That said, the deal breaker lists many LDS singles have align more with worldly values than eternal ones and are anything but short.  For all the talk in church about being spiritual, evidence that LDS singles are influenced by the dating culture of the world abounds in the choices LDS singles make when dating.  But when you understand their effect, it’s easy to see we need to scrap dating checklists.

For anything in life, some approaches are simply more effective than others.  Part of what makes an approach more effective is the joy it can provide throughout your journey and not just how quickly it can get you to the end.  Case in point: The shopping list I mentioned earlier.  Here’s a ready example of how we should not approach dating.

Although every relationship has a transactional aspect, romantic relationships are not as fulfilling and ennobling if they’re entirely transactional.  In fact, purely transactional relationships always eventually break down.  That’s because a tit-for-tat approach never produces the best relationships.  They develop as each partner freely gives to the other without expecting anything in return.

Approaching dating with a shopping attitude promotes just the opposite.  The relationship you have with the worker at the checkout stand is purely transactional.  You’re not looking for anything long-term or complicated.  You’re looking for a quick way to exchange the value you have (your money) for the value you want (the items in your cart) and then to walk away.

It’s not hard to see how that approach to dating isn’t all that effective, and yet our language betrays us.  Language always reveals thinking, and when we talk about people who are no longer available to date as “off the market,” we’re clearly thinking of dating like shopping.

That’s not the only way we approach dating like shopping.  We talk about potential dating candidates in terms of their “market value,” with top shelf candidates having high market value and others having low market value.  We scroll through dating apps and online dating profiles the same way we shop for something online.  And we constantly think of dating as the search for someone with qualities we want, very much like the way we think of shopping as the search for something with qualities we want.

That thinking of dating as shopping naturally drives us to make a list.  As I said previously, lists aren’t necessarily bad.  If it’s short and contains only deal breakers aligned with eternal values, a dating list can be very effective.  That said, the lists many LDS singles have are anything but short and often contain few if any items aligned with eternal values.  For example, your partner’s height has nothing to do with eternal progression, and yet how many singles insist on dating only those who meet a minimum height requirement?

As I said before, the best relationships come from each partner freely giving to the other without expecting anything in return.  That doesn’t mean we’re interchangeable parts.  Dating does have a transactional aspect, and using a few essential items to build a foundation for your relationship can satisfy that transactional aspect.  That’s where the short list I mentioned earlier can prove effective.

The problem comes when that list isn’t short.  We don’t want just anyone, so we add deal breakers to a list to qualify candidates.  But every item we add reduces our dating pool and with it our probability of success.  In this way, long lists of deal breakers assure singles stay single.

That’s why we need to scrap dating checklists.  They represent a less effective approach that decreases the probability of success.  In their place, we should embrace a new dating attitude, one less focused on finding perfection and more focused on supporting others to become more perfected.  We could even extend that to ourselves focusing more on what we bring to a potential relationship than what we want to have.  Making these changes in our thinking will produce more effective actions which in turn will yield more effective results.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

That vote of no confidence really punched me in the gut.  Initially I was in a daze, uncertain of my path forward.  But as time lifted that fog, I began to gain some clarity and regain some perspective.  If you feel that way, know that all is not lost.  There’s always hope because there’s always Christ.  That hope says you can change for the better.  And you can keep that optimism when you treat every day like it’s your birthday.

At my age, birthdays just don’t seem as special to me as they did when I was a kid.  I’ve been there, done that, got the shirt and the hat, plus I chair the membership committee.  (Would you like to join?  We have jackets!)

And that’s part of the problem.  Something about becoming an adult sacrifices that childhood perspective of optimism and possibility on the altar of pessimistic reality.  We’re more prone to point out barriers to justify why we won’t or can’t achieve than to believe that achievement is possible and look for a way to overcome the obstacle.

We also lose the joy of childhood.  The adult perspective is so often serious.  Kids naturally approach their day looking for fun.  They don’t worry much beyond the present; they live in the moment.  Certainly there are times when we need to buckle down and do some serious work.  But we could all benefit from introducing an element of fun into what we do and living in the moment.

That’s what birthdays are all about for kids.  They get absorbed in enjoying the moment.  If we lived life like a kid, maybe some of our obstacles would disappear because our overly serious perspective that created them would be gone.

Treating every day like it’s your birthday also recognizes the special gift each day really is.  Too often we go through our days playing out habits that carry us from one moment to the next.  And that lull of life lacks the joy each day can and does bring.

That’s why a life on autopilot will never lead you to your best life.  There’s nothing to savor in simply going through the motions.  Very often, we go through those motions without any awareness of what we’re doing.  That’s how we’re biologically hardwired to operate.

Treating every day like it’s your birthday breaks you out of that mold.  Because it’s not something you normally do, it doesn’t conform to routine or habit, which takes what you do out of the shadows and into the light of awareness.  Being fully aware of what you’re doing does two things: (1) It opens you to the joy to be found in each moment of living, and (2) it increases your sensitivity to possibilities, allowing for creativity in finding solutions to overcome obstacles.

Applying these ideas to my current challenge, I can see a path ahead.  I need to find someone knowledgeable I can trust to give me objective counsel and help me construct a plan going forward.  And strangely I feel excited about that.

Treating today like it’s my birthday brought me there.  I’m looking for the joy instead of wallowing in the mire of misery.  I’m embracing optimism in a brighter future that I can forge.  I’m opening myself to the hope that always is because Christ always is.  I’m tempering the responsibilities of adulthood with the perspectives of childhood.

So treat every day like it’s your birthday.  You’ll invite yourself to open more to possibility.  You’ll do more to take care of yourself.  You’ll experience more creativity as you embrace more optimism.  And you’ll live your life more hopeful of the future that has you living your best life.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

The changes we’re all looking for in our lives are just that — changes.  Nothing in your life will change until you change.  That means you need to stop doing what you’re doing so you can do something different.

Stopping is the first meaningful step in meaningful change.  Even if you do nothing more than stop to question whether or not you’re moving the right direction, you’ll never change if you keep doing the same thing over and over.

Yet that’s what most people do.  They say they want a different life, but then they keep doing the same things over and over.  And because they keep doing the same things over and over, they keep getting the same results over and over.  Their autopilot lives keep them in a state of limbo equilibrium.  And they’ll continue to play out that cycle until they stop.

Direction determines destination, so once you’ve stopped taking your life in an undesired direction, you need to turn and adjust your course in a desired direction.  That may sound simplistic, but it isn’t.

And here’s why.  How do you know what direction will lead to the best destination?  More times than not, you won’t.  This is where partnering with the Lord comes in.  It’s also where I learned how deviating from your intended purpose could actually lead you to achieve it.  Sometimes we need to give up what we think is best for us in order to take what really is best for us.

The last episode is a case in point.  I thought the best direction to take the program was seeking direction from the Lord when setting goals.  That’s not bad.  But neither was it best.  The best direction was the one the program took.  We need to accept direction from the Lord in our dating journey, especially when it comes to deciding who we date.  And we need to embrace the Lord’s direction to date those who, left to our own devices, we’d rather not date.

We need to do the same thing in our lives.  Once we stop doing what we’ve been doing, we need to turn to the Lord with a willingness to go in whatever direction He’ll lead us, even if that direction appears to take us away from the destination we want.  I stress the word appears because that’s what it often is — an appearance, an illusion.  If the direction comes from the Lord, how could it not ultimately lead us to the best destination, the one where we’ll be the happiest we could possibly be?

Once we get that direction from the Lord, all that remains is execution.  We’ll never get to any destination unless we take the steps that lead there.  Results in any endeavor come from one thing and one thing only, and that is action.

The results you get are also commensurate with the action you take.  No results comes from taking no action.  Poor results come from taking poor action.  Good results come from taking good action.  To arrive at the best destination, you need to take the action that will take you there.  That action most likely follows this sequence: Stop what you’re doing, turn to the Lord, and act under His direction.  Partner with Him for your life.

Consider the changes you want in your life, changes you’ve tried to make but continually escape you time and time again.  Then stop, turn, and act.  When you partner with the Lord, you’ll find yourself making more progress towards your best life.  And you’ll find yourself growing as you learn what your best life really is.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Then I thought I might have the wrong focus.  Maybe what I need to focus on, I thought, is focus.  After all, Mother’s Day is hard for many single sisters because of where they place their focus.  Your focus determines your reality, so when you focus on what’s missing, your reality feels like it’s missing something.  When you focus on what’s wrong, your reality can’t help but feel wrong.

But when you focus on what’s right, your reality feels right.  And that focus works not just for Mother’s Day but for every day.  So instead of letting a holiday focus you on what’s wrong or missing, use that holiday to focus on what’s right.  When you focus on the best parts of your life, it’s easier to celebrate the best in you.

Admittedly that’s a hard row to hoe when you’ve got an ideal you’re not even close to reaching pressed in your face at church.  Many wards are stepping up and exercising more sensitivity to their single members, but many wards still have a lot of work to do.  And that begs the question: What can LDS singles do when they find themselves in such a ward?

The worst that can happen is you have a horrible experience at church and then you go home and brood about it.  If church wasn’t what it should have been, why would you torture yourself further by brooding about it?  Your focus determines your reality, so wallowing in the muck of negative experience just brings you the muck of a negative reality.

Choose instead to focus on what’s right.  If church wasn’t what it should’ve been, remember babes in sacrament meeting, go home, and move on.  Have your own celebration that highlights what’s best in you.  Refuse to focus on the negative, and your reality will refuse to be negative.

That may be hard, especially if you have a habit of immersing yourself in negativity.  But like all new habits, actions become easier and more entrenched the more you practice them.  Holidays that traditionally present challenge to singles also provide opportunities to rise above those challenges.

The key is to remember that practice does not make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.  You can practice how to approach something the wrong way, and you can practice it so much it becomes a habit.  But in the end, all your habit will deliver you are less effective results.  Practice doesn’t make perfect.  Perfect practice makes perfect.

So if your habits produce less effective results, here’s some free advice: Change them!  You have the power of agency.  Use that power to play the victor, not the victim.  Change what you need on the inside so you can more readily see the changes you want to see on the outside.

Whatever holiday comes to your door, others don’t have the final say in how you feel.  You have the final say with the focus you choose for yourself.  Control your focus, and you control your reality.

It’ll be hard if you haven’t practiced perfect, but that’s OK.  That just means you need to keep trying.  Keep reaching for the light and the positive choice.  No matter what others decide, determine you will decide your focus.  Determine you’ll celebrate the best in you.

Your focus will determine your reality regardless of what you choose.  The universe obeys its laws irrespective of any of us.  Time is continually moving forward.  You can choose to use that time to embrace the negative or the positive.

The choice is yours, so make the positive choice.  Choose to celebrate the best in you each and every day.  By insisting on making your focus more and more positive, you’ll make your reality more and more positive.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

That’s why it didn’t take me long to identify “Eyes to See” by Michelle D. Craig as the Conference address to use for the program today.  In her remarks, Sister Craig spoke of the need we all have both to see others deeply and to be seen deeply by others.  And that’s possible for you when you acquire eyes to see.

I’ve long spoken about self-talk.  We all give messages to ourselves every day out of habit.  For most of us, at least 80% of those messages are negative.  A constant barrage of negative messaging can hold anyone back from fully living the joy to be had in life.

The cure for that, of course, is embracing habits of positive self-talk.  But you’ll find that next to impossible without first deeply seeing yourself the way God sees you.  If you see yourself in any lesser light, it’ll be harder to accept your divine nature and heritage as a child of God.  And you’ll feel awkward acting on what you don’t really believe.

That’s why I love how Sister Craig began her remarks with the story of Elisha’s servant seeing a threatening army surround him and his master.  But the servant set aside his fears when the Lord opened his eyes to see the truth of his master’s words: “They that be with us are more than they that be with them.”  Sister Craig then declared,

If what you’re doing keeps you from living the joy surrounding you every single day, then the obvious first step to experiencing that joy is to remove the obstacle.  Get out of your own way.  Stop doing what you shouldn’t, and stop thinking in ways that lead you to do what you shouldn’t.

Of course, you can’t just stop the bad you think and do.  We’re all biologically hardwired to operate out of habit.  Our self-talk and most other thoughts and actions we play out of habit.  Our habits feed us the instructions we follow to navigate everyday life.

But habits don’t change just because you stop executing bad instructions.  Again, you’re biologically hardwired to have a habit, so when you encounter the trigger connected with that habit you stopped, your brain looks for a habit.  Not finding one, it kicks in the default response, which is always to go back to the last habit you had.

That’s why you don’t just quit bad habits.  You must replace them with better ones.  So once you stop doing what you shouldn’t, start doing what you should.  And you can begin by partnering with the Lord and allowing Him to show the way.

Sister Craig shared some beautiful stories of how people were blessed and uplifted when others stopped their normal routines, looked around them, and acted on promptings to go and do.  She declared,

When you replace less effective habits of thinking and doing with more effective ones, you position yourself to see and to receive the deep joy that really does surround you every single day.  That joy comes when you give your all to your true identity and purpose.  But you can’t do that if you don’t first see your true identity and purpose.

So start today to develop eyes to see.  Stop thinking and doing what prevents you from seeing yourself and others as the children of God we all are.  Start thinking and doing what opens your view to the marvelous truths of the restored gospel and the reality of the Savior’s marvelous Atonement.

With a clearer vision of your true reality, you can press forward with joy amidst any challenge.  You can feel better about yourself because you’ll see yourself in the splendid potential for glory bequeathed to every child of God.  You can feel better about life because you’ll see the beauty that really is all around you.  You’ll see more clearly the Lord’s hand working in your life and the lives of others.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

The lesson here is clear.  You boost your power to achieve your goals — and therein change your life — when you write them down.

This wasn't the first time I came across this story.  And yet this time something clicked inside me.  I came to a realization that had somehow escaped me before.  I say somehow because it's staring me in my face, leaving me at a loss to explain why I didn't see it before.

But I'm glad I saw it now, because it led me to a new daily ritual that's improving the quality of my life and giving me more motivation and momentum to dedicate myself more completely to the accomplishment of my goals.

What is this new daily ritual?  Before I begin my tasks for the day or even turn on my computer to review my tasks, I open a notebook and write down each of my goals for the year.  Everything here is old school.  I take a pen in my hand and physically transcribe onto paper each of the goals I made back in January.

I have goals for my personal life and each of my business endeavors — 36 all told.  Since I'm writing each word by hand, it takes me about 20-30 minutes to complete this exercise.  That's a sizable chunk out of my day, but I'm starting to see some sizeable return on my investment.

Each moment I spend writing each goal, I'm not just copying words.  I'm considering the gap between where I am and where I want to go.  Starting my work for the day with a realization of what I need to be done is empowering, especially when paired with the motivation stemming from the grandeur of my goals (yes, I can't help but dream big).

Starting my workday with that motivation drives me to do more with my day.  The act of physically forming letters in a set arrangement on paper is a metaphor for completing the tasks in real life that together form the set arrangements known as goals.  It's a form of spiritual creation that precedes the physical creation.  That's how God created all things (D&C 29:31-32).  How can you follow the same pattern and not gain some semblance of the power He wields?

I've embraced this new ritual for only a few days now, so I haven't practiced it long enough to become a habit.  But I do feel stirrings of power within me, a taste of the great potential this practice will unleash.

That real power isn't just checking items off a to-do list.  It goes beyond completing tasks or even accomplishing goals.  The real power is having our tasks transform us into something more than we were before.  We're human beings, after all, not human doings.  We live our best life not because we do more but because we are more.

It's never too late to start a new way of living.  You can feel empowered every day to effect change in yourself, accomplish great goals, and attain your best life.  To start feeling that power in your life, decide to start living that way and follow through with the simple yet powerful practice of writing down your goals at the start of each day.

So what are you waiting for?  Start right now by collecting the tools you'll need to write out your goals.  Then tomorrow morning use your tools to practice your first iteration of a new habit.  You may not feel much effect after just one session, and you probably won't.  But with diligence and persistence in this practice day after day, it won't be long before you start feeling a growing effect within you.  Keep on keeping on with that, and you'll empower yourself to accomplish anything.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

But an OK life never rises above mediocrity and won't ever be great or phenomenal.  Most settle for mediocrity, but you don't have to accept an OK life.  You can be phenomenal.  You can live your best life.

To realize the reality you want to have outside of you, you must do the work to change what's  inside of you.  So stop waiting and start working.  Your best life awaits you.

Most people have a limited life because they have limited thinking based on limiting assumptions.  And because of how we're all biologically hardwired to operate, those assumptions lead to habits producing the same results most mediocre lives have.

Do you believe you're the victim of choices others make?  Do you believe you just aren't good enough to live your dreams?  Do you believe your best days are behind you?  Do you believe your happiness depends on what happens outside yourself?  If so, you're likely not in control of life.  Rather, life is in control of you.

But just as you can choose thinking that limits you, you can choose thinking that empowers you.  You really can turn your life around because you are a child of the Creator of the universe endowed with His unlimited potential and the wondrous gift of agency.  You can and do choose for yourself.

So you can choose to accept responsibility for the choices you've made that have brought you the life you have now.  When you do, you begin to own your life.  And that's when everything can begin to change for you.  You can further that change by deciding what you want, knowing clearly why you want it, and then committing yourself to excellence in literally everything you do.

You need that foundation to effect the changes you want to see outside yourself.  Too many people (who usually live limited mediocre lives) think their lives will improve when their external circumstances do.  They work directly on external changes, but that's all backwards.  To change your life on the outside, you must first change your life on the inside.

That means you must get good with you.  You must dig deep enough inside of you to uncover the true root of your problem, the seeds of mediocre thinking sprouting into the mediocre habits producing your mediocre life.  You must learn how you were biologically designed to function so you can leverage it instead of continually fighting against it.

We all broadcast an energy to others, and what you have inside determines the quality of that energy.  To broadcast an attractive energy, what's inside of you must be attractive.  Stop trying to escape singles life and start embracing it and making the most of it.  Love yourself but also commit to doing whatever it takes to better yourself.  Achieving that balance is the essence of obtaining your best life.

Pursuing that balance won't be easy, because challenges will always threaten your desired transformation.  That's why you must continually refresh your thinking and your determination to keep after it.

Believe your best is yet to come, that the blessings you want are real and yours.  Let go of trying to manage every detail and just enjoy the ride.  Live in the moment, live with intention, and live in possibility while you work for probability.  It's balancing the fantastic with the practical.

And the best way I've found to do that is practicing a ridiculous, sickening work ethic.  The grind is amply named, and you need to do it every day.  Use your agency to choose to keep after it.  Never quit.  Never surrender.  Never stop until you win.

Most people live mediocre lives centered on satisfaction of self because that's what they choose.  Those who live phenomenal lives centered on contribution to others have their best life because that's what they choose.  Your best life awaits you.  When you choose to take control of your life, get good with you, and keep after it, you too can live the phenomenal life that is your best life.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Yet far too many of us LDS singles choose bondage.  We choose to keep habits of thinking that hold us back.  We choose habits of seeing the obstacles instead of the opportunities.  We choose habits of living under the oppression of a victim mentality instead of the liberation of a victor mentality.  We are in many ways our own worst obstacle.  If only we could get out of our own way!

And that’s the irony of it all.  We can get out of our own way.  We can break free from the bondage of a lesser life because we are free to choose for ourselves.  We simply need to make the right choices.

I know some of you are scoffing at that idea right now.  You’re thinking your freedom isn’t like a light switch you just turn on and off at will.  Real life, you’re thinking, isn’t like that.  There’s so much affecting your life you don’t control.

I used to think that way, back when I didn’t enjoy my life.  What I couldn’t see then that I clearly see now is how my choices in how to think brought me the reality I was living.  The way of thinking I embraced in those days discounted my gift of agency.

I didn’t see how my habitual choice to focus on the negative created the negative energy I broadcast to others around me.  I didn’t see how my habitual choice to look constantly at my obstacles prevented me from seeing my opportunities.  I didn’t see how my habitual choice to embrace a victim mentality kept me from living a life of victory.

The truth is your focus determines your reality.  When you focus on the negative, you have a negative reality.  When you focus on the positive, you have a positive reality.  Because you choose your focus, you also choose your reality.

And here’s more truth: Most of your choices you don’t make consciously.  Rather you choose out of habit.

About 97% of everything you do on a day-to-day basis is simply a habit playing itself out.  Habits don’t require you to think about what you do when you do it.  You can, but you don’t have to.  That’s the beauty of habits.  They automate sequences of action so you can actually live life.

But your best life is a life lived by intention, one you consciously choose.  Because you choose habitually 97% of the time, you choose consciously only 3% of the time.  That suggests you can’t live your best life, but you can because you choose your habits.

When you understand how habit works and then make conscious choices to embrace more effective habits — especially in how you think — you really can choose your life because you choose the elements that together create the life you have.

The moment I realized that truth was a pivotal turning point in my life when everything changed for me.  I had a life I didn’t want because I chose the elements that combined according to natural law to create the reality I had.  And it all came back to how I chose to think.

Sure, those choices were by and large habitual.  But I chose my habits.  In the very least, by choosing not to improve an existing habit, I by default chose not to embrace a better one.

That moment when I consciously chose to own my life turned everything around for me.  That’s because I started making choices that were more conducive to the reality I wanted.  And that’s a choice you can make as well because you have the same gift of agency.

Don’t depreciate that gift.  Choose to own your life.  Choose to break yourself free of the habits of thinking producing a reality you don’t want.  You don’t have to live that way.  You don’t have to settle.  When you learn how to leverage your gift of agency to your advantage, you can live a phenomenal life, irrespective of the choices others make.  You can make your life extraordinary.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

That one part is completely true.  They are torturing themselves.  Your focus always determines your reality, so when you focus on what you don’t have, your reality becomes one of lack and emptiness.  Because each one of us has agency, we choose our focus.  And that means we choose our reality.  Indeed, these sisters are torturing themselves.  Their wanting serves only to amplify the effect.

Of course, that truth doesn’t excuse married Church members from lacking sensitivity.  In recent years, I’ve noticed more married Church members displaying more sensitivity.  Nevertheless, not every ward is like that.  We still have work to do.

In the meantime, it’s productive for all of us to shift our focus towards what Mother’s Day was intended to celebrate.  All of us have a mother who bore us and a mother who raised us.  For some those two women are one and the same.  But either way, we can each answer this question: “How’s your mother?”

Just as focusing on your lack produces a reality of scarcity, focusing on what you have produces the opposite reality — one filled with abundance and plenty.  Your life shifts substantially in the improvement direction when you exchange your expectation for appreciation.  It’s all starts with an attitude of gratitude.

So many create disappointment by expecting too much.  We want, want, want. And very often what we want, however righteous that desire, centers around something we don’t have.  Because our focus always determines our reality, focusing on what we don’t have produces a reality of lack.  And the more deeply we want, the more deeply felt that lack becomes.

But exchanging your expectation for appreciation creates something amazing.  By constantly expressing gratitude, we can shift our focus towards what we do have.  And focusing on what we do have creates a reality of abundance.  The more deeply we appreciate, the more deeply felt gratitude becomes.  We can bathe in the joy of feeling richly blessed.

That feeling is completely legitimate because it results from how we’re constructed.  Your focus determines your reality.  That principle applies to everything, including Mother’s Day.  Focus on what you don’t have, and you’ll take no joy in the celebration because your reality will be so full of emptiness you won’t want to celebrate.  On the other hand, if you can focus on the good about the day, then you can have a joyful reality you’ll want to celebrate.

I know that can be challenging.  As I said before, not every ward displays sensitivity to singles.  It’s hard to stay positive when the dream you don’t have but most desire gets highlighted every week at church.  I know what it’s like to get constant reminders of what you lack rubbed in your face every week.  I know it’s hard.

I also know what hard means.  It doesn’t mean impossible.  It just means difficult.  And difficult can become easy when you partner with the Lord.

The Lord can guide your focus towards the blessings you have today because your mother sacrificed.  When you trade your expectation for appreciation, you open yourself to receive more of the joy life has to offer.

And if your relationship with your mother needs work, you can focus on what you can do to improve that relationship.  Even good relationships can be improved, so focusing on doing something in that arena is good advice for all of us.  Even if your mother has passed on to the other side, you can still find ways to express appreciation and improve your relationship on your end.

So I ask once more, “How’s your mother?” which is really just another way of asking “How’s your focus this Mother’s Day?”  Your focus will always determine your reality.  So make the positive choice.  When you embrace a positive focus, you’ll receive a positive reality.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.