Dear Friends,
I want to continue discussing yesterday’s Leadership Thought on
the topic of consistency.
Leadership expert John Maxwell states, “Motivation gets you going,
but discipline (and I would add consistency) keeps you growing.” In order to
make significant changes in our life, we must develop consistency. We must be
willing to do the same thing over and over again until it becomes a habit.
My granddaughter, Reece, has taken up basketball, and yesterday
she asked me to come out and help her with her basketball skills. I quickly
noted that each time she shot the ball she would hold it differently. As a
former high school basketball coach, I quickly recognized this flaw in her
shooting, and I corrected her and showed her how to hold and release the ball.
I told her how important it was for her to develop the habit of holding the
ball the same way every time she released it.
I used to ingrain in my players a familiar teaching lesson that “Practice
doesn’t make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.” In learning
to improve you shooting, you can go out and shoot the ball 1000 time a day, but
if each time you grip the ball differently when you shoot, you will not have
done much to improve your basketball shooting skills.
If you are struggling to improve in some area of your life, you
must develop certain habits, and you must practice those habits over and over
again.
Successful people are almost always those who have learned to do
the right thing over and over again until the right thing becomes a matter of
habit.
If you want to read through the Bible, you don’t start by reading
two or three books at one time. No, you break your reading down into a chapter
or two-five or ten minutes a day- and you do it consistently day after day.
As you read a little portion of the bible each day, it may not
feel like you are accomplishing much, but unknown to you the discipline you
have established is begins to yield a return on your investment. And as this
habit slowly begins to develop you will slowly begin experiencing the tangible
rewards of success. Soon you will find yourself wanting to increase your time, and
as you begin learning things you never knew, your interest begins growing and
you find yourself wanting to read and learn more. Your growth becomes.
Remember, only toadstools grow overnight.
Success in not guaranteed by taking the first step, but success
will never be achieved until you take the first step. While it is the
journey that will change you, that journey never begins until you take the
first step.
It has been said you need to do something 28 days in a row for it
to become a habit. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know until you have
done something over and over again for a period of time, it will not become a
normal and natural part of your life.
It took Da Vinci 4 years to paint the Mona Lisa and four years for
Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, so don’t expect
overnight success. Unfortunately, we are such an impatient people that we get
upset when it takes all of three minutes to microwave our popcorn.
For many years I have gotten up long before dawn to write a daily
Leadership Thought. I set my phone for the same time each morning, but last
night I forgot to set it. And when I woke up this morning and noted my alarm
never went off, I checked the time, and it was within two minutes of the time I
usually set my alarm to go off. Why? The consistency of getting up early each
morning over several years had ingrained in my unconsciousness the very time I
need to get up to begin writing.
Habits are nothing more than the repletion of decisions. When
those decisions are good ones, those habits become wings and not weights.
In a book that is no longer in print, the author writes, “We
act from habit nine times for every time we act from purposeful direction.”
Counsels to the Young
You may never paint the Mona Lisa or paint the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel but by consistently cultivating good habits over a period of
time you will shape a life that will bless and benefit others.
I close with a statement by John W. Rittenbaugh, “Bible Tools,”
taken from the internet: “The deepest and most important virtues are often the
dullest ones; they win no medals and get no glory; but they are the glue that
binds society together and makes it work, now and always.” That a good
description of the virtue, consistency.
Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom
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