Faith without Works

"Faith without works is dead" is a phrase I heard a few times and it's been a great reminder to me to remember 2 important concepts in life and in business.

1) No matter what is happening in my life I must keep faith even if it's only the tiniest glimmer of hope that I carry with me, I must not ever give up.

I have had many times in my life where I thought the world was closing in on me, money just wasn't flying in the door or showing up in my life or my relationships weren't working out. I have always held the belief that it is a lack of faith that actually perpetuates negativity in my life and that it's the undying faith in myself and in the "powers of the universe" that have carried me through.

2) Having faith is usually not enough. Action or "works" is required each and every day, even if it's just a little bit each day, take some kind of action towards a goal or several small actions towards several goals or just one or two. The point is that "Rome wan't built in a day" and the same goes for our lives. Happiness, success, achievement, relationships, whatever topic you want to pick, you can apply the rules to. These things do not just happen magically without some actions.

If I want to learn Italian for example and I just sit around thinking about it "envisioning" it, maybe some magical thing will happen, like I will get invited to live in Italy and be forced to learn. This is the "power of attraction" concept, which I do believe plays a huge role in our lives. However, in the meantime, while waiting for the laws of the universe to manifest our dreams coming to fruition, why not take some actions. If I want to learn to speak Italian, then I just need to pick up a book at the bookstore or some fancy program and just give it twenty minutes of my time each day.

If taking on a new habit like studying a new language for twenty minutes a day seems like a difficult habit to develop, think about how ridiculous that is if you compare it to the amount of time that is spent daily in other activities which are done habitually. For example, think about any and all of the daily habits you have developed.

I take a shower each morning, get dressed, brush my teeth, fix my hair and make-up. This isn't really something I have to think about too much because it's a habit I developed years ago. It would be ridiculous to think about not doing that each morning because it is a necessity for me now, only because I believe that it is important and because I developed the habit.

If you think about all the actions you could take to accomplish a certain goal it might be that it will take a year of working on something for twenty minutes each day, or that more time is needed than twenty minutes a day. The point is, though that if you just dream about it and have faith, it's probably not going to happen as quickly as it will if you do a tiny bit each day towards it.
Think about what you were doing last year at this time, think about where you were then, where you are now and how much time you might have wasted on lethargy, depression or inaction. Maybe that doesn't apply to you. If so, you probably already get what I am saying and have already mastered the concepts that I am writing about. Great!
So, Faith without works is dead, but I say also that "works without faith is also pointless" because the bottom line is that we must believe in ourselves and our abilities and believe that what we are trying to achieve is actually possible. That is why it's so important to do some little thing each day.
Research can be the best place to start. As you do your research though it's important to pay attention to the "ya-butts" that show up in your life.
A "ya-butt" is the thing that pops up every time you start to believe that something is possible.

"Ya, but I don't really have time to study for twenty minutes a day". Or it might be that the more you learn about a thing the more you lose your excitement about the thing. So make sure that when you are researching some project that you have your specific goal in mind and don't get sidetracked into finding a hundred reasons why you can't do the thing.

Accomplishing goals for some people is extremely easy because they learned at an early age how to achieve. Maybe they had a lot of building blocks that led up to a habitual way of achieving goals. This was never the case for me and I have to continuously remind myself to have faith in myself and believe that anything is possible, to take small actions towards my goals each day and to be somewhat patient with myself without too much procrastination and to ignore all the "ya-butts"