But you can still own your life.  You can still take responsibility for yourself and the results you have in your life.  And today is the perfect opportunity to do just that because today is April Fool’s Day.  Now, I’ll admit social distancing and sequestering have radically changed the landscape.  But a change in landscape should never signal us to surrender positive energy.  Now more than ever we should be always up for fun.

Many people don’t associate staying at home with fun.  They think about going out to restaurants, stores, malls, parks, concert venues, and the like.  Many of us approach April Fool’s Day the same way, conjuring images of practical jokes played on people and often in front of other people.

But that was yesterday.  Today the landscape is different.  We need to practice social distancing and sequester ourselves in our homes as much as possible.  And those who refuse to change their thinking to match this new landscape will experience untold and unnecessary hardship.

Long time listeners to this program are familiar with these principles in relation to helping LDS singles find joy regardless of their circumstances.  For example, many singles who leave YSA land without getting married experience a difficult transition into SA world.  Some don’t even transition; they go inactive or leave the Church altogether.

That’s because their YSA thinking doesn’t match the new SA landscape, and they simply respond to their biological hardwiring which encourages them to maintain the status quo.  They keep thinking the same way, and that just leads them to leave.  But if these singes would change their thinking to match their new landscape, they could experience a greater amount of joy despite their circumstances.

We can begin to capture much of the joy we’ve been missing by owning our lives and looking for the opportunity amidst the obstacle.  I demonstrated that attitude this morning in my Daily Dose video.  Is it cheesy and silly?  Absolutely.  And that’s OK, because I refused to let my current situation keep me from having a spot of fun.

You too can refuse to allow your current situation to keep you from experiencing joy amidst adversity.  You can still celebrate April Fools Day.  Will it be the same?  Of course not.  But joy is still joy, no matter how it comes.

Presented with this knowledge, each of us now confronts this question: Will you own your life?  Or put another way, will you take responsibility for the results you experience in your life?  Will you refuse to allow your circumstances to dictate your attitude and perspective?

I choose to own my life.  My circumstances will be what they will be, but they will never dictate my choices.  I choose to live with intention, not on autopilot.  I choose to produce more than I consume, not just consume.  I choose phenomenal, not mediocre.  I choose life, not death.  I choose faith, not fear.  I choose hope, not despair.  I choose love, not hate.  I choose joy, not sorrow.

And so can you.  Decide today you will own your life.  Decide that no matter your circumstances you will be always up for fun.  Then follow through with that decision by taking advantage however you can of the moments for fun that come your way.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

It’s hard not to be concerned about the growing pandemic, especially if one listens to the fearmongers who seem to swarm everywhere.  But we need not live in fear.  We can live by faith, not fear.

When I first heard about COVID-19 spreading beyond China’s borders, I began wondering if perhaps this would be the pandemic public health officials have been warning for years would eventually come.  As the situation escalated, very quickly everything changed.

Some seem intent on assessing blame, saying many will suffer for the insufficiencies of our initial response.  Others clearly intend to use the situation to further their own agenda.  I have zero interest in such efforts, since they don’t help anyone deal effectively with the current situation.

Neither will we deal effectively with the current situation if we succumb to Chicken Little Syndrome — surrendering to the fear spread by many that dark days have befallen us and prelude darker days directly ahead.  Indeed, as the Lord foretold, “... and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them” (D&C 45:26).

Yet I defy every fearmonger by declaring we need not fear.

How can I make such a bold declaration?  How can I be confident now is not a time for fear when the “evidence” for fear appears all around us?  Quite simply, I walk by faith.

And my faith is simple.  I know God lives.  I know He has a plan for His children, and that includes me.  And I know He will keep all His promises and fulfill all His words.

That doesn’t mean we can get away with being stupid.  If we ignore the counsel from competent public health officials, we risk infecting ourselves and those we love.  We should follow sound instruction and then walk in faith all will be as it should.

Notice I said “as it should.”  We don’t always know what “should” be in our lives.  But God knows, and we can walk in that faith.

Walking by faith in the midst of fear doesn’t mean believing you won’t be infected because you have faith.  But it does mean living with confidence God will not allow events to stray too far from His purposes.  That may mean I won’t get ill.  But it could also mean I will.  After all, I don’t know all of God’s purposes for me.

I do know, however, that in either event I can have confidence God’s plan to bless me with whatever is best for me will unfold.  And whatever happens, He will not abandon me.  His tender mercies will always surround me.

That faith which fills me can fill you as well.  We can all walk by faith, not fear.  And the opportunities before us extend well beyond our own selves.  Because we have the light of the restored gospel, we can shine our light to others.  We can inspire them to walk by faith, not fear.

Can we see beyond ourselves to grasp the opportunity to share the light we have with all around us?  We can if we walk by faith, not fear.  I had just such a moment yesterday speaking with my landlord and his wife.  She expressed a fear to go anywhere outside her house.  I gently rebutted her comment with faith, saying if we take proper precautions to limit our exposure, we need not fret.  You could feel the reassurance which my simple, gentle faith promoted.

Let us all walk by faith, not fear.  Let us radiate faith, lighting the world around us with confidence that, come what may, God will see each of us to our best end.  When we do, we can increase faith in the earth.  We can expand the boundaries of hope.  We can multiply love in the hearts of all people.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

That said, I’m not going to approach exercise in the usual way.  Instead, I’ll share how you can improve an exercise habit whether you exercise not at all or everyday.  All you need to do is just one more.

First, let me start where everyone else starts — a recognition of our highly litigious society.  Please consult with a competent physician before starting any exercise program.

That said, before you see a doctor, you need to establish some motivation.  Without the proper motivation, you simply won’t follow any program long enough to integrate it permanently into your life.  So get crystal clear on why you’re going to do this.  Your reason must be compelling enough to push past the resistance to change you’ll surely encounter.

And there’s no one-size-fits-all reason.  Perhaps you hate having your weight limit you.  It’s harder to bend over and stand up when you’re fat.  Or perhaps you need to keep up with some younger folks in your life. That would currently help me as an Aaronic Priesthood advisor.

Or maybe you need to shed those pounds so you can become more agreeable and progress in your dating journey.  Argue with it all you want, but no rightness in any argument will diminish the truth that many singles have, do, and will continue to assess potential dating partners by physical appearance.

Yes, I know how it sounds, but it’s no less true.  And if you don’t become more agreeable by losing the extra weight, the only way to progress in your dating journey is to find someone who’s satisfied with less.  Those people are very few and far between, so relying on that proportion seriously decreases your probability of success.

As I point out in my new book, you increase your probability of success by opening yourself to more possibilities for the successful outcome to occur.  The best way to do that is to raise what you offer to a whole new level so that enough people find you agreeable.  The more people that find you agreeable, the more possibilities you create for your successful outcome to occur, and thus the more probable your success will be.

Now, before you despair at having to exercise to progress in your dating journey, there’s a simple way to get started.  And it’ll improve your performance wherever you are on the fitness spectrum.  It’s called the One More Principle.

All you need to do is just one more than you did before.  So if you’re just starting out, what you did “before” is zero.  All you need to do today is one — one sit-up, one push-up, one whatever.  When it’s time to do that exercise again, do just one more, which is two.  And so on.

It’s amazingly simple, and yet, if you stay with it, you’ll be amazed at how easily you can ease yourself into an exercise habit you previously didn’t have.  And here’s the real beauty: If you practice an exercise habit long enough, you’ll actually start wanting to exercise.

Crazy, yes, but it’s true.  I’ve personally experienced it.  What before made me cower away in terror (What? I have to run how far?) became something that filled me with great anticipation (Oh yeah!  I get to run that far!).

And anyone can do one more.  If you haven’t exercised in a while (or ever), you can do one push-up.  If last time you did ten push-ups, now you can do eleven.  If last time you did 100, this time you can do 101.  By doing just one more, anyone can progress.

And you can adopt the One More Principle in not just exercise but everything.  Last time you wrote 2573 words, so this time you write 2574 words.  Last week you went meatless for two meals, so this week you eat three meatless meals.  When you do just one more as a lifestyle, you’ll find yourself and your life substantially improved.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

But automation isn’t all roses.  It keeps us inside a “safe” zone where we can roam freely without fear of pain or other potential pesky problems like death.  As great as that sounds, growth is never pain- or problem-free.  If we don’t step outside our comfort zone, we’ll never approach our potential, let alone achieve it.

Fortunately, you have choice.  Yours need not be a mediocre life on autopilot.  You can be phenomenal, and it starts when you step outside your comfort zone to embrace the new you.

Admittedly, the prospect of stepping outside one’s comfort zone literally terrifies many of us.  The mind quickly presents memories of past pains that linger on into the present.  It’s like our brain is saying, “Hey, remember this?  You don’t want to go there; you might get hurt again!”

And that’s true.  You might.  But here’s another piece of truth: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  You can stay inside your little hobble with its practically guaranteed pain-free life.  And you’ll live that life first with the repressed yearning of wanting more and then with the regurgitating regrets of never responding to that call.

Again, the good news is you have choice.  If you want to have or be something more, you can have or be it.  You just need to be willing to pay the price in full and in advance to get it.

That’s how everything is.  If you want to see the show, you need a ticket.  But you’ll never get the ticket until you pay the price in full and in advance.  Only then do you get admitted to the show.

And that’s where most people get off the train.  That’s why most New Year’s resolutions don’t even last a week, let alone the whole year or even the first month.  The vast majority of us collide with that eternal truth and decide we’d rather be comfortable.  And so we revert back to our old habits and spend the rest of the year wishing we had a better life only to repeat the whole cycle again at the start of the next year.

Seriously, is that the life you want?  Do you want to go through the same motions over and over, always wondering why you can’t ever seem to escape that rut of failure?  Are you sick and tired of always getting less than what you want?  If you want a different life, you can have it.  You just need to be willing to pay the price to get it.

For many, that point doesn’t come until they get sick and tired of being sick and tired.  Only after that moment do they have resolve to push through the pain of growth, achieve their dreams, and become the embodiment of their potential.

And yeah, it’s scary.  You very well could get hurt again.  But you’ll never see the new you emerge unless you’re willing to risk.

Take love, for example.  Many burned in a romantic relationship retreat back to their hobble where they play the turtle in a shell.  These people will never know the love they dream about because they’re acting contrary to the nature of what they want.

You can’t have the amazing love we all dream about having without trust.  And trust wouldn’t need to exist unless there was something to lose.  Without opening yourself to be vulnerable, there’s no need for trust.  And without trust, there’s no way to have the deep love we all want in life.

Everything else worthwhile in life — the elements comprising your best life — operate on the same principle.  To achieve success, you must be willing to risk failure and all its attendant heartache, pain, and other assorted problems.  You must pay the price to get your ticket to the show.

And what a difference it makes when you do.  You can embrace a new you.  When you step outside your comfort zone and risk failure, you can experience the growth that will set you on the path to your best life.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

The first lesson took me years to learn.  But once I got it, what a difference it made!  After all, how you think about yourself largely contributes to how you portray yourself to others.

Most people believe the actions of others reflect their identity.  When someone summarily dismisses you, it’s easy to believe it’s because you don’t have any value.  Those who believe this fallacy can easily disparage themselves into depression.

But what others say or do doesn’t reflect your identity but rather your effort.  If people are passing you by, it’s not because you don’t have value but rather because you don’t offer value.  Offering is a choice, one we all can make.  Focusing on what you can do rather than on what you lack always produces a more positive reality.

True, not everyone will respond positively to your offering.  Some simply won’t see any value in it.  But that just means they’re visually impaired.  What will you do to help them see?  Again, focusing on what you can do produces a more positive reality.

Perhaps the most important choice you can make to help others see your value is to learn to see as God sees.  I’ve been learning this lesson over many years, and I’m still learning.  But what I have learned so far has improved my life tremendously.

What do you think God sees when He looks at you?  We’ve all heard“the worth of souls is great in the sight of God” (D&C 18:10).  But why is that?  What does He really see when He looks at you?

He sees potential.  His sight isn’t confined to the moment, as our sight often is.  He sees not just what we are today or even what we were yesterday but we can be tomorrow.  Too often, especially when we’re discouraged, we aren’t looking forward to our potential but rather behind to what we were.  We tell ourselves so often the lie about our past determining our future that we believe it.  If only we could see as God sees!

That’s not likely to happen without partnering with the Lord.  When you let Him guide your feet, He can also guide your eyes.  We see a marvelous example in Enoch, who initially didn’t see very much in himself (Moses 6:31).  But the Lord helped him to see more clearly (Moses 6:35-36), and the result was mountains moved and rivers turned from their course (Moses 7:13).  Just as He helped Enoch see his potential, the Lord will help you see yours when you partner with Him.

Loving yourself will also help you see that potential.  You know yourself better than most people, so they’ll simply take their cues about you from you.  If you’re discouraged about yourself, then most people will follow that lead.

Conversely, if you’re care about you, then most people will follow that lead.  When you demonstrate through your actions that you’re worth something, most people will also think you’re worth something and act accordingly.  Again, people respond not to who you are but rather to what you do.  And you choose what you do.

So choose to learn the lessons that reveal your true beauty.  Learn to interpret others more appropriately, see yourself as God sees you, and love yourself.  In learning those lessons, you’ll come to see you really are beautiful.  You’ll release yourself from an unnecessary burden of despair and depression.  You’ll feel more hopeful and optimistic about your future.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Now I find myself at another crossroads.  My father has surgery tomorrow to remove his returned skin cancer.  My brother might visit this weekend, which may be the last time we see each other for awhile since I’m preparing to begin a new job on the East Coast.  And yet with all these changes about me, one thing remains unchanged.  I’m still not a father.

I remember sitting in the stake center as a young man watching President Ezra Taft Benson address the single men of the Church in General Conference.  As he declared that the time would come when those who ignored fatherhood would feel and know their loss, I remember thinking to myself, That won’t be me!  I’m going to follow the prophet.

As time passed, however, that commitment challenged me.  Sure, I could’ve married one of numerous desperate LDS women.  But they interested themselves more in being a wife and mother than in being my companion because that was the only identity they could accept for themselves.  My conscience couldn’t accept joining with someone who saw me as filler material, a means to their own end.

Now my mind ponders that prophetic counsel I heard so many years ago as a young man.  Am I any closer to compliance?  Or have I allowed other pursuits to lull me into a more comfortable place where I substitute the greater growth from fatherhood with the lesser growth of other pursuits?

Clearly, we single LDS men must walk a fine line.  Obsession with marriage will drive us increasingly crazy while driving away quality candidates.  At the same time, we can’t become so absorbed in the activities we use to stay that obsession that we don’t progress towards a happy and healthy marriage.  We need balance.

Note I said happy and healthy.  We’re not interchangeable parts.  Compatibility is important.  At the same time, compatibility is not a litmus test.  The success of any union depends more on the choices of the participants than on any intrinsic characteristics.  Again, we need balance.

I think about that balance as I ponder my father’s surgery tomorrow.  That surgery isn’t all that different from the previous one, which he survived just fine.  Yet when he announced the return of his cancer, my father encouraged my siblings and I to consider what would be done to help Mother should he pass away soon.  I find myself balancing his fear against my optimism that everything will work out for the best.

The faith inviting me to live in that realization encourages me onward with optimism.  No, I’m not a father . . . yet.  I don’t know how the Lord will bless me, but I know He loves me and will support me as He always has.  That knowledge sustains me as I walk by faith through mortality.

I’m also not the same person now I once was.  Sure, I’m just as single now as when I came home from my mission, but I’m not the same man that stepped off that plane bringing me home.  In more ways than not, I’m a much better man.  And as I strive to be phenomenal in every aspect of my life, I’ll become more and more irresistible to that woman with whom the Lord intends to bless me.

I’m still not a father.  But that won’t be true forever.  The Lord will not abandon me.  Nor will He abandon any of you.  So if Father’s Day has brought you to serious reflection, be the victor and not the victim.  Partner with the Lord, and let Him lead you along.  Your path ahead is glorious.  When you see with eyes of faith, you’ll recognize the brightness of that light.  You’ll capture the optimism born of hope in that bright future.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

LDS singles are rife with boxes.  We have your YSA and your SA, your midsingles, your senior singles, and your in-between singles.  Whatever happened to coming together and being one?

It went the way of the dinosaur because singles groups are perceived to be about finding an eternal companion.  The larger LDS culture centered on being married with kids drives that perception of singles groups.  No wonder so many LDS singles who want to fit into the larger culture view singles life as something to escape.

And no wonder so many LDS singles find LDS singles life so challenging.  People respond not to reality but to their perception of reality.  If we see singles life as something undesirable, then we won’t want it.  We’ll run away from it.  Additionally, our focus determines our reality.  So if we’re focused on how undesirable our situation is, then our reality will be undesirable.

But we can flip that around.  If we can perceive the good and indeed the pure joy to be found in singles life, then we respond differently.  We see something desirable, something we run towards and not away from.  And when we make that our focus, then our reality becomes something desirable in itself.

Of course, all of this becomes much easier to do when the people around us are acting in ways that encourage us to focus on the right perceptions.  That’s why we all need to say enough with the boxes.  It’s much easier to be united when everyone around us has the mentality of truly coming together and being united.

And it all starts inside each one of us.  We need to exemplify to others how they should be.  Otherwise, they’ll just keep on keeping on with their habits of thinking that make life harder for everyone.

I’ve discussed previously the three main perspectives that LDS singles take with singles groups:

1. The Dating Forum
2. The Activity Club
3. The Support Community

The first two perspectives center on self, but the third centers on others.  Obviously, that third perspective is the most effective and the one we should embrace.

How does that happen?  First, you must get leadership on board.  They must perceive your singles group as a support community and not a dating forum or activity club.  Once they have that vision, singles leadership must communicate that vision to the other singles.  They do that by overtly talking about it and practicing it.  And it’s truly beautiful to behold when you can get this going.

Again, the biggest obstacle will be the propensity to put people and even programs into boxes.  “Singles groups are just about giving singles a place to congregate,” say some.  “They’re on their own for anything more.”  Such persons relegate singles groups into a box in which a true support community doesn’t fit.

If we truly believe in singles groups as support communities, we’ll throw our boxes away.  So what if the midsingles and senior singles have different interests?  Do we really have to have the same interests to support each other?

Adopting the support community perspective means changing ourselves fundamentally within.  It means laying aside our own agendas so we can serve and truly give of ourselves to others.  It means forgoing the pursuit of our own needs as we surrender ourselves to love and the pursuit of meeting the needs of others.  The miracle is that doing this actually ends up meeting our needs in the end.

Enough with the boxes!  When we all have that same perspective, we can transform our singles groups into true communities of support because we will have discarded the perspectives that blind us to the needs of others.  We can come together and truly love one another.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

Many don’t believe that.  They assume life is the collection of circumstances outside their control.  But that’s why many people aren’t all that happy.

Your focus determines your reality.  Because you can choose what you focus on, you can choose your reality.  True, most don’t choose their circumstances, but that never stopped anyone who lived joyfully from living joyfully.  These people lived their best life because they made different choices with the same circumstances.

Some of us should take a lesson from a farmer.  Farmers don’t choose their circumstances.  They have the soil and the water that’s available.  Their seeds for planting are whatever they are.  The weather will be whatever it will be.  So much of what’s needful for the harvest is outside their control.  Yet with hard work in what they can control, they produce bountiful harvests year after year.

In like manner, we haven’t chosen many of the circumstances of our lives.  What we have is what we have, and it’s often all we have.  But if we work hard in what we can control, we can produce harvests of truly joyful living year after year.  This is what I call your best life.

I can hear many of you now.  What exactly can we control?  Here’s my answer: Standards, attitude, approach.

It starts with standards.  You’ll never design your best life without knowing what’s acceptable and what’s not.  The best delineations between what you’ll tolerate and what you won’t are made after partnering with the Lord to get good with you.  Once you know and accept who you really are and what your personal ministry should be, you can best draw that line between what you’ll accept in your life and what you won’t.  The more clear you make that definition, the more able you’ll be to live the life you intend.

Once you know exactly what you want, you need resolve to do whatever it takes to get it (within the realm of covenant living, of course).  You need the attitude of the victor and not the victim.  That attitude will fire your imagination to design a life you’ll truly enjoy and pull you through to that fulfilling end when the road there gets tough.

Of course, attitude without action will never bring you achievement.  To live a life you design, you must take action.  Working smart as well as working hard requires attention to one’s approach.  Too often we think what we seek must come in one specific way.  But much of life is not path-dependent; there’s often more than one road leading to the top of the mountain.  And sometimes the road that’s best for us to travel is not the one we expect.

With these three elements in place — standards, attitude, and approach — you can decide what you want your life to be and feel the joy that comes from working to make it happen.  Usually that means taking small steps every single day to inch yourself closer to the life you dream.

That’s where many of us fall short.  We don’t do the little things everyday that can near us to our best life.  Then, after a larger block of time has passed, we can’t help but notice we’re left standing on the pier because our ship has long since sailed.

That’s where being clear about your standards, attitude, and approach holds its best value.  Once you’re crystal clear on those elements, what you need to do everyday will be obvious.  Performing those seemingly small and insignificant actions everyday will collect to create the very significant life you design for yourself.

So what are you waiting for?  Get clear, and then get going. None of this happens overnight.  But as you move closer to the life you design for yourself, you’ll feel the joy that comes from making progress.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

As I reflect back on my life, I can’t accurately pinpoint any one trigger that brought me a phenomenal attitude.  The change seems more a process than an event.  That said, I can identify some key elements in my transformation.

Without question, developing a more solid relationship with God has been pivotal.  You can’t have true joy in your life if you’re not good with you, which means you must know who you are.  And that requires knowing who your Heavenly Father is.

When you come to understand who you really are as His child, you’ll realize your power to choose your reality.  We do that when we select our thoughts, our self-talk, and our focus, because these produce our reality.  When I realized how these elements worked in me, I felt empowered to take control.  I could stop settling for mediocrity and start insisting on phenomenal.

That’s when a new attitude emerged within me.  I’ll no longer settle for anything less than a phenomenal life.  I won’t settle for giving anything less than my absolute best.  No longer will I accept failure or unhappiness or anything less than my best as my normal, and I’ll never give up on myself ever again.

I want phenomenal success.  I want phenomenal fulfillment, phenomenal results, and phenomenal relationships.  I want phenomenal for myself!

I can’t settle for anything less, because that’s giving up, and giving up is just plain flat out wrong.  God gave me my gifts and talents not only to better myself but to better the world.  When I refuse to let my light shine, others won’t have the improvement they might have had in their lives.

That’s why I insist on phenomenal in my life.  It’s not about me.  Giving up on myself and failing to achieve my potential means giving up on those who stand to benefit from that achievement.  But when I strive to move closer towards my greatness, I automatically provide positive influence to everyone around me.

And so I can’t accept mediocrity.  I’ll never be perfect, I’ll always fall flat on my face, but to quit trying to live my purpose, to fulfill my personal ministry, and to achieve greatness in my life is unacceptable.  There are just too many people who would suffer, most of whom I’ve never met and likely never will.  But it’s because of them I can’t accept anything less than my absolute best as my normal.  I will never settle for anything other than phenomenal.

I have only one life to live.  This is it for me.  I’ll never get another opportunity to live this life.  God gave my unique combination of gifts, opportunities, and personality to me and me only.  So this is it.  It’s do or die, greatness or bust, phenomenal or nothing.  I must make it happen.

And that’s another key element in my transformation.  The day I realized my life wouldn’t improve until I owned it was life changing.  All the energy I’d wasted wishing my circumstances were better I should have spent wishing I were better.  Instead of wishing for less problems, I should have wished for more skills.  Instead of wishing the result I wanted would just come to me, I should have been working to make it happen.

Of course, I struggle where everyone else struggles — with the natural man.  We’re all our own worst enemy.  But working hard is the cost of entry to anything worthwhile.  And so I put my shoulder to this wheel because I know people’s lives will suffer if I stop.

The best part is I’m not the only one.  What’s possible for me is possible for you.  If you want this transformation for you, you can have it.  Embrace true foundational principles, do the work you need to do, and you’ll improve your life.  And when you truly surrender yourself to that process, you too will have phenomenal.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

If you’re like most people, whatever New Years resolution you made hasn’t stuck with you.  Or more accurately, you haven’t stuck with it.  By now, most will have given up on the changes they resolved to make just two weeks prior.  They’re just too comfortable with the same old same old.

When our sincere efforts to change fail, what can we say to ourselves that will encourage us to keep trying and at the same time allow us to maintain a level of integrity with ourselves?  We can tell ourselves we haven’t succeeded yet.  This statement recognizes we still have more to do — more we can do — while at the same time being truthful.

Of course, the most important word in that statement is yet.  There’s magic in that word yet.  It speaks of possibility and opportunity.  It invites us to keep doing what we need to do for success to come to us.  When we allow that word yet to motivate us to keep on keeping on, we unleash the power of yet in our lives.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  Your focus becomes your reality.  When you focus on what you haven’t done, you embrace a reality of inability, one in which you become frustrated at your lack of progress.  But when you focus on what you can do, then you embrace a reality of possibility, one in which action enables you to feel a sense of movement towards success.

That’s the magic behind the word yet.  Yet invites us to focus on what we can do by reminding us of possibility and the opportunity we have each moment to try again.  Only when we believe in possibility will we take the action needed to produce results that lead to success.

Conversely, when we disbelieve in possibility, when we believe the changes we want to make are impossible, then we give up on our dreams.  We quit trying to go after them.  We effectively give up on ourselves.

We should never give up on ourselves.  Nor should we demand too much too soon.  Some things take time to realize.  That’s why we asked in life just to make measurable progress in reasonable time.

That’s the key word: reasonable.  We all have different talents and different backgrounds, so we all progress at different rates.  What’s reasonable for one may not be reasonable for another.  And yet (pun intended) too many of us spend too much time looking at others assuming that, because we haven’t made the progress in our lives others have made in theirs, we’re somehow deficient or defective.

Again, the word yet can work magic here.  By reminding ourselves that we haven’t progressed as far as someone else yet, we give ourselves permission to believe in what can be.  And that can provide hope that tomorrow can be different than today or yesterday.

We’re all different enough that no one-size-fits-all life plan will truly work for everyone.  Why then do we cling to any one-size-fits-all life plan?  Why can’t we embrace our own personalized life plan, one we create after partnering with the Lord?  As long as we keep trying, the Lord will recognize our efforts, even though we haven’t progressed as far as we would like yet.

I’m still working on all the goals I established for myself two weeks ago.  I’m making terrible progress.  In fact, my effort is so pathetic I’m not even sure I cam claim to have made anything that could reasonably be labeled as progress.

But I’m not discouraged — not in the least.  I know the power of yet.  When I tell myself I haven’t achieved my goals yet, I remember that as long as I get back up every time I get knocked down or fall flat on my face or my butt, eventually I will succeed.  As long as I keep trying, I know it’s OK I’m not yet where I want to be because I’m on my way there.

And that’s the power that yet can have in each of our lives.  When we seize the opportunity we have every moment to begin again and continue towards our goals and dreams, we accept the invitation in the word yet to believe in possibility and do what we can.  That movement will inspire us with hope and encouragement to keep on keeping on.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.