Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
This morning my hubby asked me if I was ready to write the continuation of yesterday’s post. I replied, “I forget what I wanted to talk about.” Ha! No I didn’t, but he sure had a funny look on his face because me forgetting wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility!
I had a bit of a realization as I was taking some advice from Darren Hardy on my walk last week. After I read that success is doing a half dozen things really well, repeated five thousand times, I started to get really excited! What made a huge impact was the addition of his advice telling us about the compound effect. It’s the strategy of reaping huge rewards from small, seemingly insignificant actions. When I put those two together, it became a wake-up moment for me. Why didn’t I see this before?
I had a little celebration right there in the middle of the road. As the pup stopped to roll his eyes (I’m telling you that his looks most definitely equate to a mental eye roll), it became clearer to me that I was accepting some really important information. This information was going to be a huge change in my life because as soon as I grasped this, one word, one action was really front and center in my mind. Smile!
The advice from Darren Hardy was not new and smiling was certainly not new, but I was seeing it in a different light now. It took me back to a memory of when I was young. I remember that I got in the habit of smiling when I used to twirl baton and it was drilled into me to smile, smile, smile! I loved to twirl, so it was easy for me to do. I think it just carried over from that and I was able to smile easily and often when I was young.
There were family friends of ours that we would get together with quite often. I remember the sweet man in that family who always had a smile on his face. He’d light up when he saw me and he’d say, “There’s my girl who always has a smile on her face.” He had it wrong though. It was the other way around because he made me smile with his smile! Isn’t that how smiles work?
As I was standing in the middle of the road, I realized how often I try to focus on too many self-improvement projects at once. On top of that, I focus on what I need to stop doing instead of what I can do right. It’s like that with doctors who come up with a plan of foods for us to eat that will help our bodies reach their potential. I don’t have time to eat a bunch of junk when I’m focusing on the good stuff I need to get into my system! The bad stuff gets pushed out naturally.
Smiling was to be my first of the half dozen things I needed to do really well to reach success. I just needed to repeat it five thousand times! I believe I’ll see huge rewards from that seemingly insignificant action. Now you might be thinking that he meant something a little more substantial, but I don’t think so. I believe without a resilient, positive, and grateful attitude, we’ll never feel ultimate success. I believe smiling is the key to unlock those character traits for me. It will have a compound effect.
Let me explain. I realized how often I was already smiling when I saw something that made me feel grateful. Gratitude is HUGE in God’s eyes! We are to rejoice always. When we’re smiling we’re rejoicing! We are to pray continually. What easier way to have prayers than to have something to smile about and thank God for? It will help me to see the positive even in the hard circumstances, which will allow me to still be giving thanks to God. I’ll be doing His will! That’s success…it’s all connected.
In the Optimist’s Creed, it talks about promising ourselves to give every living creature we meet a smile. This made my family laugh every time we passed a horse or other animal, and my youngest would remind us to smile at them. It seemed funny to smile without a little greeting, which made us giggle even more to be talking to the animals. It’s such a habit now to smile when we see a living creature. Just think about how many living creatures I see in a day. I’m getting closer to five thousand each time, and they’re genuine smiles! That’s the key.
There are times when I just don’t feel like I have any smiles left, but it really isn’t true. It’s like my soap that’s in a pump bottle. When nothing more will come out, I think it’s finished. It never is though! You wouldn’t believe how much is left in there. I take that pump off and tip it over getting a shock at how much poured out. When I add a little water and shake it up; I could have more soap for days! It was in there, but I just couldn’t get to it until I shook it up a little.
What isn’t working in your life that you keep doing? I’m not telling you to stop. I’m telling you to replace that action with a positive one that doesn’t leave any more room for what you don’t want in your life. Find something that would be a simple, positive change and do it.
I think you’ll see that simple thing you’re going to do really well will have long reaching effects in your life. If those actions seem insignificant, then what will it hurt to just do them? It’s not going to take a whole lot out of you right? Do it five thousand times. Find a way to remind yourself and even keep track. When you feel like there’s nothing left…SHAKE IT UP A LITTLE!
