Interpret others more appropriately 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. See as God sees 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. Love yourself 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.
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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. Pondering on a prophetI 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? Searching for balance 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. Declaring mighty faith 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.
We need a new culture Like it or not, many Latter-day Saints consider being married with kids as the definition of acceptance within their culture. And since we all want to belong, many LDS singles strive to obtain that mark of belonging. So if you define motherhood to require the bearing of children, then you’re limiting your window within which you will feel accepted. Clearly, the results observed respecting this issue go back to how people think. If only we could all adopt a new culture that grants acceptance from doing one’s best to make and keep every sacred covenant that one can, we wouldn’t be hearing from the single ladies who are really complaining about how they don’t fit in under the guise of complaining about whatever presentation they saw in church. That’s easier said than done, but no single woman need wait for the culture to change in order to change the way she thinks about what it means to be a mother. In fact, we should all change how we think about that because we are biologically hardwired to get our sense of normal from the people around us. Single women can more easily adopt a more effective definition of mother when everyone around them does the same. We need a new definitionAnd what is this new definition of motherhood everyone should adopt? Being a mother simply means consistently recognizing and then meeting needs in others. That’s something every woman can do, whether single or married. Think about it in terms of your own mother. If you’re like me and were blessed to have a mother who loved you and always worked every day to show she cared, isn’t that what we best remember about our mothers? Isn’t that what we most treasure about the memories of our mothers, that this woman consistently recognized our needs and worked to satisfy them? Now if you didn’t have a mother like I had, I’m sorry, but you should still be able to see the point. You don’t need to give birth to children to recognize a need within them and then work to satisfy it. And women are uniquely endowed with a natural ability to do just that, whether or not they’ve given birth to children or not. We need a new approach It’s high time we all embraced a broader approach to motherhood. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Your focus determines your reality. When you focus on what you lack, your reality becomes filled with lack. That breeds discouragement and despair. But when you focus on what you have and on what you can do, your reality becomes filled with possibility and opportunity. That breeds optimism and hope. Let’s help single women everywhere by defining motherhood in terms of what all women can do and not just those who have given birth to children or even those who are legally responsible for raising children. Let’s define motherhood as consistently recognizing and meeting needs in others. This is a definition that fits all women based on what they can control (their actions) and not what they can’t (their life circumstances). When we adopt a broader view of motherhood, we make every woman a mother who strives to serve others in ways that meet their needs. We show greater sensitivity towards those whose life circumstances aren’t what they desire. And we better support them in feeling loved and supported themselves. And that will bring us all more joy in our journey.
Put your pieces togetherAs 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. Get some attitudeThat’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. Make it happenI 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.
Not paying attention to the news for the last couple of years has made a huge difference in my life. For years I wanted to keep apprised of current events and so read regularly from various sources. But the overwhelming negative slant so many stories took painted a picture of an increasingly depressing world. And it didn’t take long for that depression to weigh me down. The first step towards correcting an overflowing bathtub is to turn off the water. And that’s what I did with the media. Yet I still wanted to know what was going on in the world. How else could I be a responsible citizen? Thus began the yo-yo days of switching between feasts and famine of media news in my life. But the yo-yo approach wasn’t sustainable. In the end, I chose to eliminate most media news from my life, largely because of its overwhelming negativity. I couldn’t see how I could live a positive life when I regularly drank from the fountains of negativity, so I said enough with the negative in my life. And as I said before, it’s made a huge difference. Improve your thinking One of the first things I noticed after I eliminated that negative source from my life was an improvement in my thinking. It’s hard to believe your world will be heavenly when every day you’re hearing about how the world around you is going to hell in a handbasket. Once I eliminated the negativity, it became easier to believe in the possibilities of my future. I found it easier to believe in myself and my ability to achieve my potential, that I could make the needed changes to allow the blessings the Lord wants to give me — blessings I want in my life — to come to me. Understanding that doesn’t take an Einstein. I’ve been saying for years that your focus determines your reality. When you regularly entertain sources of negativity, it’s hard for your focus to be anything but negative. And when you focus on the negative, your reality (otherwise known as your life) becomes filled with negativity. Of course, the reverse is also true. When you eliminate the negative from your life, it’s easier to focus on the positive. And when you focus on the positive, your reality becomes filled with positivity. Improve your self-talk The changes I experienced in my thinking then bled into my self-talk. The messages I constantly gave myself became more positive. It didn’t happen overnight, but slowly the negative became positive. I’ve discussed self-talk many times before on the blog as well as this program. It’s hard to believe in possibilities when you constantly tell yourself they don’t exist — or worse, that it doesn’t matter whether or not they exist because you’re just not worthy or good enough to have them. If you repeat a lie long enough, you’ll start to believe it. But you’ll also believe the truth when you repeat your encounters with it long enough. Again, your focus becomes your reality. The more you focus on the positive, the easier giving yourself positive messages becomes. And the more you give yourself positive messages, the easier it is to focus on the positive. This self-perpetuating cycle provides a strong foundation for a positive reality so long you keep it going. Improve your feeling In an upcoming book I’ve been writing, I cite this statistic: Around 95% of how we feel comes from our self-talk. That’s an amazing statistic because it means we choose how we feel. That idea may sound like pig swallow to some, but consider this for a moment. Most of what you feel comes from the messages you give yourself, messages you choose to give yourself. You choose your focus. You choose how to think and what to think. You choose all these factors feeding into how you ultimately feel. That means you can and do choose how you feel. It then follows that when you choose positivity, you’ll feel positivity. Thinking positive lays the groundwork for positive self-talk, which then colors your emotional state with positive energy. All this focus on the positive can’t help but produce a positive reality. And here’s the best part: It all happens with zero change in your circumstances. When you look within yourself and say you’ve had enough with the negative, you can begin to make lasting positive changes in your life. You can remove from your life the sources of negative energy that make it harder for you to have a positive reality. When you do, you’ll start to see improvements in your thinking, your self-talk, and your emotions. And that will bring you more joy in your journey.
Given that Singles Awareness Day — oh, excuse me — Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, it seems appropriate today to talk about something from the program last week that got me thinking. Many of us know how we want life to be. But it’s been said life is what happens while you were making other plans. Life has a way of turning out differently than we planned. Many singles plan to find the perfect companion — someone they’re meant to be with, someone easy for them to fall passionately in love with and who falls passionately in love with them — and to get married and have a family and live the rest of their lives in a blissful happily ever after. Then life happens. They notice life doesn’t match their idyllic dream. And that mismatch presents questions of compromise: Should they wait for the one who’s right for them forever, or should they just take the one who’s here right now because the one who’s right for them forever doesn’t seem to be coming and that person who’s right here seems good enough for right now? Are our dreams portents of a possible future or a cruel joke of mortality? Why do we dream if the dreams never become real? Do they never materialize because they weren’t meant to be or because we aren’t good enough? You’re not good enough There’s two ways to answer that question. Here’s the first: Of course, we aren’t good enough. That’s why Christ plays such an essential role in our Heavenly Father’s plan. If we were good enough, we could secure eternal blessings on our own. We wouldn’t need a Savior. We could simply persevere with hard work to secure our blessings. But that’s not how it works. Yes, we need to work hard to achieve our goals and dreams. But we’re not likely to achieve them on our own because too often we get in our own way. And that’s the beautiful part of the Atonement. Elder Bednar put it beautifully when he declared
Christ saves us not just from sin but from ourselves — our mistakes, our imperfections, our propensities to fail, and the natural man or woman residing inside each of us. You are good enough There’s another side to that coin, though. It says we are good enough to secure eternal blessings. Last week, I introduced the analogy of the electoral college. In the US, we elect the chief executive with a winner-take-all voting system that appropriates different numbers of votes to each state based on population. All a candidate needs to win is 270 electoral votes. And you can get that without the state with the most electoral votes. The current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a case in point. In like manner, many singles think they need to be perfect to secure their dream companion. Yet we’re all so mired in imperfection that many singles wonder how they could ever be agreeable to an acceptable marriage partner. That happens in the same way the President doesn’t need to win California to become the President. Those who are serious about what marriage really entails generally evaluate other people as a whole package. That means strengths in some areas can compensate for weaknesses in others. Of course, that doesn’t justify ignoring our weaknesses. We should always do our best to improve in every area of ourselves and then trust the Lord to make up the difference. And Christ can make up the difference because He is the difference — the difference between eternal glory and eternal misery. Partner with the Lord In the end, we can best secure the blessings we desire when we partner with the Lord and walk with Him on the proper path towards our blessings. The Spirit will reveal to us the next steps along that path. And the Lord will grant us the courage we need to take those next steps. Here as in every other way, your focus becomes your reality. When you focus on what you don’t have and can’t do, your reality becomes filled with lack and inability. That leads to frustration, anger, disillusionment, and despair. But when you focus on what you do have and can do, your reality fills with abundance and possibility. That leads to encouragement, appreciation, illumination, and hope. Are you good enough to achieve your dreams and desires? Of course you are — when you partner with the Lord. So instead of the pity party many singles have on days like tomorrow, choose instead to partner with the Lord. Counsel with Him to develop an action plan that will get you moving forward. When you move in that direction, you’ll make real progress towards your eternal blessings. And that will bring you more joy in your journey.
Sometimes your dreams can seem so far away as to be unreachable. So much remains to be done, and so much of that lies outside your control, that you wonder how you’ll ever arrive. How could the blessings you desire ever be yours? Very often there’s a real difference between how things feel and how things really are. Sure, nothing worth having comes easy. But sometimes the obstacles before you can seem bigger than they really are. Only by stepping out of your comfort zone and rising to your challenges do you see how big they really are. And that's when you find what you thought was insurmountable really is doable. You just have to get started and take it one step at a time. By consistently doing the small things that move you further in your journey, you can conquer any challenge set before you. You can go the distance. Get vision What drives those who achieve phenomenal results in life, those who make their dreams reality? It’s vision. Vision is different than sight. Sight depends on what you see with your physical eyes. But vision depends on what you see with your spiritual eyes — the eye of faith. You begin by seeing yourself in a different way. As we’ve frequently discussed, that requires you to think in new and different ways. If you surround yourself with negativity, if your self talk is consistently negative, you'll find it hard to believe in possibility. You'll find it hard to believe that your life could be any different than how it has been. Only when your self talk is consistently positive and you surround yourself with positive energy will you be thinking in ways that allow you to see a brighter tomorrow for yourself. But just seeing yourself differently isn’t enough. You must believe that vision can become reality and that it can be yours — because the truth is that can! Such belief comes from faith — faith that you’re a child of God and that he loves you, faith that He wants you to succeed, faith that He’ll help you realize your dream and become everything you’re capable of becoming. Never surrender When you have a vision of what you can become, that vision can drive you to do incredible things. But you must make the conscious choice to do what is necessary every day to move yourself closer to the realization of your vision. You must adopt a habit of consistently doing what is necessary. The so-called little things in life are really the big things. It's the small actions performed every day that move us closer, inch by inch, to the reality our vision shows us. Observed in one moment of time, those little actions may seem insignificant. But collectively over time, those small actions done every day can comprise a considerable sum. That's why you need the determination to do what’s necessary every day. Never surrender. Results come from action and nothing else. When you fail to act, you don’t make the small contribution that over time adds up to a considerable sum. Only by denying the natural man or woman who wants you to coast, to be satisfied with a life beneath the reality your vision shows you can you overcome mediocrity and achieve your fullest potential and the phenomenal life you dream of having. You must be determined never to surrender. Seek opportunity But that determination can turn to frustration unless you begin to see the opportunities amid your obstacles. Every obstacle comes with at least one opportunity. Most people, however, never see that opportunity because they're too prone to look only at the obstacle. As I’ve said many times, your focus determines your reality. If all you see is the obstacle in front of you, then your reality will be one of obstruction. But when you focus on seeking out the opportunity that comes with every obstacle, your reality will be one of opportunity. And as the Savior once taught, “Seek, and ye shall find” (Matthew 7:7). Only by gaining the vision of what your life can be and then resolutely moving towards it, though you move only inches a day, will your dreams ever become reality. But that's what walking by faith is all about. It's not living life based on what you see with your physical eyes. It's living life based on what you see with your spiritual eyes. When you walk by faith, taking each step with vision and determination to do what’s necessary and find the opportunity, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing your dreams will one day be your reality because you choose to go the distance. And that will bring you more joy in your journey.
Mother’s Day is once more around the corner. And of course I remember my own dear mother. She’s a sweet lady who’s continually given to me all of my life. I can’t help but remember her. I also remember a “controversy” that swept through LDS singles groups on social media last year. I rarely use social media, but I remember someone showing me what people were saying. Some childless sisters were getting upset about all the attention paid to women who have born children. Their comments reflected feelings of hurt, isolation, and neglect. Because I still rarely use social media, I can’t tell you if any similar discord exists this year. But I can tell you this episode illustrates a great truth. Half the problems we LDS singles have are all in our head. If we’d adopt more effective ways of thinking, half our problems would literally disappear. Don’t get me wrong. Those feelings of hurt, isolation, and neglect are real. Emotions are not figments of our imagination. But those feelings stem from less effective ways of thinking about yourself and your world. Once you adopt more effective ways of thinking, many negative feelings disappear because they have nothing to drive them within you. Watch your focus What are these more effective ways of thinking? One of the most important is to control your focus. I feel like a broken record, but your focus becomes your reality. Change your focus, and you change your reality. Negative emotions often attend a focus on what you lack. When you focus on what you lack, your reality becomes one of lack. And that reality doesn’t make a very happy life for anyone. Furthermore, focus can become habitual. Because we’re designed to function out of habit, the way we were designed to function may be keeping us in a negative reality. Of course, the reverse can also be true. When we adopt habits of positive focus, we can experience a positive reality habitually. We can have joy all along our journey regardless of the circumstances that surround us when we focus on the positive. “Give,” said the little stream What then should be the focus of those who feel isolated by holidays like Mother’s Day? What’s so positive about not fitting in and having it rubbed in your face? This brings us to another aspect of more effective thinking — action. Many simply act according to how they feel. But you can also act yourself into feeling a certain way. For example, it’s been said that, when you don’t feel like praying, you should pray until you do. By persisting in the act of praying, you adjust your focus to a new reality. Before long, your thinking starts to match that reality. And then your feelings change to match the new reality. What actions can LDS singles take to combat feelings of lack and isolation on holidays like Mother’s Day? The opposite of lack and isolation is abundance and connection. And feelings of abundance and connection prompt us to give. Giving helps us to focus more what we have than on what we lack. Remember who you are It’s easy to see yourself as not fitting into a family-centered culture when you define motherhood as having born children you don’t have. But in a broader and much more meaningful sense, motherhood is about giving love to those who need it. It’s in that sense that I remember my own mother. The love she has continually given me throughout my life is what makes our relationship meaningful to me. The great part about this is that we all have someone to love. God has given to all of us people in our lives who need the love we have to give. When we focus on giving that love to those whom God has given us to love, we focus on what we have and what we can do, not on what we don’t have or can’t do. Our reality then becomes one of abundance. Many of the challenges LDS singles face are simply issues of identity. You embrace a more healthy sense of identity when you adopt more effective ways of thinking. By directing your focus and action towards giving love to those whom God has given you to love, you can embrace a new identity that transcends any challenge. You can rise above any difficulty. Who has God given you to love? Who can claim you? This Sunday, let’s all celebrate the true spirit of motherhood by giving love to those whom God has given us to love. A focus on giving love will create a reality filled with love. And that will bring us more joy in our journey.
Life has a way of feeling wearisome when all you can see is day-to-day drudgery. Combine that with the normal human propensity to get caught up in one’s own world, and you have a sure-fire recipe for hopelessness. Many LDS singles feel even more burdened when the drudgery they encounter is negative self-talk — negative messages one gives to oneself, often reminders of one’s failings, shortcomings, and inadequacies. When you surround yourself constantly with negative messages, you’re likely to believe yourself. It’s easiest to get this way when you have two very destructive habits:
But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can have joy in your journey regardless of your circumstances. That joy comes easiest to you when you truly believe you are good enough. Watch your mouth Too many LDS singles don’t believe they’re good enough to secure the eternal blessings they desire primarily because they keep telling themselves that. If that applies to you, here’s some free advice: Stop telling yourself you’re not good enough! Negative self-talk is one of the most destructive habits for LDS singles. If this is your habit, then stop believing yourself and start believing the Lord. He has declared that “the worth of souls is great in the sight of God” (D&C 18:10). And why do souls have such great worth? The Lord gives the reason: Because He suffered the Atonement for all (D&C 18:11-12). Why would Christ have suffered so much if your worth is so little? He wouldn’t have. He suffered tremendously for you because you are worth it. That message, however, won’t remain with you if you have a habit of negative self-talk. We can’t function without habits because we’re all designed to have them. So unless you replace your negative habit with a positive one, you’ll always go back to your default option, which is the negative habit. That means you must replace any habit of negative self-talk with a habit of positive self-talk. Our focus becomes our reality. If you’re tired of a negative reality, then stop having a negative focus. Focus on the positive, and your reality will be positive. Stop the comparisons with others Too many LDS singles also need to stop comparing themselves with others. As if it were part of our design as human beings, we all seem to gain our sense of normal from those around us. Perhaps that’s why not comparing themselves to others challenges so many. Engaged in a habit of constant comparisons, we’ll constantly find the flaws in ourselves — the times when we failed, the imperfections that seem to disqualify us, and the moments in which we fell short. Providing ourselves regularly with such a list just creates another channel for negative self-talk. That’s why comparisons with others never end well. We’re all so different that we’ll always find ourselves wanting somehow when measured against others. Just as we need to replace negative self-talk habits with positive self-talk habits, we need to replace habits of comparing ourselves to others with habits of comparing ourselves to ourselves. That really is the only fair comparison anyway. Only you have been where you’ve been experiencing what you’ve experienced. Embrace the truth Often the “evidences” that we provide ourselves through negative self-talk and comparing ourselves to others — “evidences” that we aren’t good enough — are simply lack of results. We can think, I’m still single, so that must prove there’s something wrong with me. Or perhaps our dating invitations have been rejected. Or perhaps no one’s invited us on a date in some time, or even ever. When we don’t have the results we want, it’s easy to conclude we aren’t good enough. But concluding you aren’t good enough based on a lack of desired results is faulty logic. You don’t get what you get based on who you are. You get what you get based on what you do. If you want better results, improve your approach. You really should believe you are good enough if for no other reason than that you are. If you don’t feel that truth inside you, then perhaps you’ve engaged bad habits of negative self-talk and comparing yourself with others for so long that it’s hard to believe anything else. Start today to embrace habits of positive self-talk and comparing yourself only to yourself. When you do, you can more easily embrace the truth of your own worth as a child of God. And that will bring you more joy in your journey.
Today is Valentine’s Day — the day when every man with a significant other must make an expected love offering to his significant other. That could take the form of flowers or chocolate or something else — or even some combination of the above. If you’re in this category, then you know what I’m talking about. Then there are the myriads of LDS singles who don’t have that special someone in their life. Many of these will be pining away in their lack, yearning to have what they don’t have, and frustrated that the life plan our LDS subculture gives us all hasn’t worked out for them. They focus on what they lack and the belief that they are so much less because of that lack. Because your focus always determines your reality, their reality is one of lack. Yet not all singles associate Singles Awareness Day with negativity. These hardy souls reject defunct, old ways of thinking and adopt better ways of thinking that produce a better focus leading to a better reality. These singles focus on what they can do, what they can give, and how they can serve. They partner with the Lord in fulfilling a personal ministry. In essence, they ditch the pity party. Envision a new reality Some years ago I wrote what I’ve come to regard as a classic blog post on the pity party. If you have any doubt pity parties are dungeons of doom to be avoided, please read that post. You’ll find your time well spent. More than one Singles Awareness Day has passed since I wrote that post. I can honestly say that I was emotionally stable for each of them. I never felt like crying or surrendering to a pit of despair or even The Pit of Despair of The Princess Bride fame. In fairness I should acknowledge I had a significant other for at least one of them, and in that event I made sure to satisfy that special someone. But during the other Singles Awareness Days in which I had no significant other (like today), I felt as though the day was no different from any other. What I’m describing is not apathy or disconnectedness. It’s a reality created by a different focus and a different way of thinking. And I’m not the only LDS single who has them. Truly believe the gospel Do we know something pity party advocates don’t? Assuming we’re all LDS, not really. We all know the same basic truths of the restored gospel. The difference is in what we believe. We truly believe the Lord loves us so much He can’t wait to bless us. The Lord will play His part in realizing our desired blessings. We understand we also have a part to play, but we believe that, in addition to playing His part, the Lord will help us to play ours. That faith allows us to let go of the frustration associated with wanting what we don’t now have. We believe Him so much that we’re willing to wait on Him. Instead of focusing on what we lack, we focus on what we have. That focus allows us to see the tender mercies of the Lord surrounding us every day. And it allows us to feel the love of the Lord for us in every one of those tender mercies. Embrace new ways of thinking Truly believing the truths of the restored gospel is just the first difference in our beliefs. The second difference lies in what we believe about happiness. Long-time audience members will recognize my definition of happiness: Happiness isn’t just doing the right things but giving your all to the right things for you. We truly believe that definition of happiness. And we demonstrate that belief by living it. I devoted the entire radio program last week to this new way of thinking about happiness. We know happiness is a choice. And because we always have a choice regardless of our circumstances, we can always find happiness no matter what life may bring us. We don’t need to wait to be happy, and we aren’t. No desire to host a pity party can touch us. We’ve effectively ditched the pity party. You too can ditch the pity party, if you haven’t done so already. You can change your focus from what you lack to what you have. You can change your thinking about happiness. You can choose to trust the Lord and walk by faith. When you do, you’ll free yourself from all the negative emotions that often attend pity parties. You’ll see that you don’t have to wait to be happy. You’ll rise towards your best self. And that will bring 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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