Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 47 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life (Part 4)

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast and journal. By consuming these daily wisdom nuggets, you will digest the principles that will help you in your quest to become healthy, wealthy and wise as we trek through life together.  This is Day 47 of our Trek, and we will continue for the next few days on our Trek to look at how changing our thinking can dramatically change our lives.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. After another very full workload today, it is good to be able to reflect on some words of wisdom to help refocus our priorities. One of the purposes for Wisdom-Trek is to provide mentoring to others. In order to gain wisdom, we need to be receptive to receive it and ready to apply it to our lives. It is through proper thinking that we are able to become wise and successful. As we change our thinking, our choices in life will change, which will also change our lives.

So far we have visited waypoints 1-5, so we are making good progress on our Trek. Today as we search for waypoints 6 & 7 on our expedition, let us see what advice we can gain so that we can continue to change our thinking. If you missed any of the past five days of podcasts, please go back and listen to them, or read our daily journal entries.  Doing so will enable you to be equipped with all of the information that you need to change your life.

As we ended our podcast yesterday, I asked you to consider two more questions:

4. Am I building a solid foundation on facts so that I can think with certainty?
5. Am I implementing strategic plans that give me direction for today and increase my potential for tomorrow?

I hope that you will take the time each day to reflect on these questions. This is crucial in gaining wisdom, as Proverbs 2:2-5 says,

“Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding.
Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding.
Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures.
Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God.”

As we continue on our trail of life this beautiful day, enjoy the sunshine, the soft mountain breeze, and the fragrances of summer after a brief shower.  As we visualize this, we soon come upon our 6^th waypoint and find our first instructions.

6. Explore Possibility Thinking

To be a possibility thinker you must believe that solutions exist to even the most difficult problems. When you believe something challenging can be done and then succeed at doing it, doors open and others are attracted to you. When you make things happen, it inspires others to create possibilities.  When you approach difficult tasks, you have the potential to attain exceptional results.  When you embrace possibility thinking, you believe in what you are doing and are energized by it. There are six different ways to stimulate possibility thinking:

• Do not focus on what is impossible. Instead focus on solutions to your problems or challenges in any situation.
• Stay away from experts. This may seem counter-intuitive to having a mentor, but an expert may see all that could go wrong and may discourage your dreams. It is good to take wise advice, but be leery of those individuals who are self-proclaimed experts.
• Look for possibilities in every situation. Opposite of the first point, regardless of the circumstances, try to look for positive possibilities.
• Dream bigger. To encourage possibility thinking, try to stretch yourself outside of your comfort zone. Bigger dreams that are realistic will force you to grow.
• Question the status quo. It is impossible to stay the same and also improve. Greater possibilities mean that you do not settle for the status quo.
• Find inspiration from great achievers. One way for you to learn more about possibility thinking is to study great achievers. Anyone who has already achieved a level of wisdom and success also has a story of failure or tragedy.

If you embrace possibility thinking, your dreams will go from molehill to mountain size, and because you believe in possibilities, you put yourself in position to achieve them.

Focus Question: “Am I unleashing the enthusiasm of possibility thinking to find solutions for even seemingly impossible problems?”

Now that we have explored possibility thinking, let us continue on to our next waypoint in thinking.

7. Learn from Reflective Thinking

Today’s fast-paced society does not encourage us to practice reflective thinking, but this practice can help you learn from past experiences and identify what should stay the same and what should change. There are many benefits associated with reflective thinking. It provides you with true perspective, lends emotional integrity to your thinking, clarifies your situations, and increases your confidence in decision making. One of the most important aspects of reflective thinking is your ability to transform your experience into insight.

There are five ways to improve your ability to think in a reflective manner:

• Set aside time for reflection. If you do not dedicate time for reflective thinking, it is unlikely that you will.
• Avoid distractions. Reflection requires that you find a place that provides solitude and an escape from your interruptions.
• Regularly review your calendar or journal. Although calendars are a useful planning tool, they are also good to use during reflective thinking to show how your activities align with priorities.
• Ask the right questions. Much of the value that is derived from reflective thinking comes when you ask prudent questions.
• Cement learning through action. You must be intentional about putting your thoughts into action. Once you learn something new, take action on what you have learned so that it will benefit you and help in the process of changing your life.

Focus Question: “Am I regularly revisiting the past to gain a true perspective and think with understanding?”

 Time for reflective thinking can be a real game changer for your life.  Yet few of us take the time to truly reflect. One area that we should reflect on more often is the goodness of our creator.  There are three verses in the 119^th chapter in the book of Psalms that encourage us to do so.

Psalm 119:5, “Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees!”

Psalm 119:15, “I will study your commandments and reflect on your ways.”

Psalms 119:55, “I reflect at night on who you are, O Lord; therefore, I obey your instructions.”

We need to explore the possibilities in life and dream big, but we also need to reflect on what is most important in our lives.  As this type of thinking becomes  a habit in our lives, it will allow us to grow wise and successful.

For me, being grounded in God’s Word is foundational.  I should always put into practice what I am learning each day.  As Christ’s half-brother James put it in chapter 1 verse 22, “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.”

It might also be said that 

As your guide, friend, mentor, and fellow sojourner, let me know how I can help you make these statements on thinking into habits in your life.

Well, that will finish our podcast and journal for today. If you missed any of our previous podcasts, please check out Wisdom-Trek on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Wisdom-Trek.com. Tomorrow as we continue our Trek, we will investigate more waypoints to learn how changing our thinking can literally change our lives.

So, please join us at our “camp” tomorrow for another day on our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

If you enjoy our daily doses of wisdom, I encourage you to help us in the following five ways:

1. Leave your name and email address on our website in the bottom right-hand corner  in the side-barof any page, which will allow us to update you with special information about Wisdom-Trek.
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5. Encourage your family and friends to journey with us on our Wisdom-Trek.

Thank you!

The journal from this podcast can be found at Wisdom-Trek.com, where we also have pictures, tweetable quotes, wisdom nuggets, and free resources.

As we take this Trek together let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy the Journey, and Create a Great Day! See you tomorrow!