Focusing on what you have will make you more grateful than focusing on what you don’t have.

I’m sure you’ve been around (and chuckled at) a child that this has happened to.

Take my daughter, for instance. She can be happily playing at the park munching on her apple thinking it’s the perfect treat. Suddenly, another child comes into her periphery with a cupcake topped high with chocolate frosting and sprinkles near his mouth. The apple becomes not enough.

“Mommy,” she says running over to me a little excited “I want a cupcake!”

When my response is, “No, not now. You have an apple. It’s yummy, eat that!” her voice gets a whiny edge to it. “No, I don’t want it. I don’t like apples. The cupcake is better.”

All of the adults standing by understand what’s going on and chuckle, knowing that she was loving the apple seconds earlier.

How much harder it is for us to see those same tendencies in our own lives as adults.

Looking at the social life and activities of my friends make me no longer content with spending a lot of time at home. All of a sudden I want to sign up for this activity and that and host parties every weekend.

I have a lovely first home. It even has 2 bathrooms and meets the needs of our family wonderfully. Then I might go to small group at a home with a more open floor plan and bigger yard more suited for entertaining. My home isn’t so great anymore.

Maybe it is my vehicle. Sure it’s not new, but it runs well and we can cram a lot of baby gear into the back. It meets our needs perfectly. Or it does until our neighbor drives up in a slightly newer and larger SUV.

My husband and kids are great until I compare them to the one that always seem considerate and the ones that listen so well you are sure the mom never has to worry about them misbehaving in public.

Comparison steals my ability to enjoy what I have.

I am no longer content and satisfied.

I no longer have gratitude for the multitude of things, way of living, and personality that God has blessed me with. Instead I find myself wishing my family was different and unsatisfied with my (perfectly good) belongings and financial status.

As Crystal Paine says,

“Comparison only leads to discontentment.”

My voice becomes whiny. What I have is no longer enough. It’s no longer good enough. Just like my daughter and her apple.

That’s not okay!

If instead I look at the home, car, family, life, personality, and opportunities that I have right now and realize that I have been given so much and not focus on what those around me have, I stay content.

Thankfulness and gratitude are then easy to come by.

Let’s keep our focus on what we have, instead of what others have.

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We all make goals and plan what we need to do to end up where we want.

The side to success that we know and focus on is the dos on our lists. To accomplish those dos, we use discipline.

dis·ci·pline

1. training to act in accordance with rules; drill: military discipline.

2. activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill; training: A daily stint at the typewriter is excellent discipline for a writer.

3. punishment inflicted by way of correction and training.

4. the rigor or training effect of experience, adversity, etc.: the harsh discipline of poverty.

5. behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control: good discipline in an army.

That means we go out to run at the end of day when we just want to sprawl out on the couch.

We eat almonds for an afternoon pick me up.

We read from the books on our list.

We sit down to study for our test.

What’s on our list, we do. We need that discipline and progress to succeed.

How often do we end up overwhelmed and burned out? Exhausted and emotional, not knowing how we can do it all? Maybe we trek along okay but don’t find ourselves succeeding as much as we think we should.

There’s more.

There’s another important component to success and achieving your goals. That is not doing. This means learning to say no. We must have the maturity and wisdom to see our life as a whole. Realizing that all the pieces of our life are intertwined and knowing that saying yes to one thing will affect our ability to say yes to something else.

Saying no is as important as saying yes/do.

This requires discernment.

dis·cern·ment

: the ability to see and understand people, things, or stituations clearly and intelligently

That means saying no to the great deal.

Saying no to the plate of cookies. (Or seconds or thirds.)

Saying no to staying up late.

Saying no to signing up for that class.

Saying no to things those around you are pressuring you to do.

Decisions must be made with discernment and intention, remembering the end goal.

The ability to say no to the good so we can say yes to the best, to those things we are focusing on in this immediate stage of life, is hard. We want to do more, be more, say yes more, not miss an opportunity.

It takes strength, wisdom, maturity, intentionality, and discernment to be able to say no. This ability, even just understanding the need for this ability, is harder to learn and get a grasp on than the discipline of doing and saying yes to those items on your goals.

If we don’t learn to say no, we sabotage our ability to succeed, our happiness, and even our health.

This means saying yes to what is best for us (and our goals) and whom God want us to be and no to things that that look good, things we might even want to do, so we don’t waste our limited resources of time, energy, finances, and emotions that we need to reach our goals and focus on where God wants us to be.

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Today, I am excited to be guest posting for Keri at Growing in His Glory. It’s all about making weekly goals.

Goals. The beginning of every year many people take the time to evaluate the last 12 months and plan for the next 12. Each individual has their own way to go about this.

I see goals as being a road map. A plan to get where you want. It’s okay to make changes and adapt along the way, but they give you a running start. If I’m going on vacation, I don’t get in the car and start driving. Instead I have a destination, budget, timeline, and plans for when I arrive.

My goals are my destination, where I want to be at the end of the year. They give me something to look toward and strive for. They give me direction.

365 days can seem like a long time and it may be easy to lose focus.

Making weekly goals is one way I’ve found to help.

Head over to Growing in His Glory to read the rest.

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