Dishing Out Delays?

Here we are and New Year’s on our doorstep.  Already?  Where did the year go?  Often just days prior to welcoming in this holiday, people tend to reflect on their past year.  People usually use this time to reset their internal clocks and, wipe

the slate clean, making resolutions for change.  

As I got older, I quit making so many resolutions.  I used to write out a personal chart with goals to reach in the coming year.  I’d hang it where I would come across it several times a day.  It stayed as a constant reminder.  By the end of that year approximately 80% of what I had promised myself to do, I did.  

Somehow, I had lost sight of this great tool of encouragement and quit using it.  I became complacent about change.  Often the biggest obstacle in accomplishing goals is procrastination.  Change isn't easy.  Growth is painful.  I remember when my children were growing up complaining about certain joint pain.  Often, I would respond with, “Oh, those are just growing pains”.  And sure enough, as they matured, the pain ceased.   

Sometimes we have to go through growth spurts that hurt.

Being a mom of six, I can relate this to the birthing process.  I will never forget my first pregnancy, there were nine months of morning sickness that lasted morning, noon, and night.  Why on earth would they call it morning sickness?  

"Ugh, don't say it, don't say it, I'm warning you...
don't mention .....blahhhhhh"

Nine months of weight gain and sobbing in front of a mirror as my body morphed into unrecognizable proportions.  

Nine long months of feeling misunderstood by Hubby with the hormonal changes.

There were six months of feet swelling, and backaches. And during the last trimester had four months of insomnia tossing and turning to get comfortable.   Then the day of delivery arrives.  I spent eighteen hours in excruciating labor, exhausted, and vowing to NEVER EVER DO THIS AGAIN!  

GET IT OUT...NOW!

Yet, when that precious miracle of life made entry into this world, it was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.  

At that very moment, I truly forgot the pain.  It was suddenly worth every nauseating, ankle swelling moment.  The nine months of grueling changes within my body and war scars left were worth every sting.  Worth it so much, I did it five more times!

It takes risk to be willing to change.  It takes patience in the waiting as your life morphs into something greater.  Sometimes it takes tears shed, loneliness, unpopularity, scoffers, and failure as you focus on God's plan and direction.  There will be sleepless nights, and tiresome days.  

Some weeks you may feel the thrill of approaching the top of a mountain, and then other times painfully sliding down the bumpy foothill.  But keep climbing back up that mountain one step at a time.  If you focus on how far you have to go, it will never happen.  You will become discouraged and quit. 

This is in any situation.  Whether your trying to lose weight, finish writing a novel, looking for a better job, raising a tough teen, finish college, becoming a better father, mother or starting a business .  Whatever it may be, don't set the scale so high, that when you don't see immediate results you give up.  

Success is never achieved without failure.  How do you know if you can achieve anything if you never try and try again? 

By not trying we cause our own delays, using excuses as to why we are not where we want to be.  No one has that hold on us. Except, the Almighty God himself.  It isn't because we can't, it is because we won't!

Here are just a few examples of the ones who took risk, and never gave up on their resolutions.  

 

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas."  In 1921, Walt formed his first animation company in Kansas City, where he made a deal with a distribution company in New York, in which he would ship them his cartoons and get paid six months down the road. He was forced to dissolve his company and at one point could not pay his rent and reportedly survived by eating dog food.  When Walt first tried to get MGM studios to distribute Mickey Mouse in 1927, he was told that the idea would never work because a giant mouse on the screen would terrify women.

Fred Astaire was told he "can't act." In his first screen test, the testing director of MGM noted that Astaire, "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little." Astaire later insisted that the report had actually read: "Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances." David O. Selznick, who signed Astaire to RKO and commissioned the test, stated in a memo, "I am uncertain about the man, but I feel, in spite of his enormous ears and bad chin-line that his charm is so tremendous that it comes through even on this wretched test."  Astaire, who went on to become an Oscar-nominated actor, singer and dancer, reportedly kept the negative note in his Beverly Hills home to remind him of where he came from.

Sidney Poitier was told to become a dishwasher.  After his first audition, Poitier, who grew up poor in the Bahamas, was told by the casting director, "Why don't you stop wasting people's time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?"  Poitier went on to win an Oscar for "Lilies of the Field" in 1964 and 1967's super successful "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."

Steven Spielberg got rejected from film school ... three times.

The Beatles were dropped by their record label.  Decca Recording studios, who had recorded 15 songs with the group, said "we don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out. They have no future in show business."

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.  Michael Jordan went home and cried in the privacy of his bedroom.  But Jordan didn't let this early-in-life setback stop him from playing the game and the basketball superstar has stated, "I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Steve Jobs was removed from the company he started.  He was a college dropout, a fired tech executive and an unsuccessful businessman.  At 30-years-old he was left devastated after being unceremoniously removed from the company he founded.  In a 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, Jobs explained, "I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life."  After his return to Apple, Jobs created several iconic products, including the iPod, iPhone and iPad, which have changed the face of consumer technology forever. And Jobs became one of the richest men in the world.

Elvis Presley got fired after his first performance.  In 1954, Elvis was still a no-name performer, and Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after just one performance telling him, "You ain't goin' nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin' a truck

Albert Einstein: Most of us take Einstein's name as synonymous with genius, but he didn't always show such promise. Einstein did not speak until he was four and did not read until he was seven, causing his teachers and parents to think he was mentally handicapped, slow and anti-social. Eventually, he was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. It might have taken him a bit longer, but most people would agree that he caught on pretty well in the end, winning the Nobel Prize and changing the face of modern physics.

Isaac Newton: Newton was undoubtedly a genius when it came to math, but he had some failings early on. He never did particularly well in school and when put in charge of running the family farm, he failed miserably, so poorly in fact that an uncle took charge and sent him off to Cambridge where he finally blossomed into the scholar we know today.

Orville and Wilbur Wright: These brothers’ battled depression and family illness before starting the bicycle shop that would lead them to experimenting with flight. After numerous attempts at creating flying machines, several years of hard work, and tons of failed prototypes, the brothers finally created a plane that could get airborne and stay there.

Abraham Lincoln: While today he is remembered as one of the greatest leaders of our nation, Lincoln's life wasn't so easy. In his youth he went to war a captain and returned a private (if you're not familiar with military ranks, just know that private is as low as it goes.)

Vincent Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime, and this was to a friend for a very small amount of money. While Van Gogh was never a success during his life, he plugged on with painting, sometimes starving to complete his over 800 known works. Today, they bring in hundreds of millions.

Emily Dickinson who was a recluse and poet a commonly read and loved writer. Yet in her lifetime she was all but ignored, having fewer than a dozen poems published out of her almost 1,800 completed works.

Theodor Seuss Giesel -nearly every child has read The Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham, yet 27 different publishers rejected Dr. Seuss's first book To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

Charles Schultz -Schultz's Peanuts comic strip has had enduring fame, yet this cartoonist had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Even after high school, Schultz didn't have it easy, applying and being rejected for a position working with Walt Disney.

All of these individuals had one thing in common. THEY NEVER GAVE UP!  They didn’t procrastinate their way through.  They stayed focused despite the nay-sayers, rejection, and incredible odds against them.  Delay nor excuses was ever an option.

I don’t want to be a procrastinator this year.  After reading the meaning of the word “procrastinate”, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

pro•cras•ti•nate - to be slow or late about doing something that should be done: to delay doing something until a later time because you do not want to do it, because you are lazy, etc.

And there it is!  “Because you do not want to do it”!  I had to really chew on that for a moment, and think… “Am I procrastinating in certain areas of my life simply because I do not want to do it?”  “Am I really one of the lazy?” 

Proverbs 26:13-15

The sluggard says, "There is a lion in the road! A lion is in the open square!" As the door turns on its hinges, so does the sluggard on his bed. The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; He is weary of bringing it to his mouth again.

Did you notice that –“He is weary of bringing it to his mouth again” Too lazy?  

What is God asking you to do this year?  Are you hungry enough to feed yourself the knowledge it will take to complete the task HE has set before you?  Or will you starve yourself of the blessings, joy, and peace that only HE can bring to the table. This being done through HIS word, prayer, and worship?

People often fall flat choosing to never get back up due to the 'this is as good as it gets' mentality.  It’s too much work, pain, or effort.  Who wants to hurt?  Who wants to fail?  But who wants to spend a lifetime of regret because they delayed their decision to purposely work towards destiny?  Not only are you robbing yourself, but the others around you who can be blessed by you and your actions.

Move ahead in faith, and prayer.  Asking God to guide your steps throughout each day of this next year.  I challenge you to face the faith factor one step at a time.

"Faith is taking the first step… even when you don't see the whole staircase"  -Martin Luther King, Jr.

I declare this to be a year of decision, and destiny.  A year of change, and pursuing the things of God with a vengeance.

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  - Philippians 3:14

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Brenda A. Graff
Founder
FOOD FOR SOUL MAGAZINE

WWW.FOODFORSOULMAGAZINE.COM

http://www.onlinecollege.org/2010/02/16/50-famously-successful-people-who-failed-at-first/http://www.businessinsider.com/15-people-who-failed-before-becoming-famous-2012-10?op=1#ixzz3NOXFmyjE