty-ish and more alkaline. Look up a list of alkaline foods to see what’s good for you. 🙂
9. Don’t Drink Alcohol.
Before I start in on this, part of my opinion is shaped by the alcohol abuse and deaths in my dad’s family that I’m thankful didn’t come down the line to our family. My grandpa saw the devastation to his siblings and family and stopped the curse and didn’t drink. Subsequently my dad followed his example, and didn’t bring alcohol into our home. (Except once on vacation to marinate steak. lol) It’s not that alcohol is inherently wrong – “Jesus drank wine” – I know. But mostly bad comes from alcohol. & It’s not telling you anything new to point out that it often leads to some sort of destruction, distraction, debate or death. (4 D’s) 😉 It may not be a sin to drink, but the New Testament does say it’s a sin to get drunk – & when people are drunk they often say or do things they wouldn’t do with their wits at 100%. If you need scripture backup: Proverbs 20:1: Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by them is not wise. & Ephesians 5:18-19 says: Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to reckless indiscretion. Instead, be filled with the Spirit; Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your hearts to the Lord. The Holy Spirit and Godly community is the Bible’s substitute to drunkeness. Interesting. Bars are no place for a Christian in my opinion, unless somehow God has led you to pull people out of the fire, but often where alcohol is present, minus if someone has wine for communion, God is not often the focal point. Even weddings can take a turn partially because of alcohol – & trashy music, but that’s a subject for another day. Beyond that, you almost definitely will be judged by other believers, your godly witness may be tarnished – not that you should do everything by other’s standards – but further, you may be the example that leads someone else to a pitfall or alcoholism, and that’s needless. I don’t judge everyone who drinks, well actually I probably do to some extent, but I don’t personally drink & I don’t see a lot of godliness & life coming from it. It’s often hard on your body, beer bellies are named that for a reason, it can really cost a lot, it opens the door to drinking for your kids which may or may not be “responsible drinkers”, & I would just rather avoid the whole rats nest. It won’t hurt you not to drink, but it might bite you at some point if you do. Can you tell I have a strong bent against alcohol? 😉
10. Declutter ASAP
I’ve learned that mess and clutter is a big road block to getting started on any project related to your dreams and destiny. We will obviously waste time on Facebook or Instagram when our house, garage or property is dirty, but somehow, correct me if I’m wrong, once we start working on our passion project, something tells us that we can’t work on that until things are in order. It’s interesting psychology, but it is what it is and we need to get rid of clutter because it clutters the mind. It takes a while to get everything decluttered and make a place for everything and get rid of the things you don’t need – but it’s a must! A good goal is to be able to host people in your home and not be scared of them seeing the unordered in our houses. It may take a few months to get your house in order if you’re not able to dedicate a ton of time at once, but it will pay off big time! & Then you can get to what you really feel called to do, guilt free!
11. Be 10 Min Early Everywhere.
This is probably the hardest thing to do on the whole list.. for me anyways. It’s my current goal and sadly doesn’t happen very often, but I’m happy to say I’ve improved. Timelines comes with actually thinking through everything you’ll need to be prepared to leave in enough time to be early. We often underestimate how much time things take, so a good way to figure out how much time you actually need is to start timing how long it takes you to do things everyday for a week. Time tracking is one of the best methods to wake up to your habits and see how you spend, waste or invest your time. They say the key to the next day is in the night before. Sometimes I will lay out my clothes, cook and pack my lunch, pre-think breakfast etc to be ready for the next day to go off without a hitch. The phrase is: if you’re early you’re on time and if you’re on time, you’re late – and often it’s accurate because usually I’ll think about making it to the parking lot by the start time, but it takes like 5 minutes+ sometimes to get inside and you arrive rushed. One of the goals should be to be prepared, settled and peaceful when you get to where you’re going. It’s more classy. If you’re earlier than others and end up waiting on them, bring a book! Often I don’t want to be waiting when I get to a place, and I value every minute of my time.. but when you come late, you’re showing that you don’t value other people’s time or effort to put something together. Ope! Just a side note: they say the first person to a negotiation wins. If you’re late to something important, it just doesn’t look good on you and you often start off by apologizing or excusing or needing some reason you were late. We grew up being late to school almost every day and late to church every Sunday. It didn’t need to be that way. It takes pre-thought & valuing timelines to be early and it’s really helps you jump classes when you learn the art! It’s part of becoming a person of excellence that naturally gains respect.
12. Be Sexually Chaste.
The Bible says in 1 Cor 6:18: “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” And now science & psychology back that up. You were made to be committed intimately to one person, your spouse, for life; That will prove to bring you the most joy & satisfaction. Studies have been made & have found that to be true. Many people have made sexual mistakes before – but that’s no reason to continue making bad decisions now. Zig Ziglar says failure is an event, not a person. Just because we’ve all made mistakes, oversights of judgment, or have been outright rebellious towards authority, wisdom or God doesn’t mean we have to stay in that foolish and destructive state. You can recover & be forgiven from past mistakes, but let them stay in the past & start becoming the person you want to be today. Repent, receive the Lord’s forgiveness & see yourself as pure & new in Christ and and then actively stay out of tempting situations. God loves us, with or out without moral failures in our past or present, but he knows the death & destruction, guilt, and condemnation that come if we continue to walk and live in sin. Because He loves us, He calls us out of sin to walk with Him – and God turns for good what the devil meant for evil! Hallelujah! Your past mistakes and experiences often become part of your future wisdom and ministry. Strive to walk the high road & God & life will richly reward you. You know you want to. 😉
13. Cut Out Destructive Behaviors & Addictions.
Addictions take your time, take your money, and often come before priorities or relationships. Anything you feel you have to hide could fall into the area of addiction or destructive behavior & is just something that needs to leave your life ASAP. Addictions don’t have to be outright horrible things, but often they are things we idolize or almost worship in our lives. It could be a relationship, a game.. anything that takes so much of your thought life and is stealing from you in some way. I know addiction because I was addiction to playing Tetris. I knew it had to go when I was in worship at church and I closed my eyes while raising my hands and was seeing Tetris pieces coming down and fitting perfectly into the other. I quit that week. haha. Yours might not be as bad as that, but still consider getting rid of something not worthy of so much of your time or affection.
EXAMPLES:
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Don’t Smoke.
I thinks it’s pretty obvious by now the damage smoking does to your body. That can’t be God’s best for your life & temple of the Holy Ghost (your body) that you were entrusted with. E-cigarette’s have been said to have their own damage on the lungs too. I hope they’re better than cigarettes, but if you can find a way to quit, or just never start – that’s definitely the best option. -
Don’t Do Drugs.
The world of drugs is a dark one & I know there’s a lot of opinions on marijuana now that it’s legal in many places, but do you really want to argue with people for the rest of your life on why they should think it’s okay to be high? I don’t think Jesus would be on drugs. Actually I know He wouldn’t. God has a better option for your anxiety, depression, personal issues or pain than daily trying to alleviate them or escape them through different kinds of drugs. Get real help. Get counseling if possible. Find a pastor to talk to. Get an accountability partner. Join an AA or NA group, or better yet a Celebrate Recovery Christian version of those clubs and get to a place of freedom. Seek to actually solve the problems in your life – not put a bandaid on them. Ask God to show you the answers because He does have a way out for you! - High Amounts of Caffeine.
This is a recent development for me as I have been drinking caffeinated coffee since I was 7 and regularly from my teen years. But and however I have recently been talked out of my daily addiction and have gone cold turkey! It only took 2 days of bad headaches to break it! Thank you ibuprofen. “Excedrin Migraine” has caffeine in it, which somewhat defeats the purpose. Ibuprofen is not great for you, but it works. I’ve quit before but always returned because I love coffee and we go to sleep late at my house, so it’s always “needed.” I love the taste and the energy but overtime I can’t feel the effects in the morning and I live rather tired.. like many Americans, and go for my 2nd cup often in the afternoon, which does work on me. But it’s amazing what happens when you give up coffee – soon you start getting tired at a regular hours and start getting up earlier naturally & I’m having less afternoon tired lulls! I literally woke up before 6:30am without an alarm on day 2! I haven’t gotten up that early this whole quarantine! But even worse than coffee is usually ENERGY DRINKS. Only a persuasive boyfriend could make me drink any of an energy drink – because I know the dangers of those – but I’ve had a few sips here and there. Living on high doses of caffeine has so many healthy risks and to make matters worse, it really adds up. If we smartly invested the $100-$150 we spend on coffee or energy drinks a month, we would all literally retire millionaires. But back on point, some people drink 2 & 3 energy drinks a day and that’s so bad! When people mature and get health smart they generally get off energy drinks. Just google “negative effects of caffeine.” For one, sleep is one of the main ways our body repairs itself and when we stay on caffeine, we trick our body into thinking we can get less sleep and get in a cycle of depleting our sleep and health. When we’re tired we binge eat more, are less productive, waste more time and sometimes make worse moral choices. We get mentally addicted to caffeine too, which is why it took me so long to quit. Being dependent on caffeine to feel normal every day is not your best life now. I’ve switched to tea and my decaf espresso is on its way for when I want the taste of coffee! I’m also drinking more water again. Coffee makes me not want to drink much water, but now I’m broadening my morning drink options and kicking caffeine to the curb! I’m pretty surprised I’m doing it and that I actually want to this time!
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Stay Away from Pornography.
This should be obvious, but some people don’t know the damage pornography does to the brain, your future intimate life with your spouse, your expectations of marriage, etc. Beyond that, it’s going to damage your relationship with God because sin puts a wedge in our relationship with God, and like Adam and Eve in the garden, we try to hide from Him. Often people need accountability to get free from this addiction and use programs like I believe I’ve heard of “Covenant Eyes” or others that block your devices from going to pornographic websites. I’ve never personally dealt with this, but women are falling prey more and more and there is a way out. This is so important because you will feel yourself becoming dark and wanting to pull away from people in your life that you know wouldn’t approve and who could actually help you! You will feel dirty and God wants you to feel clean in Him! It’s just life to make mistakes sometimes, but if you’re dealing with this, today is the day to find a way out, talk to someone about it, repent, get free, get accountable and see it for what it is. It’s a snare, like many sins, that wants to steal from you and separate you from your intended blissful relationship with God. The devil is behind it, so don’t let it rule your life in any way. & When you get free, help others struggling out of the dark too.
14. Get a Vision for Your Life!
Focus on where you want to go & try to limit time wasters like excessive: movie-watching, social media, texting, video games & TV to make time for your actual dreams! That’s where the excitement comes in. Make a list then a vision board with your top 7-10 goals for the year with pictures so you can look at it & pray over it daily. Then make 7-10 long term 20 year goals to surround your vision board. Seek the Lord for what should go on it. What you continually look at, you go towards. My dad was driving a motorcycle when he was young and got so focused on not driving into the ditch that he drove right into it! So often we focus on our past mistakes, other people’s mistakes, celebrities, things we can complain about… the list goes on, but we often don’t take enough time to seek God and actively pursue our calling, which will energize us when we find it and start moving toward making it a reality!
15. Get a Steady Stream of God’s Word in You.
Feed on the Word – the Bible. Memorize it. Study it. Journal it. You will learn to love it! It will renew your mind & you will start to become the person you can be proud of & who God created you to be. Know the word better than what movies are coming out or what your favorite celebrity is eating for breakfast. Desire God more than likes on your social media. Ask God to center you & draw your heart toward righteousness and Him. The Word of God renews our mind and naturally starts changing our hearts, which makes us become more like Christ. We seek Him, and He starts changing us. Often just will-powering ourselves to change doesn’t work long term – we need to be changed from the inside out. Our mind and soul and body have to come into alignment with the spirit of God. & A big way that happens is through regularly feeding on the word of God, like it was food. A great verse to memorize: Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Have the Bible audio playing while you do dishes, brush your teeth, get ready, drive to work.. fill your life with God’s word and you will naturally start to think eternal thoughts and your life, your garden, will start to produce beautiful flowers instead of weeds!
16. Learn to Cook!
The old “I don’t know how to cook” confession has become antiquated & uncool, in my progressive opinion. 😉 Get on pinterest or YouTube and get cooking! It’s fun, essential, can save a lot of money & why not learn how to be a master of the kitchen? You have your whole life to learn. Everybody likes a good cook & it will add confidence to your life. I’m no sue chef (yet), but I’ve taken an active approach to learning the kitchen, and I’m happy I have. & I’m going to continue my pursuit & one day I’ll teach all my children – my future boys/future bachelors included. 🙂 I used to update my “cooking blog” Instagram a lot if you want to look at it: @CamilleMeals on Instagram. Not that it’s so impressive, but I had fun making the stuff on it for a year or so!
17. Watch & Change Your Money Habits.
Use sites like “www.Mint.com” & the EveryDollar app to budget & track your spending. Get into Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University for like $99 bucks or watch his YouTube channel for free. Also, Become a giver. Start with tithing 10% of everything you earn to your local church. I now give 10% over my tithe to missions and good works because I want to do more for the gospel going around the world. Giving releases the blessing in your life. I want more blessing! & I want to bless others. Provers 11:25 says: “The generous man will be prosperous, And he who waters will himself be watered.” That’s a promise. Give & you will receive! Wow – and you’ll receive many times back. It’s a law of giving and a law of life. Giving is a heart issue – learn to be obedient to the Lord when he asks you to give & watch the reward! God says either you will serve money or you will serve Him. He didn’t say the devil or Him – he wisely said money or Him. Most people wouldn’t actually choose to serve the devil. But if they think he has something they want, they will either by choice or by accident, serve him & operate by his kingdom’s rules – which lead to death, destruction, deception, divorce.. all bad things. John 10:10 says that the devil comes to steal, kill, & destroy. The devil does this to his own servants. That’s pretty evil – don’t fall prey! God doesn’t treat his servants like that. It says next that God comes to bring life & life more abundantly! He wants to bring His blessing, joy, peace & His life-giving presence to your life. Romans 14:7b says: “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” That’s what God’s kingdom is all about – everything the world is seeking but doesn’t know it yet is in God. It’s much more appealing! You get to access God’s blessing when you surrender to His will and choose Him over sin, over selfishness, and over shallowness. 3 S’s. I like that. 😉
18. Find Your Passion & Make it Profitable!
Make it your side job or Saturday job & start working on it, along side your regular income job, if you have one, until your hobby can become your jobby, and eventually your full time job, if the Lord leads you into your own business, which I believe is preferable. I don’t like 9-5, so I decided I’m not going to stay in it anymore and I’m working on my own stuff now. My online music school, my blog.. I work part time doing cabinet refinishing, but that will not be forever. Save up so you have a cushion of money to transition into the line of work that actually makes you happy to wake up every morning. It’s out there and it’s possible. There’s a market for your dream. Work with God to find how to transition. Pray towards it. Get mentors. Mentors are what the big cats say you need. Millionaires meet regularly with mentors.. why don’t we?
19. Develop Your Prayer Life & Start Fasting Regularly.
Your spiritual life is the most important part of your life to focus on and discipline yourself in. Set time aside, take prayer walks. Make a prayer list of friends, family & people who’ve asked you to pray for them – & then just change it up & be led by the Lord. Sometimes we need to fast all food for a day go dedicate ourselves to prayer. Fasting brings breakthrough in your life & amazing things happen when you learn to put your body in it’s place and say – “No, you won’t rule me! I rule you. Be quiet & mind. Okay. Thank you.” 😉 I started fasting every Thursday for God’s best for my life on January 23rd, 2020 and it’s been so needed in my life! Fasting puts our eyes back on God, starves our flesh, shows us the things we need to work on (our attitude without food usually goes sour), shows us how much value we put in food versus things that really matter, and it humbles us. It also gets us ready to receive more revelation from God and helps us make time for God to speak to us. Fasting really helps us become hungry for God. It’s so easy to get complacent, lukewarm and lose our passion for the Lord and His kingdom and start thinking building our own kingdom or joining the godless system of this world and desire their approval and rewards over God’s! My sister joined me in Fasting Thursdays on week 2 and said that even if I stopped, she won’t because she’s seeing too much God-action in her life!Then my parents started & now more of my friends are joining me! It’s so cool! I encourage you to join us and start getting your prayers answered!
20. Develop a Positive Attitude!
A positive attitude is a thankful attitude. An enthusiastic, faith filled mind. It doesn’t happen naturally, though some are bent more that way from the factory – but even the most positive person can be poisoned by pessimism, realism, doubt, & cynicism. I know this because I have a natural positive bent, but have lost most of my spark at times & have been working to rekindle the flame by forcing my mind to mind. 🙂 It’s not small task to get out of negetism (new word). It takes work. It takes disciplining your mind, but it brings life to your life, joy to your days, and attracts better people, things & opportunities to you. My favorite book on learning to be positive again is my current read: Enthusiasm Makes the Difference by Norman Vincent Peale. I suggest getting it on eBay or somewhere. It can be like medicine. At first it can be hard to swallow, but keep eating & you will notice a difference. Feed your mind. They say mindset to the entrepreneurs is what food is to the the body. Or some analogy like that.
Okay, so those are my 20 habits of success that I’ve learned by 28. Don’t beat yourself up for being in the middle of the process of growth – but do work on yourself, your relationship with God, & your ideals daily. This Enthusiasm book has a great quote that impressed me. It says: “My religion [Christianity] has taught me that men are not perfect, but as long as they strive to be they will be pleasing to God.” That is the true goal of my life & Christianity. To please God. The Bible says we were created for His pleasure. When we bring Him pleasure, we receive many of the joys of life that we truly desire but often go about the wrong way to get and it turns out to be fools gold. God has and is the real gold. I believe if you focus on these 20 things, you will find yourself on the path to increase, greatness, godliness & a life of fulfillment!
Hopefully you read all of them!
Have a great God centered-day.
Choose 1,2, all or a few to add to your life –
& Until next blog (or almost book chapter!)…
God Bless You!
Camille
