Have you ever wondered how life got so complicated? When I was young, things seemed easier. All I had to do was worry about getting my homework done, getting to football practice on time, and the girl I was dating at the time. (Alright, so the girl was a little complicated!) Have you ever thought, “Boy, life was so much simpler then, but now it’s so doggone complicated!” Well, I agree.
I speak worldwide about achieving goals, success, and living your dreams – not because I know about everything, but I do know a lot about those three things. During my season of The Biggest Loser, I lost more percentage of body weight than any other contestant in the history of NBC’s Biggest Loser. And I owe much of it to simplifying my plan.
On the Biggest Loser ranch, life once again became simple. I woke up and began my day which consisted of 3 things: keep my diet on track, get the work or the exercise in, and stay on the Biggest Loser Ranch. While I was there I had no phone calls, bills, television, internet, email, and other daily distractions we all have to deal with. My focus was completely on those three things: Diet, exercise, and staying there.
It’s funny in life how we tend to make things more complicated than we need to. The way to stay there was to lose enough weight to keep me above the yellow line. When my teammates created an alliance & threatened to vote me off, I had to get immunity. If I did that, they couldn’t vote me off. Losing the weight was the key and doing the work was the most important part, so I kept my head down and worked harder than ever! Steps 1 & 2 were that simple.
But oh the diet! So many people ask me, “What did you eat on the ranch? What was the diet like?” I’m not going to go into details here, but I will tell you it was simple. I knew what foods to eat, what foods not to eat, how to prepare them and how much to eat! But the thing that made me so successful was keeping it simple. A healthy diet doesn’t have to be complicated. It just has to work. In fact, I ate many of the same foods prepared slightly different while I was on the show! I knew that EASY does it! Complicated is just that: complicated!
Whatever you do, look for the simple way to do it. Sometimes too many details just get in the way of what we really want – success.
We’ve all got dreams, life goals, and things we want to make happen. So what’s the first step? Projection.
When you watch a movie, there’s a machine that takes a digital file and PROJECTS it onto a screen so the movie goers can see it. Without the projection, it’s just a file – something that is there, but it’s not being realized, or even perceived!
Your dreams, goals, and aspirations are there. They are real. They just need to be realized. And the first thing you need to do is to PROJECT it for you and others to see!
In Proverbs 18:21 it says, “The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.” (NLT) This is so true! Your tongue is a PROJECTOR of your dreams and goals. What you project out of your mouth has the propensity to come alive! If you continually say, “I can’t,” that is what you will bring to life – both in your head AND in your heart. Speaking life over your dreams and goals is the first step to making your dreams come alive – and it begins by convincing yourself it is possible.
I just wrote a new praise and worship song about this! I am speaking God’s truth about my problems – that what He says about them is bigger than the problem itself. And when I sing this song, the solution seems to rise up in my heart and mind, and the problem seems to fade into the background! It has happened so many times in my life – with my marriage, my finances, my weight, my music, and my addictions.
In Genesis chapter 1, “God SAID” is there 9 times. It is CREATION. We were created in God’s image, which means unlike any other being on earth, we are creators.
Each time God created something, he said, “Let…” Look at the definition of let: to cause to; make: to let one know the truth.
Let your dreams come true. Begin by projecting them into life by speaking them into existence. Write them down, speak them out; create them in your life. When you begin to believe they are possible, you’ll see progress towards your dreams. That begins by you projecting the story (your dreams & goals) with your projector (your mouth/pen) onto the screen (your mind; your ears; other’s ears; your journal; and most importantly, your heart) so life can be brought to them.
I read somewhere the following statement: “What we think is what we believe. What we believe is what we speak. What we speak is what we create (reality).” So begin to speak life, and choose to let death go.
I’ll end this the same way Darci and I ended our book “Losing Big.” This is what you should project with your mouth when it comes to your dreams: “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:19 NIV)
A few weeks ago my 12 year old son played in a soccer tournament. It was 105˚ outside and most of the parents had all their chairs huddled in the shade of a large tree. The temperature in the shade was almost 20˚ lower than in the sun, so obviously this tree created some prime real estate. When the occasional light breeze blew through it felt like someone turned on the AC. Some parents who camped out beyond the reach of the tree’s branches still enjoyed shade, but the had to move often as the sun rose into the sky. My wife and I were among the sun’s first victims and we were forced to move toward the huddled masses nearer to the tree’s base to avoid getting sunburned in short order. As My wife and I were the first to get left out of the shade and had to move. As we shuffled our chairs toward the others, a few questions popped into my mind… Am I going to be in the way of someone else who’s trying to watch the games? Are they going to think I am a wimp for moving?
Although I can be the crazy, out-of-the-box, make-it-happen guy, I still get self-conscious at times. But courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the willingness to move in spite of your fear.
How often do circumstances like the shade moving cause trouble for us, but we refuse to move because of what others might think?
When this happens to you, what is your normal response?
I was just talking to an old friend of mine. He is severely overweight and, in fact, was one of the people I asked to try out with me for The Biggest Loser season 7. He found one excuse after another why he couldn’t do it. But in today’s conversation, he asked me to help him and a friend with a music project. I told him possibly I could do something in the future, but right now I’m working on too many projects. There is just no time right now.
We then started talking briefly about John Lennon’s song ‘Beautiful Boy,’ that says “Life is what happens when you are busy making plans.” He stated that he left his college to become a truck driver and now, 12 years later, he’s still on a truck with no college degree and hundreds of pounds heavier than when he started. Boy, do I know that story! I kept telling myself, “I’ll start Monday” or “My new year’s resolution will be to get healthy” or “Next year when I’m out of debt, I’ll join a gym and lose this weight!” Well, 15 years went by, and I was heavier each year until I was almost 460 pounds! I made plans and promises, and life happened.
Well, I then told him it was not too late…it is NEVER too late! I said, “I was 430 pounds when I left for The Biggest Loser, and I finished at 191 pounds in just under 7 months. In 7 months I righted the wrongs I had been doing to myself all those years. Not by regretting never starting, but by starting now!” I now realize that you CANNOT do anything about what you have done in the past, but you CAN do something about what you do from this point forward.
I couldn’t control the last 15 years of my life anymore. I had the fruits of all those lost dreams and unmade decisions, but I COULD begin right now and start to right the ship. If a ship could make a hairpin turn, the Titanic would have never happened. The fact is, first you turn the wheel, and then the ship starts to turn slowly. It takes time, and consistency, but if you keep that wheel turned, the ship will eventually turn a 180 degree turn and move in the direction you want it to.
I can only hope that he heard me. What I mean is that “Those who have ears to hear, let them hear” means is that some are not ready or open to hear what is being said. Best case scenario? –That a month from now I find out that he has turned the wheel and has lost some weight, begun the process of getting off that truck that he doesn’t want to be on, and gets himself back into his life. We will see, but one can only hope.
If you are reading this and need to make that change…whether it be stopping a habit, starting a good habit, making that “shift” you need to make, or whatever the case…that you will grip the wheel RIGHT NOW, and start to right the ship. Just turn it and trust the process. Lose your quit and the ship will turn, but the decision is up to you. Yes or no, it is up to you. I promise you though, once the decision is truly ‘YES,’ anything is possible…and I mean ANYTHING! www.loseyourquit.com
In life, one of two things can happen… the positive thing or the negative thing. I was talking with my pastor and his wife the other night and she said something that really shocked me. She said her daughter had moved to another school, and she was having some trouble making friends. She got up in the morning and said, “Today is going to be bad…I am going to eat lunch alone again! No one knows me here!” My pastor’s wife said “Dear, if you believe that and channel your energy to that, that is what will probably happen!” She then told her to speak out of her mouth, “Today is going to be great. I am going to make a new friend and eat lunch with someone.”
Well, she did. You see, we tend to create our worst fears. If you are afraid you are going to fail that test, you probably will…only because you believe it! Here’s another example:
As a child there was a young boy. His mother always told him, “You are very smart! But you are not mechanically inclined! Get knowledge, but forget doing things with your hands!”
The man was an incredibly smart individual, but he never did anything that took mechanical skills. You see, he was “programmed” to NOT do that! Where are you channeling your energy and beliefs? START CHANNELING THEM FOR SUCCESS! CHANGE THE CHANNEL! YOU hold the key. YOU can change your future. Channel your thoughts and beliefs to a positive, constructive, successful area! The results will surprise you!
