How Will You Think?

Why do we think the way we think? We think the way we think because of what we have experienced in life up to this point in time. So, as we begin this new year, we all have the opportunity to think new things because we are all about to experience the unknown of tomorrow. A few weeks ago, I suggested that there is one thing you can depend upon during the year to come, and that is the unexpected. You have a life waiting for you over which you have no control except for the way you will respond to it. Your thinking will be changed forever because of the reality of the unexpected.

What will you do, on purpose, to influence new thought for yourself? I mean knowing that you will have things happen, over which you will have no control, what will you do, on purpose, to influence yourself? I want to encourage you to begin this new year with a determination to change your own thinking. It is going to happen to you anyway. Why not approach it with specific intention?

Begin by meeting new people...on purpose. Make the decision to spend time with people you admire. Contact them and ask for the opportunity to interview them. Ask them questions that make a difference. What motivates them? How do they handle disappointment or failure? How do they deal with conflict? Who has influenced them the most? How have they gone about maintaining some kind of balance in their lives? If they had anything they could change, professionally speaking, what would they do? Keep the time short but make it meaningful.

Read something you have never read before. Read a different genre of book or material to wrap your mind around. Think about reading Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Read Oh the Places You'll Go by Dr Seuss or Harold and the Purpose Crayon by Crockett. Read The Traveller's Gift by Andy Andrews and think through unique eyes of history. Pick a classic. Choose some poetry. Read Scripture again for the first time. If you want a suggestion as to where you might begin then read Stephen Covey's, The 8th Habit. If you get into it then read, or reread, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey. I would personally encourage you to begin with The Arbinger Institute's, Leadership and Self-Deception. Just read something.

Ask new questions. Change old habits and choose some new ones. Spend time looking through the eyes of children. Get up earlier and watch the sun rise. Choose to specifically pay attention to more sunsets. Take dance lessons. Learn a new language or at least study a new culture. Watch the Discovery channel. Spend some time alone just for thinking purposes. Maybe use the time for listening to God.

I just want to encourage you to begin this year with new intention. Intend to think, on purpose. To a measured degree, what you think will determine how 2014 will go. Do well my friends living a purposed new year!

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