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.

I’m not sure what it was exactly.  It’s not like the situation this sister describes is abnormal, extraordinary, or unusual.  Confronting loneliness is part of the reality of singleness.  I just felt I should address the question posed in this post.

Don’t ask me to compare the loneliness of the never-married versus the divorced versus the widowed.  I don’t even know where to begin there, nor am I entirely certain that comparison would provide any real value.

What I do know is that I’ve had my own confrontation with loneliness and overcome it.  I know the depths of despair that can enter the heart from prolonged singleness.  I’ve been single for over two decades.  I also know the pure joy and hope that fill the heart and soul when you change the way you think and adopt a personal ministry.  And I know this is true because I’ve lived that joy and am living it now.

Most of the comments offered in response to this single mother’s question revolved around two approaches: hobbies and renewal activities.  They represent two ways of what I see as fundamentally the same approach.  And that approach doesn’t address the real issue at hand.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not against hobbies.  And I’m certainly not against participating in regular activities that renew the spirit, heart, mind, and body.  In fact, having regular renewal rituals is a great way to live life.  We all need to recharge from time to time.

Yet neither of these methods proposed to combat the loneliness we LDS singles encounter solve the problem.  They’re simply bandages covering the problem with a seemingly healthy and often pleasurable distraction.  Avoiding problems will never solve them.  Real solutions always require us to act.

That action starts when we change the way we think.  We need to discard the notion that we have to be married or have some significant other in our lives in order to be happy.  We need to stop conditioning our happiness on the choices of others.  And we need to throw off any vestige of any victim mentality we have and replace it with a victor mentality.  We need to own our lives, taking full responsibility for whatever results we do have and recognizing the power of our own choices in delivering to us the life we want.

Attitude without action will never bring you achievement. Some people get fired up with positive thinking, but then their lives don’t change because they didn’t really change, especially in the way they think.  Changed thinking always leads to changed action, which in turn always leads to a changed reality.

One of the best actions more effective ways of thinking always lead one to take is to adopt a personal ministry.  Your personal ministry is that unique contribution of goodness you make to the world, the cause through which you uplift and bless the lives of others.  We’ve discussed before on the program how adopting a personal ministry can help LDS singles overcome their challenges.  Here are just three of those reasons:

1. A personal ministry provides a sense of progression when other aspects of life (dating especially) can seem stagnant.
2. A personal ministry creates space for you to joy in the joy you bring to others through your personal ministry.
3. A personal ministry makes you more attractive to a potential spouse.

When you think about it, it’s not hard to understand why a personal ministry offers so much benefit for LDS singles seeking to overcome loneliness and other challenges we LDS singles face.  It aligns us with the path the Savior trod by turning ourselves outward towards others.

That’s in stark contrast to the bandage solutions mentioned earlier.  Again, I’m not against hobbies and renewal rituals.  But focusing exclusively here will turn ourselves inward towards ourselves.  That’s why they will never really solve the problem of loneliness.  Only by turning ourselves outward can we connect with others in ways that remind us we aren’t ever really alone.  Only by turning ourselves outward can we connect with the Savior Who fills us with His love that helps us to know we aren’t ever really alone.

If you feel consumed by loneliness, consider your focus.  Your focus will always determines your reality.  Change your thinking, adopt a personal ministry, and turn yourself outward.  You’ll shift your focus towards others and shift your reality away from your problems and into your possibilities.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

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.

We’re all unique enough that my list of needed changes will be different from yours, because my truth about why I’m single is probably different than yours.  We both need to face our own truth, but the actual steps we take to apply that shared principle may be quite different.

I can provide tools and teach you how to use them, but I can’t use them for you.  You must build your life.  And building your best life won’t happen until you own your life and accept that the change you need to make is not just one thing.

The memory of that phone conversation has stuck with me.  Maybe it’s because the question asked is a common one.  "OK, so what's the one thing I need to do in order to . . . . ?"  It seems like an intelligent question to ask, but I've got a serious problem with it.

You see, it's really not that intelligent at all.

Run with me for a moment.  The question assumes you need to change only one thing in order to transport your world into a new and higher dimension of existence.  Seriously, what sense does that make?  I know that’s what we all want, but it’s just not realistic.

Here’s real: I've got more imperfections than Swiss cheese has holes and certainly more than most people.  And the vast majority of people aren’t that far behind me.  We all have many ways in which we can improve.

Here’s a better question: What is everything I need to do to improve myself?  With that answer, you take a more holistic approach towards making needed changes in yourself.

Of course, the answer to that question will likely overwhelm; we’re all so imperfect that the list of needed changes is quite long.  I recall the experience I had taking notes during General Conference.  The resulting list of changes I obtained overwhelmed me to the point that I didn’t want to take any action.  Making any progress seemed hopeless.

That’s why you should ask yourself this best question: What one thing can I do today to improve myself?  The answer to that question won’t overwhelm because it’s just one thing.  At the same time, this question doesn’t assume you need to do only one thing to improve.  The approach is well balanced.

Of course, simply knowing what you must do won’t bring the results you seek in life.  Results come from one thing and one thing only, and that is action. You must do.

When you take action, you can begin to understand yourself better.  You can make better sense of the terrain of LDS singles life.  You open yourself to receiving the tools you need.  And action leads to a sense of progress that is truly liberating.  You may have a lot to do, but conquering the one thing you need to do today will give you confidence from knowing you’re on your way.  And that knowledge makes the journey so much more joyful.

Don’t wait to feel free.  Don’t wait to feel better about yourself and your life.  No matter how much you need to improve, we all need to practice what President Oakes has described as “the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.”  We make the journey to eternal glory one step at a time.

Never assume your list of needed improvements has only one item.  It’s not just one thing.  But take that understanding with you as you tackle the one thing you need to do today.  Doing so will help you walk by faith.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

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.

Last week we discussed how to find your useful passions and get busy making other people’s lives better.  Until you do, you’ll never see the results you want to see from adopting a personal ministry.

But that’s true in every arena of life.  If you want results, you must take action.  And isn’t that what we all really want?  No matter where we are in life or what we’ve been through, at the end of the day we all want results.

How do we get results?  Results come from one and only one thing: action.  Too many of us are sitting on the sidelines waiting for God to act so we can receive results when in actuality God is waiting for us to act by using the agency and the talents He gave us to deliver our results to ourselves.

We must act.  When we know what we want out of life, we need to get down on it and get busy going after it.  Only then will we have our best life.

Most people do nothing to effect the change they want.  When life throws them a curve — and life will always throw you a curve — most people complain.  They complain about how unfair it is, how disadvantaged they are, or how luck doesn’t favor them.  And the only thing they do in addition to complain is complain some more!

But where does that leave them?  It leaves them at the station because they never got on the train; they never took action.  And therefore, they didn’t get results.  Results don’t come without action.  So if you don’t take any action, you don’t get any results.

In addition, your focus determines your reality.  That’s why people who constantly complain can never rid their lives of the misery and depression that prompts them to complain about how miserable and depressed they are.  When you focus on the negative, your reality will be filled with negativity.  The way to change your reality is to change your focus.  To have a positive reality, take action to focus on the positive.

Now, I can hear some of you saying, “Yeah, well, I took action and I didn’t get results.”  Maybe you asked someone out and got rejected.  Maybe you applied for a job you didn’t get.  Maybe you tried to stick to a weight-loss diet and couldn’t resist eating that pizza.  Whatever it was, you saw what you wanted, you took action to get it, and you fell flat on your face.

It’s true that if you don’t take action, you don’t get results.  But perhaps it would be better to say if you don’t take any different action, you don’t get any different results.  Your results are always consistent with the action you take.  So when you want different results, you need to change it up and take different actions, ones consistent with the results you want.

Is your life the same as it was two years ago?  If so, it’s because last year you didn’t do anything different than you did the year before.  And next year will be just like last year unless you start doing something different.  The next two, five, or even ten years of your life will be just like the last two, five, or ten years unless you start doing something different.

And this is where most people get stuck.  They know they need to do something different.  They just don’t know what that something is.

Enter partnering with the Lord stage left.  When you partner with the Lord, He’ll show you what you need to change.  “And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:5) — including the truth of the changes you need to make to move towards your best life.

In that effort, it’s best to look for the little things you need to change — the small habits you can practice every day that will move you in your desired direction.  After all, the big wins we want in life are just collections of the little wins accumulated consistently over time.

When you know what little habits you need to adopt every day, get down on it and stick with it.  Don’t wait for your blessings to appear magically.  Know the results you want, determine the actions you need to take to get those results, and then get down on it.  When you start to move in the direction of your goals and dreams, feeling that progress will invigorate you to do and be more.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Most people settle for mediocre lives.  They become comfortable inside a status quo.  That’s human nature — establish a habit and then stay inside that “safe zone.”

Yet that safety lies well beneath the potential we all have to accomplish extraordinary achievements.  Greatness abounds in all of us because we’re all children of the greatest measure of greatness in the universe — our Heavenly Father.

Nevertheless, so many of us live every day beneath our potential it’s insane.  Instead of contributing goodness to others, we wander within ourselves.  Instead of spending time in service to others, we spend time in service to ourselves voraciously consuming content via the Internet, video games, movies, and other forms of entertainment.  Instead of taking control of our lives, we simply react as the waves of life toss us to and fro.

Too many of us are just standing on the sidelines of life waiting for extraordinary blessings.  That’s not the way life works.  To have your best life, you must skip the sidelines and get in the game of making other people’s lives better.

We all have talents we can leverage to improve others’ lives, and very often using these talents elicits passion within us — a passion for excellence, a passion to contribute, a passion to serve, and a passion to be the best we can be.

That passion becomes useful when it drives you to use your talents to fulfill a personal ministry bringing goodness to others.  Your useful passions can carry you beyond your troubles into a life of joy if you let them.  By adopting a personal ministry, you can transcend the challenges of LDS singles life and live your best life.

How do you find your useful passions?  Start by separating yourself from daily distractions to gain clarity of vision.  The temple is great here, but you should also have somewhere in your home where you can reflect without distraction.  Then look inside yourself and ask what you do the best with the least amount of effort.  Those are your talents.

How can you use those talents to bring goodness into the lives of others?  Which of those ways would you do even if it brought you no personal gain or benefit?  Those are your useful passions.  They will fuel you to carry out your personal ministry despite the obstacles in your way.  And when life overwhelms, postponing your efforts, your useful passions will always bring you back to sit at the table of contribution.

Surely the Lord wants you to make your contribution — one only you can make.  Only by following His example of making that unique contribution will you live your best life.  When you partner with Him, the Lord will help you discover your useful passions.  And once you know what you need to do, get busy.  Don’t let others wait for the blessings they’ll receive because of your contribution of goodness.

Throughout his career, my father has supervised others.  Often when inquiring after an undone task, he’s heard,“I haven’t got around to it yet.”  In response, my father would obtain small wooden discs and write the letters T-O-I-T on them.  Then whenever someone would tell him, “I haven’t got around to it yet,” my father would give that person one of his special wooden discs and say, “There’s your round ‘to-it.’  Now get to work!”

Once you’ve identified your personal ministry, turn it on and get to work.  “We all have work,” the hymn teaches. “Let no one shirk.  Put your shoulder to the wheel” (Hymns, #252).  When you allow your useful passions to drive your personal ministry, you can more easily find your life by losing it (see Matthew 10:39).

Of course, life has a way of distracting or sometimes outright knocking us off course, thereby obstructing our personal ministry and restricting our contribution.  When that happens, we’ve got to get back in the game.

Life will always present challenges.  That’s by design; it’s partly why we’re here.  But if you know who you are, if you’ve identified your useful passions, and if you have a personal ministry, then keep on keeping on that road of service.  Your contribution may not change the world, but it will mean the world to those whose lives you change for the better.  

Don’t just sit on the sidelines of life waiting for your best life to come to you.  Make your best life happen!  Skip the sidelines and find your useful passions that can fuel your own personal ministry.  When you lose yourself in that effort, you’ll find your best life, because you’ll become the best version of you that you can be.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

In the most recent General Conference, Elder Jack Gerard of the Seventy spoke of the importance of priorities in life.  His remarks, entitled “Now Is The Time,” encourage all of us to place our priorities upon what matters most in life — our relationship with our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ.  Whether or not you have goals for the new year, now is the time to consider whether the priorities you really do have are the ones you really should have.

Elder Gerard begins with an account of chest pains he experienced while traveling.  After arriving at the airport, he sought help at a local hospital, wondering if he would reach his final destination.  A doctor ran multiple tests and then declared him safe to continue his travels.

Elder Gerard returned to the airport and resumed his journey.  As the plane approached his final destination, Elder Gerard learned an ambulance would be waiting to take him to the hospital.  The doctor had misdiagnosed his condition, which was much more serious than previously supposed.

After he learned the new diagnosis and that not many patients survive that condition, Elder Gerard’s perspective suddenly shifted.  He described his experience with these words:

Indeed, now is the time to consider our direction.  Stephen Covey often used the analogy of a ladder when speaking about priorities.  He described a man who exerted much effort to climb a ladder leaning against a wall.  When he got to the top, what he saw behind the wall made one truth painfully obvious; his ladder was leaning against the wrong wall.

It should sound silly to talk about priorities after many of us have made our goals, because priorities rightfully come before goals.  We need to establish our direction before we establish what we want to accomplish.  Otherwise, we’ll likely find the ladder we climb has been leaning against the wrong wall.

Daily life in our modern world contains so many distractions we can spend our lives wandering aimlessly without any sense of direction or purpose.  We need to take time to reflect upon our direction.  Unless we do, we’ll easily become “like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed” (James 1:6).

Do the things of greatest eternal importance have the highest priority in your life?  If not, it’s never too late to start again.  Now is the time to consider your direction.

Elder Gerard reminds us that

It’s so easy to coast and let the waves of day-to-day living just wash over us!  But that complacency will never deliver your best life.  You get your best life by living intentionally, and living with intention requires awareness of what you’re doing and more importantly why.  That means having priorities and a plan of action that supports those priorities.

How else do we ensure our ladder is not leaning against the wrong wall?  Priorities determine direction, and direction determines destination.

During his remarks, Elder Gerard asked this very practical question: “How do we rise above the distractions of this world and stay fixed on the vision of eternity before us?”  He then extolled Christ as the standard by which to judge what’s best and declared “understanding our divine origins is essential to our eternal progress and can free us from the distractions of this life.”

Ultimately, the best way to know what our real priorities should be is to evaluate ourselves and our lives without distraction.  That’s where temple attendance can be so refreshing.  In the house of the Lord, we can separate ourselves from the distractions of the world.  Remembering our divine origins and why we’re here can bring clarity to an otherwise muddled view.

If you wonder whether your ladder is leaning against the wrong wall, now is the time to consider what changes you need to make.  If you didn’t make any goals for the new year, then by default you decided to let the waves of life carry you where they may.  Now is the time for you to own your life and establish the priorities that will determine your direction and ultimately your destination.  When you do, you’ll find yourself moving forward more confidently.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.