Something’s missing here. It’s this truth: Results come only from action. If you don’t have the results you want, you’re not taking the right action. So instead of rationalizing your way out of doing what you need to do, learn what action you should take, and then take it. Your time is now. Give your all aright Life won’t always go as desired. When it doesn’t, don’t just say, “Well, it must not be the Lord’s timing.” Concluding so prematurely will keep you from the real solutions you need. Too many LDS singles use the concept of the Lord’s timing as a crutch to excuse themselves from further involvement in their own eternal progression. We all want to believe we can get what we want without making any changes in ourselves, that we just need to keep the standards and then the Lord will just deliver our desired companion when the time is right. It’s an enticing yet deceptive argument. The universe doesn’t work that way. To reap the harvest, you must sow the seed for that harvest. To get a different harvest, you must sow different seed. And you choose what seed to sow. You can make you more attractive to your hoped for eternal companion. Giving your all to the right things always produces the right results. Seek to do more Ultimately, happiness is not about doing the right things but rather giving your all to the right things. Without question the standards are some of those right things. So is holding to the iron rod. And so is eliminating habits that encourage potential companions to decide against you. So is changing the way you think so your approach to life broadcasts an attractive rather than repulsive energy. So is conquering your fears holding you back from achieving your potential. So is partnering with the Lord so you can know what steps you need to take today to turn your life around and capture all the joy He wants you to have right now. Rushing to conclude the Lord’s timing isn’t right just because you’re still single blinds you from seeing all you can do that’s right for you. You’ll never get right results without right action. No matter how much you’ve done, there’s always more you can do. Results come from action and only from action. Stop using the Lord’s timing as a crutch to justify inaction. You don’t get results from anything but action. Someone must act for you to get results. That someone is you, and your time is now. Partner with the Lord That undoubtedly irritates some of you, especially if you’ve sincerely given your all to secure your companion. And I’m not discounting the Lord’s timetable for each of our lives. He knows not only what’s right but when it’s right. That’s why you need to partner with Him. When you do, you’ll know what you should do with the time you have now. For most LDS singles, now is the time to take action to move towards eternal blessings. It’s not just about keeping the standards. It’s changing the way you think so you embrace a new way of being that makes you more attractive. That’s the real secret. Marriage is best pursued indirectly, not directly. When you choose to make the right changes in you, you drastically increase the likelihood someone you want will want you. Partnering with the Lord will help you know what changes are best for you to make today that will attract a brighter tomorrow. The Lord does have a right time for each of us to receive eternal blessings. But unless you’ve got revelation your time isn’t now, you’re choosing to be single when you use the concept of the Lord’s timing to justify your own inaction. For most LDS singles, your time is now. So get busy giving your all to all the right things for you. When you do, you’ll move yourself closer to the blessings you desire. And that will bring you more joy in your journey.
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How did friendship come to be so bad? That’s totally upside down. Friendship is good, and when you understand the fundamentals of the dating journey, you can easily see you do want the Friend Zone. Understand your journey It’s hard to get anywhere in any journey without having a good map and then getting your bearings on that map. That’s what knowing the fundamentals of the dating journey does. They provide that good map and help us get our bearings. One of those fundamentals is understanding the different stages. And the first stage of the dating journey is the Friendship stage. You’re in this stage when you first meet someone, and you’ll be in this stage until you start dating. In this stage, there’s no commitment of either party to each other; anyone can come and go as they please. That lack of commitment is necessary to foster each person opening up enough to let someone else know them better, which you need to foster true friendship. Friendship is the foundation of all successful long-term relationships. That’s why the Friendship stage is the first stage of the dating journey. Without friendship, a married couple won’t have the stamina to get through the difficult times and challenges that sooner or later come to every marriage. If you want to build something that lasts, begin with a solid foundation. Be where you are The Friendship stage is where building that solid foundation starts. You don’t necessarily need to have that foundation completed before proceeding to the next stage. In fact, you’ll be building that foundation of friendship all along your dating journey. But you should have the core established before going further. Many singles encounter difficulty in their dating journey when they try to rush it. Seeing singleness as something to escape, they want it over as quickly as possible. That propensity to rush leads them to think they’re in one stage when they’re really in another. Singles progress more effectively through their dating journey when they consciously choose to be in the stage where they are. You may want to be dating someone, but if you’re in the Friendship stage, then be there. That doesn’t mean you don’t look for opportunities to date. It means you focus on friendship building skills you’ll need when you’re with whoever you do eventually marry. So when you’re in the Friendship stage, be in the place where you are. Focus on building friendships and enjoying people for who they are and what they have to offer without any expectation of getting something in return. There’s no commitment in this stage of the dating journey, so you don’t have to accept anything you don’t like. Enjoy the journey more When you focus on being where you are, what was once complex and confusing becomes simple and clear. Truly being in the place where you are allows you to let go of worries and concerns about the future. You can’t cross a bridge until you get to it, so focus on crossing when you get there. Being in the place where you are also allows you to experience more joy in your journey. Because you’ve pushed aside concerns about future stages for when you’re actually in those stages, you’ve cleared the space for more joy to come into your life. You can learn to enjoy people for who they really are without concerns about what they might offer you in return. The friend zone then changes from the equivalent of some God-forsaken wasteland to a wonderful paradise of plenty where life just becomes enjoyable. And isn’t that what we all really want in the end?
From the original Greek, a mote is a small piece of wood like a chip or splinter, but a beam is like a much larger structural member used to construct a house. The contrast here has been applied differently but always with a play on the vast difference in perspective represented by the different size of the mote and the beam. When applied to dating, that contrast enlightens how LDS singles can improve their dating lives. It’s all in the lesson of the mote and the beam. Flip your intention The Savior is talking here about judgment because in the previous two verses He encourages judging righteously. And it’s a pretty simple analogy. How do we condemn others in righteousness when we ourselves are so grossly lack righteousness? Often we judge small imperfections in others as huge monumental issues. But if we look inside ourselves, we’ve got issues that truly are monumental, just as a beam is monumentally larger than a mote. “For all have sinned,” the apostle Paul declared, “and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). I know for my own self I’ve never claimed to be anything but a walking construction zone with more imperfections than Swiss cheese has holes. So who am I to judge others for falling short when I myself am so lacking? And that’s the point. It’s not about refraining from making any judgments at all; it’s about recognizing how we’re all flawed and then allowing that recognition to lead us into empathy and compassion in viewing others. Our intention turns from condemning them for their imperfections to considering how we can help them improve. See your beam The application to dating should be obvious. When evaluating potential dates, too often singles reject candidates based on imperfections when they themselves are certainly not paragons of perfection. Singles often assessing those imperfections, however tiny, as monumental disqualifications. They focus so much on having perfect they forgo the joy they could have if only they accepted good enough. And as we’ve discussed before, you can have maximum joy with someone who’s just good enough if both of you give your all to each other. That typically isn’t what happens, though. Singles use whatever standards they have as a litmus test in which no imperfection is tolerated. And since so many of us are wildly imperfect, no one passes the test, which leaves singles stuck asking where all the “good” candidates are and wondering why they can’t progress in their dating journey. Remove the moteWhat’s the solution here? The Savior advised us to take the beam out of our own eye first, and then we’ll see clearly to remove the mote in another’s eye. Applied to dating that advice becomes this: Look to accept and improve yourself first, and then you’ll be better able to accept and improve a potentially good dating partner. Instead of discarding potential candidates with their imperfections, singles should ask how they can help them to discard those imperfections. The key here is assessing direction. You need to allow and encourage potential partners to show they’re aligning their lives with the direction you want for your life. If they demonstrate that willingness, you should investigate further rather than summarily rejecting them for their imperfections. I’m not suggesting we’re interchangeable parts or that there aren’t acceptable reasons for rejecting a dating candidate. What I am suggesting is that we need to be more accepting of imperfection in others, especially since each of us is bereft with imperfection. The perfect partner for you is the imperfect one who’ll help you become perfect and who you in turn help to perfect. So take in the lesson of the mote and the beam. It may be hard at first, but you just might be surprised at how perfect for you some of those you previously judged as too imperfect actually are. And that will bring you more joy in your journey.
This logic keeps many LDS singles single longer — in some cases, much, much longer. Here’s a more effective approach: Live where you are in your dating journey. Don't reject a date based on your standards for marriage. Reject a date based on your standards for dating. Know where you are To live where you are, you must first know where you are. Having a good map can be helpful for that. As we’ve discussed before, the dating journey map shows these stages:
Know your next step No map will tell you where to go. But once you decide your destination, a good map will tell you how to get there. Understanding the different stages of the dating journey helps you know where you are on the map. From there, the dating journey map tells you how to get where you want to go. You don’t climb a mountain by constantly staring at the peak. You climb a mountain by looking where your feet you are and taking a step forward. Your focus, then, should be on the next step in front of you, not the end goal. Once you know where you are in your dating journey, your next step is to secure the agreement for the next stage. Without the necessary agreement, you don’t progress. Period. You don’t need to look beyond the agreement you need for the next stage. That’s like staring constantly at the summit without looking where you put your feet. Good luck climbing the mountain that way. Be where you areMany LDS singles have disagreeable dating experiences because they keep looking at that summit of marriage instead of the earlier dating stage where their feet are. It’s no wonder they keep tripping over themselves and getting hurt. If that’s your experience, here’s some free advice: Start living where you are. If you focus on where your feet are and take the next step directly before you, and then the next one, and so on, eventually you’ll climb the mountain. So focus on where your feet are: Apply standards of dating to dates. This of course means you might date someone you wouldn’t marry. So what? That’s perfectly normal; everyone dates people they never marry. Only by dating lots of people will you better know that right type of person who demands more serious consideration. Because you’ll date people you’ll never marry, your standards will change with each stage of the dating journey. You’ll casually date people you won’t exclusively date. And you’ll exclusively date people you won’t marry. Recognizing these truths makes it easier to live where you are. You can better enjoy someone’s company irrespective of whether or not you’ll marry that same person when you focus on that moment rather than on some agenda to achieve a future goal. Applying standards of dating to dating helps you to live in the place where you are. This in turn helps you to live more fully in the moment and makes you more attractive to someone who can help you be where you want to be. And that will bring more joy in your journey.
Covenant men and women, on the other hand, value covenants over all else. When an opportunity to gain something desirable for themselves comes along, they choose to make and keep sacred covenants, despite whatever they may lose for themselves. They in essence say, “Something better may come along, but I choose my covenants. Here I stand, and this is it for me.” Recognize the natural That difference may seem obvious. But too many LDS singles prioritize self over sacred covenants. I’m not talking about people going inactive or apostate, although you could apply it that way. I’m talking about singles rejecting great candidates simply because they aren’t the absolute “best.” What drives this behavior? Singles mistakenly assume if they don’t marry the “best” they’ll be condemned to an unhappy future. Approaching dating with this faulty assumption, the natural mindset either ignores or rejects candidates who would make excellent companions and bring a life of real joy and happiness. That’s because natural men and women believe you must have the absolute “best” to be happy. That natural mindset also drives behaviors that give dating its all too painful reputation. For instance, ghosting wouldn’t exist without the natural mindset. Singles who ghost dating candidates essentially prioritize their own self-gratification. What they want — be it avoiding an uncomfortable conversation or pursuing a more attractive candidate — matters more than how others feel. This doesn’t mean you should always surrender to what others want. It just means you should be respectful of others as you search for the best path for you. Recognize the covenantIf the grass is always greener on the other side, natural men and women will look to get to that other side. They gladly chase after anything better for them because to them what they want matters most. In contrast, covenant men and women may see the same something better, but they value covenants above all. So if pursuing something better means breaking their covenants, they don’t pursue it. To them, making and keeping sacred covenants matters most. Now I’m not advocating marrying just anyone who’s active. You can have standards while prioritizing covenants. Suppose you’re choosing between two dating options: The first rates a 10 on a 10-point scale (with 10 being the best) but consistently pursues self-interest, and the second rates a 7 but consistently keeps covenants already made. The natural mindset urges choosing the first option, because 10 gratifies self more than 7. The covenant mindset also sees 10 is better than 7, but the covenant mindset encourages choosing the second candidate, because the covenant mindset prioritizes making and keeping sacred covenants. Now what if the second candidate rated a 3 instead? The covenant mindset could turn that candidate away, because a partner who doesn’t bring something to the table and serves as little more than filler material will make it harder to keep the covenants which the covenant mindset prizes. Clearly we need a sense of balance, but prioritizing covenants doesn’t mean other standards have no importance. Choose wisely In reality, no one of us is entirely natural or covenant. We’re all a combination of both, just as we are all mixtures of good and evil, light and darkness, strength and weakness. The real question is “Which one will dominate your choices?” Many LDS singles stand in their own way of marriage because they allow the natural man or woman to govern their dating choices. True joy in married life comes from living the covenant mindset that says, “Something better may come along, but I make my stand here. For me, this is it.” This means you could “settle” for an allegedly “lesser” candidate and yet have the maximum amount of joy life offers. So be a covenant man or a covenant woman who will say, “Something better for me may come along, but I make my stand here. For me, this is it.” When you do, you’ll find your dating life as well as your married life more enjoyable. And that will bring you more joy in your journey.
These false assumptions actually create the struggle with knowing who to marry. That’s why singles looking for the presence of yes should instead look for the absence of no. Take your responsibility We’re here in mortality to exercise agency. Our choices in this life determine our situation in the next stage of our eternal journey. We therefore bear the responsibility for our choices. That’s precisely why singles who look for some significant spiritual confirmation often struggle with knowing who to marry. Insisting God provide some unmistakable sign you should marry So-and-so means God carries responsibility for that decision. That’s not how it works, so insisting it should work that way only ends in frustration. We’re here in mortality to make choices. And we have responsibility for those choices. Pushing that responsibility back to God defies His plan for His children. Insisting on some definite spiritual sign says we don’t accept So-and-so until God tells us marrying So-and-so will work out well. It pushes back to God the responsibility for our choices that rightly belongs to us. Make your choice We naturally want the security that would come from God revealing to us So-and-so is someone we should marry. But that’s not how it works. A river journey tends to go smoother when you don’t fight the current by paddling upstream. You can paddle downstream by aligning your assumptions with eternally true principles. Instead of fighting God’s design for mortality by pushing the responsibility for your choices onto Him, go with the way it’s supposed to work by accepting that responsibility. Revelation from God comes after you make your own decision and then bring that decision you made to God to seek His counsel on your decision. God will then respond with yes, no, or maybe. If He answers yes, you’ll feel the strong, unmistakable impression He approves of your decision. If He answers no, you’ll feel a similarly unmistakable impression He doesn’t approve. And if you don’t get any strong impression one way or the other, He answers maybe, which means He trusts you to make your own decision. So unless the Lord answers no, you should go forward with your decision. If He answers yes, going forward is obvious. But you should also go forward if He answers maybe. If your choice would take you too far away from where He wants you, God answers no. So when He doesn’t answer no, you can walk forward in faith following through on your decision. Only if He answers no do you need to change course. So all you really need is the absence of no. Walk in faith Singles stand in their own way when they insist on the presence of yes when approaching marriage decisions. But that faulty assumption also retards progress at any stage of the dating journey. So unless you get that overwhelming sense of no from the Spirit, you should include more people in your circle of friends, and you should casually date more of those friends more often. Especially in the early stages of the dating journey, you don’t need to receive revelation for every choice you make. Some might extend that to deciding who to marry. Regardless of how you feel about that idea, looking for the absence of no will have you making more progress more quickly in your dating journey. So if you’ve been waiting for the presence of yes before you move forward, it’s time to change your assumptions. Stop looking for the presence of yes, and start looking for the absence of no. Walk in faith the Lord will tell you when you’re traveling too far from the path He wants for you. That walk will breathe confidence in your gait as you gain more experience. With that experience, you’ll learn, grow, and make more and more better choices. And that will bring you more joy in your journey.
But in reflecting upon my situation, I’ve come to realize my faulty assumption. I’ve been assuming I can find peace only outside myself. I want to get away from the fighting that fills our communities. I want to escape the turbulence of these troubled times. I want to resolve the circumstances outside myself that I’ve erroneously connected with how I feel inside myself. But peace doesn’t come from outside ourselves. Peace comes from within. As a popular song teaches, let there be peace, and let it begin with me. When we take proper action, we can have peace within even though the world around us has anything but. Align yourself Your focus determines your reality. So when you change your focus, you change your realty. When you change the way you think, you change your life. All of us can create a reality of peace in our lives when we focus on what brings peace. And the ultimate source of peace is the Prince of Peace. He suffered our pains and troubles so that He would know how to be compassionate in our hour of need. He died so that we could live. That life Christ gives isn’t just eternal life in the realm beyond the veil. He gives life here and now in mortality. He can lighten our load and light the way before us. He can lift us when we are low. He can give hope amidst despair. But in order to make His lift, His light, and His love our reality, we must focus upon Him. The Christmas spirit of peace lives in us when we increase our discipleship to the Prince of Peace. It’s when we ignore His teachings or turn our focus away from the weightier matters of covenant living that we bring ourselves the opposite of peace. Aligning our will with His brings a harmony with truth that makes our hearts a natural home for peace. Give yourselfAnd only when we have peace within ourselves can we effectively promote peace outside ourselves. Only a continued walk after the Prince of Peace can inspire others to follow His enlightened example and find peace within themselves. But deep, lasting peace never comes from just going through the motions. Just as true happiness comes from giving yourself to all the right things for you, deep, lasting peace comes only when you align yourself with all the right things for you. Of course you should strive to keep the commandments and your covenants. Those things are right for everyone. But beyond the standards reside what’s right for each of us individually — goodness related to your personal ministry and the contribution only you can make in the lives of others. When you give yourself to those right things that only you can do, you promote peace. You become a city shining on a hill giving goodness, light, and love to an increasingly darkened world desperately in need. And that peace you bring to others can bring greater peace to you as well. Promote peace You can’t really share with others what you yourself don’t have. It all starts where the song says it starts. Let there be peace. And let it begin with me. Peace comes from within, so let each of us align ourselves with God. Let each of us be true to our covenants. Let each of us give what only we can give. Let each of us focus on Christ and feel the peace that comes from following after the Prince of Peace. Then let us all go forward and share that peace with others. Let us light their lives. Let us give them hope. Let us lighten their load. Let there be peace. And let it begin with me and you. We will find a peace we have never before known when we cultivate peace within our own hearts like we have never before done. And doing that will bring us more joy in our journey.
Many singles hold to that assumption under the guise of having standards. They seem to see themselves acting nobly in a chaotic dating world by adhering to their standard that insists on only the best. But such standards actually impede progress in one’s dating journey. So if you insist on believing you’ll be happy only with the most attractive companion, then you’re letting your standards keep you single. The falsityHow does one progress in dating? As I discuss in my upcoming book about dating, to progress to each next stage of the journey, you must make an agreement. No agreement means no progress. Period. In the first stage of the dating journey, you meet new people and build friendships. In the next stage, you casually date candidates you’ve befriended. These activities require openness to social interactions. Otherwise, you’ll likely never get the agreement you need to progress from friendship to casual dating and on to exclusive dating. But assuming you can be happy in life only if your partner is the “best” or most attractive type limits those interactions. That faulty assumption will encourage you to engage only with those who meet your standards, because what’s the point, after all, in “wasting your time” with people who simply won’t do romantically because they aren’t the “best”? God’s plan Mathematically, it just isn’t possible for everyone to have the “best.” Yet many singles cling tenaciously to the hope they’ll be one of the few to score just such a life partner. After all, no one wants to accept an unhappy and unfulfilled life. But happiness in marriage doesn’t come from what each partner has. Happiness in marriage comes from what each partner gives to each other. And what you give is a choice. If your partner has to be the “best” or most attractive sort for you to be happy, then God must have really messed up His plan. Check out these words from then Elder Gordon B Hinckley.
How can God’s plan provide happiness for all His children if 90% of people aren’t the “best” but just ordinary? Mathematically, 90% of singles can’t each have monogamous marriage with someone from the top 10%. At least 80% of singles will be left unhappy if only the “best” makes a happy life. Because God wants all his children to be happy, clearly happiness must be available without having the most attractive partner. The truth And happiness is available to those couples who place honoring sacred covenants above personal desires by giving themselves fully to each other. Your companion doesn’t need to be the “best” or most attractive for you to give all of yourself to that person. Granted, it’s more easy to do the more attractive your companion is, but it’s not essential for happiness. The resistance many feel when confronted with such a choice is the natural man or natural woman in each of us. The natural man and woman value self-gratification more than making and keeping sacred covenants. Covenant men and women obviously reverse that value system. I’m not saying we’re interchangeable parts. You shouldn’t marry just anybody, and having standards does help with decision making. Far too many LDS singles, however, insist on standards around what really isn’t essential for lasting happiness. Elder Gerrit W Gong has taught,
Regardless of how you justify it, when you insist on having only the most attractive type of companion, your standards keep you single. Lowering those standards to accept more candidates into your dating pool doesn’t mean sacrificing happiness. Rather, it increases your chances of obtaining it. So reject the natural man and woman, open yourself to possibility, and you may find the blessings you’ve been seeking have been right in front of you all along. And that will bring you more joy in your journey.
Many LDS singles have habits of thinking that give zero consideration to that truth. Too often they put the cart before the horse by insisting that potential casual dates meet their marriage standards. This practice encourages equating dating with marriage, warping dating for everyone. Online dating only magnifies that ill perspective. If you don’t make an overwhelming first impression with your profile — and primarily your photo — in the first two seconds, you’re done. Treating people like commodities just keeps everyone single. Don’t close off possibilities When you buy a commodity online, you expect what you buy to maintain its quality long after the purchase. A tool that works when you buy it should work years from now. Clothes you buy today should still look good years from now. Media that plays today should play problem-free years from now. And that’s where treating online dating like commodity shopping breaks down. People aren’t products that never change. People will change over time. The person you marry today isn’t the person you have today but the person you will have 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the road. But of course, none of that enters into our consideration when viewing online dating profiles. We don’t think in terms of potential and the direction people have for their lives. We think in terms of position and how well a candidate can satisfy us today. In so doing, LDS singles often close themselves off from possibilities to have the very blessings they seek. When considering dating opportunities, we should consider direction more than just position. We need to see others as they will likely become. Direction is more than position We came to this mortal existence to grow towards perfection. Traveling on this path towards perfection means that none of us are perfect as we are now. Yet our Heavenly Father doesn’t condemn us for not having yet completed our journey. He knows we’ll eventually arrive at our celestial destination if we maintain the proper direction. And He knows we can always change our direction. How often LDS singles fail to take that perspective when dating! We too often prefer someone who provides present satisfaction over someone who’ll provide eternal satisfaction. Case in point: Most aren’t attracted to overweight suitors. Yet being overweight is merely position. What about direction? There’s a world of difference between the overweight person stumbling through diet and exercise and the overweight person doing nothing except crying over why no one wants to love them as they are. With your help, that person you discount today could be more than satisfactory tomorrow. Potential to change is not change Of course, just because someone can change doesn’t mean they will change. For example, perpetrators of physical abuse can change, but that doesn’t mean you should trust them just because they can change. Potential for changing direction isn’t the same as actually changing direction. That’s why you must examine what people do when assessing their direction. What we do every day determines whether we end in one destination or another. And small changes today can result in large differences tomorrow. No one’s perfect in this life. We all miss the mark somewhere. But that doesn’t mean we always will. Your actions today can build a case that over time demonstrates a more positive direction, convincing those with eyes to see just what a find you really are. Seeing others for their potential can reveal doors of opportunity you didn’t know existed. Because no one’s perfect, the eternal companion you seek isn’t perfect. Learning to value others for what they will become because of their direction may help you find that companion who actually fulfills your needs more than you could ever imagine. And that will bring you more joy in your journey.
We’re all unique enough that my list of needed changes will be different from yours, because my truth about why I’m single is probably different than yours. We both need to face our own truth, but the actual steps we take to apply that shared principle may be quite different. I can provide tools and teach you how to use them, but I can’t use them for you. You must build your life. And building your best life won’t happen until you own your life and accept that the change you need to make is not just one thing. Examine your assumptionsThe memory of that phone conversation has stuck with me. Maybe it’s because the question asked is a common one. "OK, so what's the one thing I need to do in order to . . . . ?" It seems like an intelligent question to ask, but I've got a serious problem with it. You see, it's really not that intelligent at all. Run with me for a moment. The question assumes you need to change only one thing in order to transport your world into a new and higher dimension of existence. Seriously, what sense does that make? I know that’s what we all want, but it’s just not realistic. Here’s real: I've got more imperfections than Swiss cheese has holes and certainly more than most people. And the vast majority of people aren’t that far behind me. We all have many ways in which we can improve. Ask a better question Here’s a better question: What is everything I need to do to improve myself? With that answer, you take a more holistic approach towards making needed changes in yourself. Of course, the answer to that question will likely overwhelm; we’re all so imperfect that the list of needed changes is quite long. I recall the experience I had taking notes during General Conference. The resulting list of changes I obtained overwhelmed me to the point that I didn’t want to take any action. Making any progress seemed hopeless. That’s why you should ask yourself this best question: What one thing can I do today to improve myself? The answer to that question won’t overwhelm because it’s just one thing. At the same time, this question doesn’t assume you need to do only one thing to improve. The approach is well balanced. Get to workOf course, simply knowing what you must do won’t bring the results you seek in life. Results come from one thing and one thing only, and that is action. You must do. When you take action, you can begin to understand yourself better. You can make better sense of the terrain of LDS singles life. You open yourself to receiving the tools you need. And action leads to a sense of progress that is truly liberating. You may have a lot to do, but conquering the one thing you need to do today will give you confidence from knowing you’re on your way. And that knowledge makes the journey so much more joyful. Don’t wait to feel free. Don’t wait to feel better about yourself and your life. No matter how much you need to improve, we all need to practice what President Oakes has described as “the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.” We make the journey to eternal glory one step at a time. Never assume your list of needed improvements has only one item. It’s not just one thing. But take that understanding with you as you tackle the one thing you need to do today. Doing so will help you walk by faith. And that will bring you more joy in your journey.
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Howdy! I'm Lance, host of Joy in the Journey Radio. I've been blogging about LDS singles life since 2012, and since 2018 I've been producing a weekly Internet radio show and podcast to help LDS singles have more joy in their journey and bring all Latter-day Saints together. Let's engage a conversation that will increase the faith of LDS singles and bring singles and marrieds together in a true unity of the faith.
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