2013 Your Opportunity to Be a Ground-Breaker

One of the most necessary attitudes of a groundbreaker is being able to view problems as opportunities and setbacks as temporary annoyances. This positive attitude also welcomes change as helpful and is not upset by surprises, even negative ones. How we approach challenges and problems is a critical part of our decision-making process, whether in our professional or our personal lives. In environments in which criticism, pessimism, cynicism, and motivation by fear prevail, an attitude develops that leads to avoiding failure at all costs. The trouble with failure avoidance is that at the same time it creates avoidance of success, which depends on big risks.

Improvement and creativity are impossible when people are in fear of being punished for failure. Early experiences often imprint on us that failure is to be avoided at all costs. This began in early childhood, when we ran into our first "No!!" It grows like a wild plant when we are criticized by our parents, other family members, our teachers, and our peers. It leads to connecting ourselves with our mistakes, and to a self-image of clumsiness and awkwardness. Therefore, as adults, not wanting to be criticized or rejected, we seek security rather than risk looking foolish or giving the impression being awkward. They quietly ride with the system, not rocking the boat.

All lasting success in life is tied up with problems, hardship and disasters which require imagination and improvement. Winners turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

In the 1920s, when Ernest Hemingway was working hard to perfect his craft, he lost a suitcase containing all his manuscripts. The devastated Hemingway couldn't conceive of re-doing his work. He could think only of the months he'd devoted to his arduous writing—and for nothing. But when he lamented his loss to poet Ezra Pound, Pound called it a stroke of luck. Pound assured Hemingway that when he rewrote the stories, he would forget the weak parts and only the best material would reappear. Instead of framing the event in disappointment, Pound cast it in the light of opportunity. Hemingway did rewrite the stories, and the rest, as they say, is history.

As this New Year unfolds before you, focus on framing your challenges as "opportunities to grow" rather than "disappointments and problems." Learn from the past, but don’t lament, there is a reason it rhymes with cement. Step into 2013 knowing that God is with you, in the present, but He has also been in your future. He knows what is down the turnpike of life and has already made arrangements for you to “Make It Through.” An attitude touched by Faith in a God of today and tomorrow is like carrying around a Jack-Hammer nothing can stop you, things may slow you down, but you will smash through! Pray through! Get through anything. In Jesus Name!