Change is an inevitable part of the life process. Although failure and success qualify as subjective changes that occur continually in our lives, most changes occur slowly and often go unnoticed at first, like the slow changing of the leaves on the trees in autumn, or the way we age slowly over time. While most changes in our lives occur unconsciously, repentance is a change that must occur consciously. If all of a sudden you learn that your behavior is killing you or hurting others, repentance is making a conscious decision to discipline yourself to replace those negative behaviors with positive ones. If we knew that the words we speak determine our success or failure in life, we would be very careful to only speak life giving and success oriented words. If we knew that our feelings, emotions, and words could save or kill someone else, we would be very careful to maintain control over our thoughts and our words, and subsequently our actions. On the other hand, there are so many small things that we can do to make our lives and the lives of other better, but we give ourselves a thousand excuses, and leave them undone. Repentance means change, undoing some things, and doing some things that were left undone.
There is a Japanese term called ‘kaizen’ which means ‘continuous improvement’ or making small changes everyday. I used to encourage those who wanted to began running in order to get in good physical shape, to start by running to the end of their driveway everyday for a week, or whatever length of time it took for it to become easy. I then encouraged them to add one house at a time until each distance became easy to run. This method worked for me as one who has been a runner for many years. Beginning with very short distances, I worked my way up to seven miles before 7am for a number of years. I recently learned of the term ‘kaizen’ but it made me think that if incremental growth was good for physical fitness, it can be good for mental, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and financial fitness as well. That is the key to “Disciplined For Success” and the key to lasting change. Intentional change begins with a decision, and is maintained by consistency.
Recalling the global warning issued on yesterday, our world is on a set course in accordance with Sir. Isaac Newton’s laws of motion. Unless we consciously change our course, our world is on a collision course with disaster. Each one of us can make intentional changes in our lives to make our world a better place, if we discipline ourselves for success.