Overcoming Difficulties

The first week of Navy boot camp in 1968 was rough. We were assigned to another recruit on temporary assigned duty (TAD) whose job was to get us through processing. It was also his job to make that first week as rough as possible. I can safely say that every one of us hated him before the week was out. That was…until the last night we had him.

He called us to the center of our temporary barracks and told us the next morning we would be going across the highway to our assigned companies to begin our training. We would meet our company commander at that time, and he would return to his own company to complete his basic training. He explained it would be challenging, and there would be times we might not think we could do what we were being asked to do. He told us to remember one thing: Tens of thousands of recruits had done what we would be asked to do, and we could do it as well. Furthermore, he said that the Navy would never ask us to do anything that was not possible to do.

I thought of his words often during boot camp, because there were times I was sure we were being asked to do the impossible. Until I found out it was possible. Throughout my four years in the Navy I remembered his words again when my ship was deployed for long stretches of time, and I was away from my wife and daughter. His words have also been helpful when I’ve gone through difficult times throughout my life.

There have been times when I didn’t think I would get through some situation in my life, and then I would remind myself that millions of other people have gone through the same thing and came out on top. If they could, so can I.

The same is true of each of us. I’ve written a lot about choices the past few weeks, and this is another choice we each have to make at times. We don’t get to choose everything that comes into our lives, but we always get to choose how we will respond to them. And, as I keep reminding my readers, choices have consequences. Some choose to give up in the face of obstacles. Others choose to find ways to overcome those obstacles. Guess which one comes out ahead in the end.

Life will test each one of us. No matter our place in life, our economic or social status, our religious beliefs or lack of them, our race or nationality, we will be tested. Bad things do happen to good people. It rains on the just and the unjust the same. In my seven decades I have found that every test has a purpose and a way to overcome it.

Knowing this and responding appropriately are two different things. Like anyone else, there are times I can be in despair over some challenge and see no way through, but if we don’t give up, there is always a way through. There is always a way to overcome the difficulties that come our way.

One of the things that is often helpful is to remember how we came through previous challenges. Just being reminded that we’ve overcome past difficulties often gives us the ability to overcome our current ones. If you’re struggling right now with something in your life, spend 20 minutes thinking back to past times when you struggled and wasn’t sure you would make it. Obviously, you did. What helped you then that you can apply now to today’s situation?

Our financial choices

One of the things I learned many years ago in Economics 101 was the importance of knowing the opportunity costs of our choices. The opportunity cost is the price of the next best thing you could have done had you not made your first choice. If you have a thousand dollars and you choose to buy a new cell phone with that money you have also chosen not to spend that thousand dollars to purchase something else. What you could not buy with that thousand dollars is the opportunity cost of your decision. It's an important concept to keep in mind when you are making financial decisions.

Many today seek immediate gratification. They see something they want and they buy it without thinking about the opportunity cost of that decision. There are people who will buy the latest phone as soon as it comes out and then not be able to pay their rent. They want a new car so they finance it for seven years without ever considering what that car will actually cost them when the interest on their car loan is added in and without thinking about the things they won't be able to do because they have to make a car payment.

This desire for immediate gratification is going to be costly. According to one study three out of five Americans have less than $10,000 in retirement savings, and one-third have nothing saved for retirement. Contrary to what some people think, retirement will come one day for most of us, and without adequate savings it will be a difficult time.

Dave Ramsey recommends that people put 15 percent of their income into a retirement savings account. Others recommend 10 percent. I'm no financial expert, but I would think somewhere between those numbers would be pretty good if it was done consistently and invested well. Right now some of you are arguing that it's not possible for you to put 15 percent of your income into a retirement account. Here's where that opportunity cost thinking comes into play. If you choose to spend more than you make each week, you are exactly right. You can't put 15 percent into retirement. In fact, you can't put anything into retirement because you've already spent more than you've made.

However, what if you put 15 percent into retirement before you did anything else with your money? Let's try this formula. Our of each paycheck you pay yourself 15 percent of your income and put it into a retirement account, you take another 10 percent and pay your tithe to your church or synagogue, and you are left with 75 percent of your income to live on.

I realize that many cannot do that because of the debt they carry. You chose to go into debt. Now is the time to choose to get out of debt and get serious about saving for retirement. I can tell you from experience it's a lot easier to get in debt than it is to get out. To go into debt all you have to do is sign on the dotted line. To get out of debt you have to become an adult, sacrifice, be disciplined and follow a process. The best process I found for getting out of debt, and the one I used, is found in Dave Ramsey's book The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness. It gives you a step-by-step plan for getting out of debt and saving for the future. It works.

The thing to remember is that every financial decision we make has an opportunity cost. If you spend money on this, you cannot spend that same money on that. If you spend more than you make, you can't save for retirement or do other things you might want to do with that money. Make good financial choices and you'll find you can enjoy life much more.

You get to choose your life

One of the most life-giving lessons I've learned in my seven decades is that I have the opportunity to choose many of the things I experience in life. Obviously, there are some things we do not get to choose. There are persons who are born with handicaps who would never have chosen those handicaps, but they still get to choose how they will respond to those limitations. If you doubt that you need to read What's Your Excuse?: Making the Most of What You Have. It's the story of John Foppe, a man born with no arms who refused to let that handicap limit him. It's a powerful book about how each of us can choose how to respond to the challenges life presents to us.

Foppe could have chosen to be a "perpetual victim." You know those people. They are always blaming others for the bad things that have happened to them. They refuse to take any responsibility for themselves. It's the government's responsibility to provide for them, or the church's, or their family's.

There is no doubt that some people have had rough times. They may not have had the best childhood. They may have suffered abuse or neglect. They may have faced more struggles than most people. I would never discount that, but that is in the past. Maybe there was nothing they could do about their circumstances back then, but now they are adults. They can choose to live in the past and blame their problems on the things that happened back then or they can choose to live in the present and prepare themselves for a better future.

It's time that people begin to take responsibility for their lives. That's called maturity. It's being a grown-up. Instead of demanding that the government increase the minimum wage, do something that will entitle you to earn more. All raising the minimum wage does is cost people jobs. If you want to earn more money, be worth more.

During my senior year of high school I worked at a local supermarket. I was in a class that went to school a half-day and worked the other half. I bagged groceries for .75 cents an hour. I worked about 50 hours a week (You can't do that now while going to school!). In a few weeks I was promoted to a stocker and given responsibility for ordering stock for an entire aisle of products. I requested a raise and received it. A few months later I was given responsibility for a second aisle. Now I was ordering product and responsible for stocking two aisles in that store. I got another raise. Some of the other students in the class complained to the teacher because I was making more than they were. When he challenged me about that I explained if they wanted to make more money all they had to do was to be worth more. After that conversation I asked for another raise and got it, too!

No one can hold you back except you. No one can limit what you can achieve but you. People tell me they can't get a better job because they don't have the education and can't get it.  I earned my bachelor's degree at the age of 46 while working full-time in a factory and pastoring a church. I got my master's degree at 58 while working a full-time job and my doctorate at 62 while working that same job. Don't tell me you can't get the education you need. Besides, you can get a good job without a college education. There are employers who will train people who want to work. Why should anyone worry about a minimum wage job when there are good jobs out there for those willing to pursue them?

Your choices are not limited to jobs or salaries. You get to choose the kind of marriage you will have, the way you raise your children, your financial security, your character, your happiness and a host of other aspects of your life. Quit living in the past and begin making choices that will improve your life now and in the future. The choice is yours.

Happiness is a choice

A 2017 study reported that only about 33 percent of the people who responded to a survey said they were happy. That means there is a lot of unhappy people out there. What is the cause of so much unhappiness? One psychologist claims that about 50 percent of our unhappiness is controlled by our genetics and our environment. That means that 50 percent of our happiness is under our control. Sonja Lybubromirsky, a research professor, who has studied happiness for over 25 years, has written a book called The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want in which she claims that 40 percent of our happiness is within our control. But wait a minute. If part of our unhappiness is due to our environment, that means that some of that is under our control as well. We can take steps to change our environment.

If our unhappiness is due to financial stresses we can do things to improve our finances. If our unhappiness is the result of our work environment, we can change jobs or find ways to make our work less stressful. If marriage issues are the result of our unhappiness we can work to improve our marriage. As you can see, there are many things in our environment that we can make better which means that well over 50 percent of our happiness or unhappiness is within our control. We can choose to be happy.

Besides changing negative things that might be happening in our environment, what are some things we can do to be happier?

• We can change the way we talk to ourselves. As I said in an earlier post, the most important conversation you will have each day is the one you have with yourself. If we speak negative thoughts about ourselves into our minds it's going to be difficult to be happy. It's important to maintain a positive image of ourselves in our minds if we want to be successful in our endeavors, and the way to help promote that positive image is to speak positive words to ourselves.
• It's important to focus on our relationships. Do you spend most of your time with positive people or negative people? If you spend the majority of your time with toxic people that toxicity will begin to affect you. It's real hard to be happy around those who spend most of their time complaining and spreading negativity everywhere they go.
• Find a hobby or activity you enjoy doing. We have to find things we enjoy doing to take us away from the hustle and bustle of life. When I recovered from my clinical depression in the mid-1980s I began to look for things to do that was fun. We took more vacations that we had before. I bought a bass boat, and my wife and I spent time fishing. After selling the boat I bought a motorcycle which we rode on trips. Enjoy life and you can't help but become happier.
• Focus on creating memories, not on accumulating things. We once rode the motorcycle to South Dakota. We went through the Badlands and up to Mt. Rushmore. My wife had always dreamed of seeing Mt. Rushmore, but she certainly never thought it would be from the back of a motorcycle! It was a marvelous trip. We don't have a lot of toys (even the motorcycle is gone now), but that just means the ones we leave behind won't have a lot of stuff to get rid of. But, they will have some great memories we have shared.
• Eliminate anger from your life. We live in a very angry society. It seems everyone is angry with everyone else, and what does that get us? It robs us of the ability to be happy. There are some things for which we should be angry, but much of the anger I see exhibited today does nothing positive.
• Practice forgiveness. This goes along with eliminating anger. Unforgiveness eats away at the one who holds onto it. It normally doesn't impact the person we're refusing to forgive, but it certainly does harm the one refusing to forgive. What has been done in the past cannot be undone. Let it go. That does not mean that we put ourselves in a position where someone who has hurt us can do so again. Forgiveness is letting go of the past and refusing to allow it to hold us captive any longer.

If we take these steps we will find our happiness level will increase. As you can see, everyone of these steps represents a choice you can make which means that you can choose to be happy. I hope you will.

Dreams without action are useless

Whose name comes to mind when I say "Dreamer?" Chances are you know people who spend much of their time dreaming about things they want to do or things that need to be changed, but they never take any action to do either. I have worked with a number of churches to help them identify a new vision for ministry, but many of them never did anything after they developed their vision statement. It went into a folder on someone's computer and was never heard from again. What a waste of energy and effort!

Visions and dreams are important. They help give an organization or individual focus. It keeps them future-oriented, but only if they actually take action on the dream. Navel-gazers seldom accomplish much. At some point, action has to be taken or the dreaming is just an exercise in futility.

The first step in seeing your dreams become reality is to identify the steps you have to take to achieve them. For instance, let's say your dream is become the top salesperson in your company. What are the steps you have to take to achieve that dream?

First, you need to know how much in sales the current top salesperson does annually. If you are going to be the top salesperson you need to know the figure you have to meet to achieve that.

Second, you need to know the ratio between sales calls and actual sales and the average sales per customer. For instance, if your company averages a sale for every five sales calls and the average sale is $1,000.00 then you know that you need to make five calls to sell $1,000.00 of your product or service. How many of those $1K sales do you need to be the top salesperson? Take that number and multiply it times 5, and that's how many sales calls you need to make.

You also want to consider how you might improve that $1,000.00 average sale. What if you could increase your average to $1,500.00? If so, fewer calls will accomplish your goal, or if you keep the same number of sales calls but increase the average sale, you will really be the top salesperson. What added benefits or upsales will help you increase your average? Identify those and you are well on your way to achieving your dream.

This same format works regardless of what your dream might be. It's a matter of breaking your dream down into bite-size pieces that become more manageable. Doing this doesn't make it seem as scary or impossible to achieve.

But, none of this matters if you are not willing to do the hard work required of achieving those bite-sized pieces. You have to get boots on the ground, work the phones, make the cold calls, study the assignments, sacrifice and be committed to doing just a little bit more than the next person. After all, the next person is average, and you don't want to be average. You want to be the top producer. Achieving your dream may require you to make just one more call before you go home each day. Sometimes just a little extra effort enables you to see your dreams fulfilled.

Like everything else in life, the choice is yours. Do you want to see your dream fulfilled badly enough that you will take the action required to accomplish it?

Don't be afraid to fail

If there is one thing that keeps most people from reaching their potential it is the fear of failure. Many people are so afraid they will fail that they don't even make an effort to live up to their potential. Perhaps they have failed in the past. Maybe they are replaying those voices in their heads that told them from childhood that they would never amount to anything. Some have just been beat down by life so much that they have given up. Whatever the reason, this fear of failure controls the thinking and the lives of too many people.

No one enjoys failing. I certainly don't. I can get down with the best of them when I fail at something. But, I don't stay down, and I don't allow past failures keep me from trying again.

When I wrote my first book I sent a proposal to a publisher asking them to publish my book. A few weeks later I got a rejection letter. I sent it to another publisher. When their response came back weeks later they said they might publish it, but it would need a lot of work before they would make a final decision. I did the rewrites they suggested, but it was months before I sent it back to them. I was afraid of being rejected again. When they agreed to publish the book I cried. Had I not overcome my fear of failure that book, and the next seven, would have never been published.

It's important to recognize that we all fail at times. In fact, it's not uncommon to fail. Ted Williams has a lifetime batting average of .344, the best in Major League Baseball. The average batting average in 2017 was .248 so you can see what an accomplishment this is. Williams' average earned him a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame. However, his batting average also reveals that almost two out of three times he got up to bat he failed to get a hit. Is he considered a failure because he made an out almost twice as often as he got a hit? Obviously not!

Brian Tracy writes, “According to the American Management Association, at least 70 percent of your decisions will turn out to be wrong in the fullness of time. This 70 percent figure is an average. Some people will be wrong even more often.” If we are going to be wrong so often we need to learn how to fail forward. In other words, we need to learn how to profit from our failures. Every failure carries with it knowledge that we can use at other times to increase our chances of success.

Research has found that high achievers typically experience at least three to four major failures and seven major successes in their careers. Obviously, they learned important lessons from the failures they experienced which they applied to future endeavors. It's also important to note that they didn't give up after their first failure. They persevered until they achieved the success they were seeking.

I encourage you to choose to fail forward. Don't fear failure, and don't give up when you do fail at something. If you'll press on you will eventually experience the success you seek.

Make a difference in the lives of other people

One of the most important things anyone can do is to make a positive difference in the life of another person. All around us are people who are hurting. They be struggling with illnesses, relationship issues, financial pressures, employment concerns, or some crisis we know nothing about. Chances are they feel at times that no one cares. Sometimes, all it takes is one person to make a positive difference in a person's life. Why shouldn't that person be you?

There are many ways you can make a difference in someone's life. It doesn't take a million dollars or some supernatural ability. Sometimes all you have to do is listen. A few years ago I was called to the home of an individual to look at some items she wanted me to sell for her at auction. After we talked for a few minutes she began to tell me how her life was unraveling. Her fiance has recently died, and she was struggling with an illness herself. As she began to tell me all the bad things that was going on in her life the tears were running down her face. I explained that I was a retired pastor and asked if I could pray for her. She agreed, and after I prayed I asked if she had a church home. I knew many of the churches in that area, and when she responded she did not attend a church I was able to recommend a couple I knew could help her. Her spirits lifted simply because some cared enough to listen to her pain.

Another thing you can do is to stand up for someone going through a rough time. When Jackie Robinson became the first African-American player to play in the Major Leagues he encountered a lot of hatred. Some opposing teams threatened to not play if he was on the field. Even some of his own teammates threatened they would refuse to play as long as he was on the team. Fans in the stands hurled the worst racial comments towards him they could think of. One game was exceptionally hateful when Pee Wee Reese walked over to Robinson and stood beside him with his arms around his shoulders. Reese was highly respected in MLB, and his act of friendship soon quieted the crowd. Sometimes we can make a difference just by being a friend and letting the other person know they are not alone in their battle.

A third way we can make a difference in someone's life is to share what we know. I have spent a lifetime promoting and writing about bivocational ministry. My doctoral thesis was on the subject. Every year I get one or two calls from grad students who are writing their dissertations on bivocational ministry, and they are calling to ask me some questions. I love being able to help them because I know that not only are they being helped, but their research and writing will help others down the line.

The final thing I'll mention is to stay positive. Too many people look for the negative in others when we should be looking for the positive. Sometimes a person makes a mistake and people are quick to jump on the negative bandwagon. No one's life should be evaluated for their worst moments. If you look for the good you'll find it in most people. When they get down on themselves for their mistakes you can remind them of all the good qualities that are in their lives. Believe me, it will make a difference.

I encourage you to look for those people who needs encouragement, who needs someone to remind them of their potential. Take these steps and you'll make a difference in their lives.