Keep renewing and improving…

August 28, 2023

From The Best of Jack’s Winning Words comes the post below that was originally penned by Jack on September 23, 2020. “Jack” was Pastor Jack Freed who  posted words of wisdom and encouragement five days a week for many years before passing away on Dece4mber 20, 2022. His son now reposts the best of Jack’s posts over the years.

“I’m not who I was yesterday.” (Alice in Wonderland) I’ve read that our body cells are continuing to die and be replaced, so that we are never who we were yesterday (a complete change in 7 years!). There’s a button you can wear: PBPGINFWMY.  It stands for: Please Be Patient God Is Not Finished With Me Yet. Every day is an opportunity to improve the self that we were yesterday. I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to have a chance at improvement. 😉  Jack

While the physical aspects of our bodies renew themselves at the cellular level is interesting, it is the mental aspect of renewing and growing each day that Jack emphasized, and which gives us the continual opportunity to be a better person than we were yesterday.

Jack’s post mentioned that our bodies completely renew all of our cells every 7 years. The good news is that you don’t have to wait 7 years to renew and reinvent yourself mentally. You can do that by examining things that have become habits and discarding those that are injurious to your well-being and introducing new, good habits. Studies have shown that it takes an average of 2 weeks for a new behavior to become a habit.

The impact of stopping bad, old habits can be instantaneous, but some habits are harder to just quit than others – witness all of the stop smoking ads on TV. Here are a few things might help you make your desired changes in your life:

1, Break it down – There is a saying that “He bit off more than he could chew”. One of the most common mistakes is trying to do too much too fast. Making major changes in your life can be a big task, so break the change down into smaller, achievable steps. In the movie “What about Bob”, that was called taking “baby steps”. So take baby steps in the new direction that you want your life to go.

2. Be accountable – Of course you are accountable to yourself; however, many people find it helpful to have an “accountability partner”, someone that you meet with regularly and with whom you share your goals and to whom you report your progress. Ask that partner to hold you accountable for making progress towards those goals and to call BS when you try got make excuses.

3. Forgive yourself and move on – You will have failures and setbacks. Do not wallow in self-pity or give up just because you had a setback. In many cases, you may have to forgive yourself for having made a poor decision. Don’t beat yourself up. Forgive yourself and move on towards your goal. If nothing else, view your mistake as a learning experience.

4. Don’t do it alone – While you may have an accountability partner, they will not be expected to do it with you. Making small or even major changes in your life is a very personal thing. That does not mean that you must do it alone. Calling on God’s help is one of the most personal things you can do and one of the most rewarding. Get out of the loner mentality of “I’ve got this” and into mindset that “We’ve got this” with God and you will feel an immediate sense of empowerment. After all, the Bible says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)

5. Be patient and persistent – Our short attention spans often turn to frustration when things don’t happen as fast as we’d like. Change takes time and you must give it time. Patience and persistence build character and wisdom, both of which are good things.

6. Celebrate your victories – No matter how small the steps that you take may be, take the time to celebrater and reward yourself for the small victories that those steps represent. Repeat to yourself the line from Alice in Wonderland – “I’m not who I was yesterday”, and that’s a good thing.

Jack mentioned a button that he saw somewhere – PBPGINFWMY.  It stands for: Please Be Patient God Is Not Finished With Me Yet. Maybe you should wear a button that instead says INFWMY – I’m Not Finished With Me Yet.

Keep renewing, keep changing, keep improving.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Celebrate your wins…

July 31, 2023

This past weekend Lee Hodges won his first PGA Tour event at the 3M Open. The TV announcers made sure that the audience knew that he had played in 65 PGA events without a win. Players on the Tour and the announcers who cover it on TV know that it is not easy to win on the PGA Tour. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to stick with the practices and it takes determination and self-confidence to persevere through the disappointments. But, as the announcers also pointed out, there is nothing like that first win, that victory that you have been working so hard to achieve for so long.

It is not unusual to see athletes break down into tears when they have final achieved a goal or won a match or game for which they had been training for some time. That is why the Olympics next year will be so dramatic for so many athletes. They will have trained for 4 years for those winning moments.

In our everyday lives there are probably things that you have been working towards (training for) for a long time. These are not trivial little things to you. Maybe they are life goals for education or achieving some level at work. Perhaps they are positions of responsibility that you aspire to or maybe they involve seeing the success of a child or spouse that you have worked hard to support.

Whatever your victory or success, take the time to celebrate and relish it. Reflect for a few moments on the hard work involved and let yourself admit that it was worth it. Sure, you can look forward to new goals and start working towards them; but take a breath and take a moment to give yourself a pat on the back. You did it! You reached that goal that has been driving you for so long. Feel good about it. Give a fist pump for yourself. Put that win in your mental trophy case and look at it for a few moments before you move on with life.

Celebrate your wins.

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Posted by Norm Werner

See it and be it….

September 10, 2014

“Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.”  (Arthur Ashe) From the Jack’s Winning Wordsstruggleblog earlier this week.

I understand where Ashe was coming from in this little quote, but, to me, it seems a little defeatist; a little too accepting of things as you find them; and a little to limiting on what you can actually do. There is no ‘stretch” in those statements. Those almost seem to be the aspirations of a plugger or a grinder. If I had to pick a fictional character to voice them, I’d pick Eeyore from Winnie the Poo.

If I were to rephrase this quote in a more positive and upbeat way, it would read like this –

“Start with where you want to be; visualize what you’ll need to do to get there; then, do what you have to do to achieve your goal.” ( Norm Werner)

It seems to me, that if you start each week with your goal to somehow make it through until Friday, then that’s exactly all that you’ll achieve. You’ll grind along using what you have and doing what you can, but at the end of the week you’ll still be where you started. Not very inspiring is it?

dreamsNow, I’m not saying that you can imagine yourself to success; however, a variation of imagining is visualization and that has proven to be one of the secrets to success of people who get ahead and for winners in sports. They “see” themselves being successful. They visualize the perfect golf shot or they “see” themselves getting the big promotion or creating the hot new company.  However; actual success is the product of hard work, in addition to high aspirations. No one said it would be easy; but no one is saying it’s impossible either.

Every story of great athletic success also has a back-story of tremendous amounts of training and striving and putting in the extra effort to be the best and to get to that goal. Every Olympics has tons of those stories associated with the Gold Medal winners. Every story of success in business has a background story of putting in the extra effort to learn or to try and fail and start over again when others would have given up. You don’t get to see how many times that Olympic ice skater fell while trying to perfect her triple toe loop, but she could show you the bruises. You probably will never heart about the 4-5 start-up companies that failed before that young business success got it right, but they are out there in the dust bins of history.  Winners get up, dust themselves off, learn from their failure and try again and again and again and again…until theyfacing new day achieve their goal.

So, here we are. It’s Wednesday and you’re half way to achieving your goal, if just getting to Friday was your goal. Woo Hoo!

What about your dreams? What about breaking out of the rut that you are in? What have you done about that this week? What about having something real to celebrate on Friday? You still have time. Forget about where you are. Where do you want to be? Forget about what you have. What do you need to do to get where you want to be? Do what you must to stay alive; but, then go beyond that and do what you need to do to get where you want to be – to get a new life. It’s only Wednesday, you still have time this week.

If you take the plunge to pursue your dreams you won’t be celebrating TGIF; you’ll be saying, “Oh crap, it’s Friday
already, I need more time to get stuff done.” Don’t worry, there’s always next week; and, if you start it with the right attitude of commitment to your dream you’ll have something great to celebrate again the next Friday.

I believe that’s celebrateanother other key to success, learning to celebrate your successes, no matter how small; and learning how to build upon them. Every hour that you put in is an hour that someone else didn’t dedicate to their success and that puts you an hour ahead of them. Every class that you take gets you closer to your goal. Every sacrifice that you make brings you a step closer to where you want to be. Every time that you fall (fail) but get back up again is another indication that you will not be stopped by adversity. Celebrate that; revel in that; you cannot be defeated and that is something to thank God for on Friday and every day of the week.

Print this quote out and put it on your wall –

I know where I’m going, I can see what I need to do to get there; and, I will not stop until I have reached my goal. (Put your name at the end, because it’s your dream and you own it)

Now get off your duffs and get on with your dreams. Thanks God it’s not Friday, yet.

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Posted by Norm Werner