Well, I want to, first of all, say welcome to autumn. This is truly one of my favorite times of the year. I am fresh off of vacation and recharged and ready to tackle this fourth quarter. It was good to get away and gain some clarity, make some changes and most of all create the blueprint that will set me up for a stellar finish to 2021. As you know, the season has changed and everyone is excited about the fall weather and the holidays that are fastly approaching. However, what we fail to understand is that life is full of seasons as well. I have discovered that how we handle these seasons of life determines if we fullfill our destinies or forfeit our potential. I hope that this piece will challenge you to do some introspection, take inventory of your life and ignite a flame in you to go after the life that you have been destined for. It's time to embrace the next season of your life!
Accept that seasons have to change. While we understand naturally that seasons have to change, we fail to understand that the seasons of our lives also have to change. I know for me personally, I have had some really good seasons in my life that I really enjoyed. At the same time, I had other seasons that I was so ready to be over. What I have discovered is that seasons have to change and things will not always stay the same in your life. In fact, the faster you can come to terms with this the better off your life will be. One of the greatest adversaries to shifting and advancing your life is the failure to accept a season for what it is. No matter how good a season is you cannot hold on to it forever. At the same time, no matter how bad a season is you cannot rush your way through it. Accept every season in your life for what it is. In order to do that, you will have to adjust your attitude about the season. You must be mature enough to accept the good and the bad, the highs and the lows and the victories and the defeats. Acceptance is realizing that no season will last forever but every season of life is teaching you something. Acceptance is being humble enough to capture the lessons of every season and allowing them to serve as the catalyst for success and prosperity in your life.
You must be willing to invest in a season. We live in a culture that has an opinion about everything but does not understand the value of anything. As a highly respected thought leader, I get asked a ton of questions all the time by people all over the world. One of the most fascinating things I have discovered is that too many people are looking for hacks and shortcuts to success. When I start to tell them about my journey, I watch as their faces become filled with disgust and their bodies demonstrate their disinterest. Failure is the product of expecting something for nothing. Basically, people want to do in three minutes what it has taken me over three decades to produce. Disinterest and distractions are ultimately a divestment from your future. Any process that you do not respect will ultimately abort the seed of your potential. Furthermore, any season you are unwilling to invest in will only produce regret and disappointment. It is important to know the season of life that you are in and to make the necessary investments. Every season in my life has not been beautiful. However, I have learned to see the blessing in every season. I have leveraged the value of seasons and allowed those lessons to lead me into victory. The investments you make today will determine the rewards you enjoy tomorrow. Never despise a season in your life but discover its significance.
You must discern the value of seasons in your life. While I believe that there are many laws that govern success, the law of discernment is one of the most important. In fact, the law of discernment is a law that radically changed my life. At the time, I was feeling stuck and frustrated in my life. Then it dawned on me that I was not learning anything from that season of my life. All I was doing was complaining about how I wanted things to change. However, I was not doing anything that would cause change to happen in my life. Then I realized that discernment is the womb of discovery. In addition, I also learned that discernment is what unlocks new dimensions in your life. The reason that most people never fulfill their purpose or maximize their potential is that they have not discerned the significance of seasons in their lives. They have complained and even had pity parties. On the other hand, very few people have been willing to become students of seasons. Very few people have been willing to extract the lessons, find the value and gain the tools that will usher them into the next season of life. Anything that you cannot discern you will always be denied. Discern the significance of seasons in your life and let them serve as a doorway to success and prosperity.
You must maximize the seasons of your life. At the start of this piece, I said something that I am not sure that many people will really grasp. Seasons in your life have to change and things will not stay the same. In fact, I often say that some seasons never come back around in your life. That is why it is so important that you maximize the seasons of your life. Understand that you do not have all the time in the world. All you really have is this present moment. So make every moment count and engineer something meaningful. Do not pour your life into empty places. Instead, pour your life into significant places. Pour your life into places of value and purpose. You may never get this moment again in your life. You may never again have the time to do all the things that you want to do. Maximizing seasons is exhausting every moment out of every day. It is living with the clarity that nothing lasts forever. Maximizing seasons is living with focus and intention. You cannot turn back the hands of time. You cannot hit the do-over button on your life. So it behooves you to maximize the seasons of your life. Maximizing seasons requires growth, development, maturity, and mastery. In order to maximize seasons, you must replace inaction with intention, passivity with purpose, and distractions with disciplines. Maximizing seasons is a paradigm shift that leads to a change in attitude, associations, and actions.