Self-Control – The Ultimate Business  Tool

We all have two lives – the gift God gave us and the autobiography we create for ourselves. God gives us the raw material and His Ten Commandments.  Using our God-given talent and abiding by His Law is the foundation for the life we make for ourselves. 

It has been said that everyone is an expert at something.  Every person owns incredible undiscovered powers.  Finding out what we excel at is at the core of our personal journey. It is one of the keys to a successful life.  In this life, what a person makes of themselves is what counts.

When someone fails, they often say, “God made me this way.”  When success comes calling they become a “self-made man”.  Predestination is a flawed concept because there is no way for us to know where we’ll end up in this life.  God knows, but we cannot know.  A man’s life is a possibility, not a certainty. 

Here’s the thing – Man is his own worst enemy.  Have you ever said something like that to yourself?  A weak man is at the mercy of circumstances.  A strong man creates his circumstances.  Whether man is a victim or victorious depends primarily on himself, his character, and his dreams.

No man is great only because of what he is…but for what he may become one day.  Until a man knows himself and his own ambitions, his God-given talent, and how to apply them, the possibilities of his own life will lie dormant.  Like an untended garden, the weeds will come and eventually choke out everything else.

When he realizes the greatness of the life given to him, an individual life that he is individually responsible for,  the invisible hand of God will be there to help him achieve more that he ever thought possible.  He will be able to act with authority to create his own world here on Earth.  Without this self-knowledge, man will just pass the time here until the regret of inaction fills his mind with the sadness of “If only I had…”

Some things must be believed before they can be seen.  To see the life we want takes time.  Sometimes a lot of it.  We need time away from the daily rat-race.  Time alone so we can , like Christ, go up into the mountains of spiritual thought. It will not be done while doing anything else and it is not easy.  We must get away from the world in order to receive the strength to live in the world.   While we are away, it is vital to realize that we are important to God and the world as an individual.  Once we have that certain knowledge, we can strip away the unnecessary and with a clear mind deal with the problems of living day to day in this world. 

One man can change the world.  To make a mark, we need less of the “I am a small and insignificant part of the universe” kind of thinking.  To replace that self-deprecating affirmation, we need to say and believe; I am a great human soul with marvelous possibilities.  This kind of thinking will broaden your view.  It’s exciting to envision the possibilities you might create in your life.  

The way to your greatness is self mastery.  Here I’ll call it self control.  Self-control is about what we can do (or not do) to influence in our lives in a good way.

NOTE: This is the first installment of what will eventually become a book about self-control.  I hope you liked it.  As always, your comments are welcome.