One of the things that is hard to find these days is loyalty. To be loyal means to give or show firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution. It can be said loyalty is very important to the success and stability of any lasting relationship, whether in business or marriage, being faithful to one’s oath, engagements, or obligations.

Development:

Loyalty is a quality that should always be at the top of our priority list. We need to learn about and also develop this characteristic, loyalty. It shouldn’t be a luxury — it should be the norm to be loyal and expect loyalty from others. Too many serve materalism and only what we want: we can become loyal to our own desires and the things we want in life. We become self-serving.

Trust:

What we should be is a loyal friend, business partner, spouse; when we are, it will bring a sense of trust and security to others and cause us to become more successful in life. There is nothing without trust, and trust equals loyalty.

Security:

Loyalty also creates security. I ask the people who work with me, work for the church, to be loyal — support what we support, stand with us once a decision is made. At times I have found I was much more loyal to them than they were to the kingdom of God. If we are not loyal to God, we will not be that loyal to anyone else.

Let’s look at growing in this area of loyalty. It could be the difference between success and failure. God is loyal to us. He says He will never leave us nor forsake us. Let’s be loyal to Him and the things of God.

Just a thought,

PSS

We all need to cut out the distractions in our lives in order to be more focused on the task at hand.

Recognize:

A distraction is something that takes our attention away from what we’re supposed to be doing. We all will deal with it. So much time is wasted due to being distracted — hundreds of hours over the course of a year — by texts, emails, someone coming into our office or interrupting us at home. But I believe recognizing the distractions will help us eliminate them so we can remain focused and accomplish so much more with our time. Some are easily distracted, and for some working on a project or some task, when distracted it can take up to 25 minutes to refocus. I know for me it does. When I’m working on something, studying, when I’m interrupted it takes me a while to refocus my thoughts.

Prioritize:

So, how do we begin to eliminate distractions? One way is to prioritize our day, our tasks: begin to do the hard things first and work our way to the easier tasks or the ones we enjoy the most. Purpose during these times not to answer our phones, texts, not to answer any emails — until we are done; or schedule those throughout the day. So many things are vying for our attention, and if we don’t learn to prioritize, we will find ourselves feeling frustrated and overwhelmed.

We must train ourselves to focus. When we do, we will find that our work is better and we really have more time in the day.

Just a thought,

PSS

Procrastination is the act of delaying or putting things off.

A bad habit:

Now we know sometimes there are legitimate reasons that cause us to delay, even important things. But many times, we use delay as a way to avoid things, people, responsibilities. If we are not careful, procrastination becomes our way of dealing with life. It becomes our habit. When this occurs, we will usually live with lots of regret.

Laziness:

We allow laziness to ruin our lives. Lazy people tend to be poor people. It’s the diligent who get rich or blessed, not the lazy or those who continue to procrastinate. We have to resolve to be more diligent and purposeful with our lives. When we procrastinate, it usually is because we don’t like, enjoy, doing some type of task. We tend to do the easy things or the things we like, but put off — avoid — the unpleasant, the hard things.

Missed opportunities:

When we live life this way, we will miss so many opportunities. People who constantly make excuses and put things off until tomorrow don’t realize that by doing this they may have missed an opportunity today. Procrastination will hurt us and our future. To get rid of this, we need to begin to take small steps to get things done, to push ourselves to do the hard things first, instead of the easy things and the things we enjoy doing. I believe if we would work on this, it would change our lives for the better. To identify this issue will cause our stress level to go down and our anxiety level to be less.

It’s the lazy who never prosper, but the diligent get rich.

Just a thought,

PSS

Self-talk is the act or practice of talking to oneself, either aloud or silently and mentally.

Be positive:

Positive self-talk is telling yourself you can do something, you can be something. It’s the script that we use to frame our lives. If we constantly give ourselves negative messages like: You can’t, You won’t succeed, You’re not good enough, this kind of self-talk will take you down, tear you down. Positive self-talk will help you reach your personal best; it will boost you up.

The true riches:

What would make you happy? A new wardrobe, a faster car? A new house? People often think these things are the key to feeling good, but experts say only about 10% of a person’s happiness is related to them. Much more happiness, 90%, has to do with your general outlook on life.

Think on these things:

Self-talk is the conversation you have in your head about yourself and the world around you. Changing how you talk to yourself can actually help how you see life — your life. What you meditate on is important. What you are thinking, how you talk to yourself can and will determine whether you are successful or not. Instead of thinking the worst, begin telling yourself you are important, you are somebody. If God is for me, who can be against me? If you are a Negative Nancy, begin to change what you allow yourself to think about. Think on these things: Philippians 4:8 — Fix your thoughts on what is true. Look it up.

Change your self-talk — change your life.

Just a thought,

PSS

Every one of us has a pain threshold. That pain threshold is the thing that can limit our lives. When something costs you too much, it seems too hard, the sacrifice is too great, that’s your pain threshold. We will never rise above it. We can never go beyond our pain threshold.

Life is not fair:

The Bible teaches that, while we are on this earth, we will experience trials and tribulations. In other words, we will all experience stuff that is not good and not fair. Our ability to process these things will determine the level of success each one of us will have.

Rejection:

Life is not always fair, and it’s not always going to be easy. Steve Jobs was rejected by more than 20 venture capitalists before one said yes. Thank God his pain threshold wasn’t 19. After 19 rejections, I am done. No, he wasn’t going to quit. His pain threshold was high enough that he could handle 20 rejections, and probably more than that.

No pain, no gain:

See, none of us will ever rise above our pain threshold. Some of us have very minimal pain thresholds. The first sign of a setback, and we quit. That’s why we won’t experience the success we seek. It’s not because of someone else: it’s because of us. The good news is: we can work on our ability to handle pain, setbacks, problems, and issues, by recognizing our attitude during times of trials, then beginning to grow in that area.

Learn to persevere and keep going, no matter what. Learn to endure as a good soldier, realizing setbacks and delays don’t mean we can’t — they are merely obstacles to overcome. Food for thought.

PSS