My 5 Keys to Personal Development

First, know that your words are powerful. They can either kill your momentum or give you the energy you need to keep going. Proverbs 8:21 is real, your tongue has the power of life and death. You have to develop a habit of speaking to the demons in your life and telling them to move out of your way. When you don't feel like doing something that you know will better your life and your children's life, there is a demon somewhere in the background praying that you stay in that funk. Because it knows that if you just begin to start speaking over yourself, your business, your calling, the work you have to do for that day, you will receive a fresh anointing. Romans 10:17, the amplified version says, "faith comes from hearing [what is told], and what is heard comes by the [preaching of the] message concerning Christ. Do you know that you can preach and minister to yourself? You can prophesy over your own life. Too many people wait to be motivated instead of creating an atmosphere of motivation for themselves. In the psychology world they call it positive self-talk. Speak the promises of God over yourself, your work, your purpose and watch how your mood will begin to shift. You will develop the faith you need to get it done. Once you develop the faith for something, you'll no longer need the motivation for it.

There should never be a time in your life where you are not growing and changing. If you aren't growing and changing that means your stagnant. You're standing in place while everything around you is moving forward. I used to be that girl who thought keeping it real meant staying the same. I'm sure you've heard people say, "I'm the same old me." Then I realized that's a horrible mindset to have. You should not be the same today as you were ten years ago. You should be wiser, wealthier, and more experienced. If you find that you are not in a better position today than even you were last year, there's a problem. You're going backward. Change, in the right direction is a must. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, those who genuinely contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory. So if you say, "I'm a woman of God," that means you're contemplating His glory through reading His Word and prayer. If you're doing that and you're not becoming more Christ-like, you're either reading the wrong Bible or you're praying to the wrong Jesus. You've been in Christ for twenty years and you're still cussing people out? No ma'am. Something's wrong.

I think it has to be not having a realistic outlook on the amount of time it takes for success. We have all been taught about SMART goals. In that system you're supposed to create realistic and time-bound goals. But as a Christian we're on borrowed time. Ephesians 2:10 says we were created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared for us in advance. 2 Peter 3:8 says that a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day to the Lord. Christians take these worldly principles like SMART goals and try to apply them to their Christian walk forgetting that the Lord is a God of order. He will not move in your life out of season. Then we allow our worldly friends and family to make us feel like crap because the vision hasn't come through after a few months or a few years. Then we get on social media and look at people's fake lives, and think we are supposed to become an overnight success. We get envious of those other folks who are manifesting a husband, a business, and a car, and now we're mad at God and want to give up. You too can have all the kingdoms of the world and the splendor therein if you're willing to bow down and worship him (Mathew 4-8-11). But if you want blessings from the Lord, the kind that make you rich and add no sorrow (Proverbs 10:22), you're going to have to be content with steady and consistent progress. Or, you can manifest your stuff and be dropped into the lake of fire with those other folks.

Incremental changes. Steady and consistent forward motion toward achieving your goals. You can be moving forward but in the wrong direction. Everyday you should be asking yourself what can I do to be better today than I was yesterday? How can I be a better wife, mother, friend, disciple, and steward today than I was yesterday. You should also be asking yourself at the start of every morning, what three things can I do today to move the needle forward toward me reaching my goals? Success looks different for everyone. One woman can say I had a successful day and all she did was get out of bed, take a shower, wash her hair, and brush her teeth. Another woman may say she had a successful day because she just finished giving a Ted Talk. Here's the trap that we fall into, measuring our success up against someone else's. It's easy to say the woman who gave the Ted Talk was more successful in her day. However, the woman who was able to get out of bed and take a shower had been battling severe depression for three weeks brought on by the sudden and tragic death of her child. Success looks different for everyone and in every season of your life. Let your success in this season, be your success, and let hers be hers.

I have a 5 step process that focuses on becoming the type of person who is worthy of achieving your goals. It's great to want nice things and to have what we think is an abundant life. However, we'll mismanage it and loss it every time if we don't become the type of person that fits within that life. I can tell immediately if someone is ready to start setting goals that mean something. It's a mindset shift that comes first. Most people want to set goals like saving a certain amount of money or buying a house. Then, they get with me and realize that the real goal is to become a good steward over their money or to become a good steward over their possessions. Then they can save money or buy the house. You want to lose weight but you first have to see your body as a temple that the Holy Spirit dwells in and something that should not be defiled by junk food, overeating, and substances like caffeine. Hello, to myself, that one was for me. Just like my clients, I follow the same 5 step process to achieve my goals. Currently, my goal is to loss weight. It wasn't until I shifted from this being my body to this being a temple for the Holy Spirit to dwell in that I started seeing progress. I can do what I want with my body. Isn't that what the world says, "My body, my choice?" But when you believe that your body is a temple for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and you were bought at a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), you realize it isn't my body to do with what I want. So, let me eat like I'm supposed to eat and exercise. If I can't take care of the Lord's temple, how can I expect Him to give me more.