Power in the Little Things

Some of you are still reeling from the one thing that happened to you 15 years ago. Negative. The one thing someone said to you 20 years ago. The one thing that happened at work last year on your job. It's the one thing that went wrong that threw your finances out of whack. It's just one thing. And often they can be big things, but more often they're small things. And because they're small, we don't think they matter. All right. Hey, y'all. So if you have ever read my book, She's Still There, It is 7 years old. I think there's a story in here, or maybe it's in Kingdom Woman. I don't know, I lose track. But there's a story somewhere about me running track and my dad yelling for me in the stands. And I was running the 800. Why my coach wanted me running the 800, I don't know. Put me in the 200 on a relay, maybe the 400, but the 800 was stupid. And there was a point I'll never forget where my legs— I just thought, I think I'm gonna stop running right now. And I'm just going to walk the rest of the race. Like, I don't have it in me to keep going. My legs were like, we're dead to you, we're dead to you. I remember thinking in that race, I'm going to quit, I'm going to embarrass my coach, I'm going to embarrass my father, but I'm done. I started strong, but I couldn't finish strong. So one of the goals that I've had my whole life, and I am very aware of this, is that I can be a strong starter and and not a strong finisher. And maybe you feel the same way, that you can start a race, but you may not finish it strong. Now you may finish it, but not strong. You peter out at the end. You don't take it all the way to the finish line. And maybe you feel like me and sometimes feel like, am I not a finisher? Do I just not have it in me to be a finisher? But here was the problem when I ran that 800. The reason why that 800 was a problem is because I started off too fast and I didn't start out in a way that was sustainable. Yes to training. Yes to practicing. Yes to building up my lung endurance, my capacity, all of those things. But even if you train and even if you practice, if you start out at a pace that's not sustainable, you won't be able to finish well. Fast forward a million years and me running a marathon. And when I was training for the marathon, I would hate the drills, y'all. I didn't like the drills. Just put some headphones in my ears. Let me listen to my playlist and let me run. But they would, when I trained with a place in Dallas that was doing a training program, they would say, "Today's a hill day. You gotta run some hills." Okay, "Today's a technique day. Today's a pacing day." Today is all these different things because they were interested in me being able to finish. And when you run the race, there's all different kinds of terrain. And you wanna be ready when you have to go uphill. You wanna know what to do when you come downhill. You wanna know how to start at a pace that's sustainable. You wanna know your pace, all of these different things. So that you can finish a race that's going to take you 4 to 7 hours, depending on your speed, to finish. All of those things that led up to me finishing the marathon, finishing my 800, were all small things. I didn't enjoy practice. I didn't enjoy the drills. I didn't enjoy the coach's input and feedback. I didn't want to hear about changing my gait. I didn't want her to tell me about how to move my arms. I didn't want my marathon person getting in my weeds about, you know, me keeping my pace, or I, I just wanted to get out there and do what I wanted to do. But the small things, when I chose, made the decision to listen to the input, the feedback, the coaching, those small things made all the difference in the world. I, like many of you, have taken a course or two. I have paid for a coaching group, or I've paid for a course, or I've read a book or I've taken a class and I've gotten more information and thought after I took the class or after I paid for the course or after I enrolled in the coaching, I knew that, I knew that, I knew that. And then there was this one thing that flipped the light on for me. Sometimes you've read a whole book and to this day you can remember one quote from that book that flipped the light on for you. Many of the things, y'all, that change the trajectory of our lives They pivot and hinge on one thing. Some of you are still reeling from the one thing that happened to you 15 years ago, negative. The one thing someone said to you 20 years ago, the one thing that happened at work last year on your job. It's the one thing that went wrong that threw your finances outta whack. It's just one thing. And often they can be big things, but more often they're small things. And because they're small, we don't think they matter. This is why many of us be in therapy, because we got to go back and figure out what were those small things that we didn't even know were making us leak from the inside out, because there were a million pinpricks. Just like you can— a balloon can deflate with one little pin putting a hole in it, so can your life. But in the same way, a small thing can be just as important to moving you forward. One of the reasons why we want to focus on the Summer of Sisters this summer, y'all, is because I understand that it's small things. It's the decision for you to call a friend and pray in the morning. It's a decision for you to go walking with friends once a week. It's a decision for you to memorize one verse a month. It's a decision for you to listen to one podcast or what— watch one YouTube video to move things forward. If you're reading, it's one chapter a week for you to be called a reader. It's one small thing that if you do it consistently, it can change your life. You are invited to join me at the Sister Circle Retreat 2024. It'll be held October the 9th through the 13th in upstate New York, and I would love for you to come by yourself, with a friend, or with a group of girls. It doesn't matter, but I want us to get together to talk about what it means to live a life you love, and how you build that life brick by brick. If you want to know more information, simply go to thesisterscircle.com/retreat. I'd love to see you there. Many of us started out at the beginning of the year with New Year's resolutions. We got— some of y'all got your new planner, you wrote in it for a week, and then you were done because you didn't keep doing small things. You started out like I started in that race running too fast, doing too much, and not doing the small things that other people have coached you about over the years to start and finish well. Living your life well is about small things. And we forget that. We forget that it's the training and the coaching about the small things, that it's the small decisions to do the next right thing as we know what the next right thing is to do. It's doing well in this class, not even this semester, not even in this degree, but this class. It is showing up for this week's sermon. It is cracking open the Proverbs on this day. It is doing those small things consistently. So the reason why I want you to walk every day for 21 days starting June 10th is because I know that for many of you, this is going to be the small thing that catapults you into a habit that you maintain for the rest of the year. I know that when you get a water bottle, that's a small thing, but maybe getting the new water bottle helps you to drink more water. Well, every day. Small things. I know that if you can just later on in August when we're doing our challenge to put a little sugar on it, to keep the negativity to yourself, to be grateful and prayerful about the people that you want to slice— small things. Because what if not saying something negative, what if saying something positive, and what if praying for your enemy is actually the thing that changes the direction for the relationship and it changes you? Small things, they matter. God is the God of small things, y'all. Zechariah 4:10 says, do not despise small beginnings. Small things. It's our church anniversary week, and my dad was saying yesterday he and my mom started the church with 10 people in their home. It was a Bible study, and my mom just wanted to make sure there was punch and snacks to drink. Small things. Small. And for my dad, 48 years of the church being founded and developed later, over 50 years of preaching. Small things— cracking open the Bible during the week to prepare for a sermon— 50 years later is a legacy. Many of you are overwhelmed because you want to make sure you're getting your life right. You want to make sure you're moving things forward. You want to make sure that you have a great family, or you have a great body, that your health is good, that you have great friends, that you have a great career. You want to make sure that you take the trip and you save the money and that you have retirement and that your kids, uh, get in the— to the right school. You want to make sure of all of these different things, and you're overwhelmed by the big things, and you forget that it's just the small things done well and consistently over time. Tipping point. There's a book by Malcolm Gladwell, it's called How Small Things Can Make a Difference, and he describes at one point how the New York City Police decided to decrease the negative eye candy across the city, the graffiti. And when at night they started painting— at night they started painting the graffiti in subways, they were painting over it at night— that one small thing led to a decrease in crime. What does a decrease in crime have to do with painting over the graffiti? Because the decision to say we're going to make this one thing better established a presence It established a presence that communicated something to other people who were in the same space. Sometimes your one small thing establishes your presence. Sometimes you are establishing your presence for yourself. I am showing up for me. Sometimes you're establishing your presence with your family. Um, I put a video on YouTube last night. If you haven't watched it, you totally should. It's a short watch, but it's a good one. And when I turn on classical music in my home, or when I make tea for a son, or when I have rice cooking on the stove, when there is the sights and sounds of smells happening in my home, it establishes a presence. And what that establishes is a memory. It establishes a tenor and an environment in my house. But all I'm doing is making tea. When you sit up and decide what's that one small thing you're gonna do, something else will change. It's the domino effect. Many of you are so worried about are the dominoes gonna fall right that you won't press the first one. One small thing, one decision can lead to a litany, to a legacy of a domino effect. It's called the small thing rule. Some people call it the 1% change. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about the power of just changing 1% every day. Here's a quote. If you get 1% better each day for 1 year, you'll end up 37 times better by the time you're done. This is why small choices don't make much of a difference at the time, but they add up over the long term. He gives us 3 things to do. Do more of what already works. Stop working hard to do what's working for everybody else. Do one thing that you already know works. So here's what works for me. What I'm trying to do right, there are, there are small things at work. One thing is just move. I don't have to break a sweat. I don't have to do something for an hour and a half. I don't have to teach a spin class. Just move. That one thing starts the domino of drinking more water. It starts the domino of eating better because one thing in my brain starts something else. Let me tell you what else changes something. When I turn on music in my home, when I turn on music in my home, everybody's attitude gets better. I don't know how to explain it. It's the power of the Holy Spirit running through the airwaves. But I just know if everybody's cranky, turn on worship. One small thing. If I want to, and if you want to, write a book— I feel like I'm about to crucify myself— if you want to write a book, you show up every day and write for 30 minutes, and eventually the book will get written. Do more of what already works. Look back in your life and figure out What do I already know starts my engines? What do I already know motivates me? What do I already know helps me? If you're like, I keep saying I'm gonna do this self-paced thing and you're not finishing it, and you know that you work or learn or grow better in groups, get some other people to go through it with you. What already works for you? What already works? Do more of that. Avoid tiny losses. That's the second thing. Improvement is not about doing more things right, but about doing fewer things wrong. There's a book called Strength Finders. It is about knowing what your strengths are. If you buy the book, you'll learn by taking a test what your top 5 are. And one of the premises of the book are, is focus on your strengths. Many of us focus so much on our weaknesses. So you're focused so much on what you're not doing, you don't have any, any energy left to focus on what you are doing. What do you do well? What do other people celebrate about you? Focus on building your strength. You go to the gym, you don't need to stress, stress if you can't lift a 35 or 45-pound weight. You start with a 2-pounder. Focus on what you do well. And if you will focus on what you do well and just avoid the things that don't help you, don't move you forward, that you know are going to take you down— if you focus on what works, that will grow. The reason why Eve took the fruit that she wasn't supposed to take is because Satan convinced her to focus on the one thing that was a loss. We were listening to Myron Golden last night. He's speaking at VBS at our church, church anniversary. Right after that, we have Family Vacation Bible School. And he said what the enemy got Eve to focus on in the garden was lack. God had given them everything else. Enjoy everything else. But they focused on the one thing they couldn't have. If you focus on your losses, if you focus on the things you can't have, that will be the tenor of your existence. So avoid the tiny losses, set yourself up for success, lean into your strengths, buffer for your weakness, but don't dwell on it so that you can keep moving forward. And then measure backwards. Measuring backwards, he says, means you make decisions based on what has already happened and not on what you want to happen. So in order to be successful, he says, you jogged a mile yesterday, go for 2 today. You ate 2,000 calories last week every day, go for 1,800. Look at what's happening and develop your new 1% from that. So basically what he's saying there is start where you are, start where you are and get a little bit better. Incremental changes, incremental changes over time make a big difference. How did Forrest Gump run across the whole of the United States? How did that happen? I'll tell you how it happened. He said, I just started running and then I didn't stop, just kept running. I mean, really, Forrest Gump, his whole life was like, I'm just doing the next small thing, and it kept adding up to big things. He started running and he just kept running and traversed the whole country. Some of you are spending more time planning how to traverse the country instead of just starting one step at a time. Why does this matter? Because everything then in your life is conquerable. You can read the whole Bible if you'll read one chapter at a time. You can build up another person. Your children can be amazingly self-confident because you gave them one compliment every day. You can change the course of your health. You will take one vitamin D pill every morning There are some things in your life that just don't work well without magnesium and vitamin D. Go get your levels checked. Inner Circle, look at your Inner Circle newsletter. I told you how to do that. There are so many things that if you would stop being overwhelmed at all the things it takes to get that thing done and just do the next small thing, it would make a difference, a huge difference. Many of you started out at the beginning of the year and you had dreams for 2024, and you're like, oh my gosh, is it June? I'm so behind. You're not behind. Today's a good day to have a new starting line. Today's your new starting line. The reason why we talk about top 3s and we talk about intentionality and we talk about goal setting is because you have to look at it if you want it to grow. You have to pay attention to it if you want it to move forward. You have to have a thought. You have to give it the benefit of your thought. God had a thought, and then he said it out loud, and it became a thing. You have that same power because you're created in his image. Small changes over time add up to cumulative larger ones. If you want to finish your degree and you don't know how you're going to finish it, don't worry about that. Take one class at a time. Some of y'all need to take the class you You've been talking about taking the class forever. Take the class. What are you waiting on? There are summer sessions in progress right now. Right now is a good time for you to get your fall registration going. What are you waiting on? You trying to declutter that back room? Me, one box every day, one box a week. If you would just commit to one small thing you could move mountains in your life. You're like, I need to learn how to cook. Okay, watch one. There's no reason in the world why you shouldn't be able to cook. There are a million cookbooks, but that was before there was YouTube. Now you're on Instagram. Just get some— find somebody whose food looks good and try it, literally. Then go buy their cookbook and just keep making stuff, and you will learn how to be a cook. You want to learn how to make different salads so that you can eat healthy and light this summer? Just Google and try a different salad every week, and then before you know it, you'll have this repertoire of salads that allow you to eat lighter, that changes the trajectory of your health. It's not that deep, y'all. One small thing. That's what I need you to do. 1%. Practice for 30 minutes every day. Some of y'all want to learn to play the piano? Practice for 30 minutes every day. If you want to be able to play by ear or play that Bach two-part invention, the reality is, is most of us get where we're going by doing small things. The problem is there's a lot of unintentional small things that we do every day, and they suck up the time for the intentional things that will actually change the trajectory of our lives. Where do you want to be? One of the reasons why there's a whole planner, y'all, and the reason why I throw this up on a first Monday, we talk about our goals, we talk about what the question is, is because most people aren't thinking. They're not thinking. They're doing whatever the day tells them to do. They're doing whatever social media tells them to do. You're wasting your time on TV. You're wasting your time on social media. You're letting that dopamine hit dictate to you where your eyes are going, and every minute of your day is a gold mine. You wanna know why? Because it is a limited resource. You are never gonna get those minutes back again. So if you're going to spend them, spend wisely. How much money have my kids wasted on candy? How much money have my kids wasted on video games? How much money have my boys wasted? And I'd like, you know, I want them to have a little fun with their money. But if you could add up the amount of money that you spent on things that are now in the trash, things that are now in a box, things that are now in somebody else's house because you gave them away. Enjoy your life, enjoy your money, but how much money have you wasted? So one of the things I've learned as a business owner is that I need to pay my kids, and then I'm going to dictate to my kids, because then I get a tax deduction for paying them, and up to a certain amount of money they don't have to report it. Praise the Lord. I'm gonna start making them pay their college tuition out of the money that I'm giving them for all the things that I make them do. And you want to know what? I'm making them start their IRAs. You want to know what? Because a small amount started when you're 15, and if you keep that going, will make you a millionaire really, really early. Do I have to have a million dollars? No. But can I give them a little bit of money and can they make small investments that make them millionaires when they're not too old? Yes. Start early and let the small things go over time. Some of y'all, the only reason why you're not a millionaire, the only reason why you don't have $500,000 in your savings, the only reason why you don't have $100,000 sitting in your savings account is because you've wasted your money on food, on fast food, on clothes, on shoes, on purses. And if you look back, that purse ain't even in style anymore. You gave it away. Some of us are giving our lives away one small wrong decision at a time. Here's the good news. You can change the story simply by switching gears. Instead of one small thing that reduces we need one small thing that increases. Instead of one small spin that's wasteful, you need one small spin that's productive. Instead of one small word that tears down, you need one small word that builds up. Instead of one small hour that's wasted, you need one small hour that's gained. Instead of one small hour that you're yapping, you spend one small hour reading. Instead of one small 30 minutes sitting on the couch, you need 30 minutes sitting in front of computer writing your words. It's an exchange. It's simply an exchange. And if you will decide today that you have the power— and this is me telling you that you have the power to decide in the month of June What are the 3 things that you're gonna do? If you need a planner to put it in, I have one, but you can put it on a sticky or write it with a lipstick on your mirror. The 3 things that you're going to do in June, and what's one small thing that you're gonna do every day to make that possible? You change the trajectory of your story right now. Some of you are sitting at a pivot point in your lives. You are facing a fork in the road, and if you continue— we're all doing that every day. So if you've been waiting to do the next right thing, this is me telling you, what are you waiting on? What are you waiting on? If you will do your part, God designed the world— the world, y'all— he designed the world to work on your behalf. It's, it's designed to work that way. So the key is to get started and then to keep going. That's the key. That's the key. So my question for you today is, what— remember that question I asked you at the beginning about— it's in the planner— what small thing have you not been doing? It would be simple. You should have done it last week. What small thing can you do today to start your engines? What small thing can you keep doing each day, or with consistency each week, to keep your engines going? If you haven't already established the 3 things that you want to achieve this month, do it. If you haven't already established the things you want to do this week, do it. If you haven't already established the things that if you do these 3 things this year will change the tenor of your life You meant to do it in January, or maybe you didn't, you forgot. So do it or do it again. Because as I always say, if you're still here and you're still breathing, you get to choose. You get to choose.