In an episode of the 90's sit com, Martin, he has to have the plumbing in his bathroom fixed. The plumber arrives and assess the situation. When Martin asks how much it will cost the plumber said, "It may cost you a little, it may cost you a lot, but it will cost you." Anytime we are getting work done in our homes we know that it will cost so should we expect less when working to achieve our extraordinary?
When I speak about "cost" I am not referring to merely the money that will need to be invested to become extraordinary, though this will be a factor. What I am referring to are the many sacrifices that are necessary to fulfill the calling of the Lord - our extraordinary. Nothing great is achieved without sacrifice but we must be wise in how we discern what is to be sacrificed. As I stated in the previous post, while achieving my extraordinary happens when I am consistent in the ordinary, the the ordinary must be activity that, when mastered, leads to the extraordinary. The same, yet opposite, is true when referring to the sacrifices required to achieve the extraordinary. I learned this lesson in a deeper way in 2023.
For years I had been overweight and attempted many times to lose weight. With many starts and fits, nothing remarkable ever occurred. It was not due to lack of effort or desire to be different healthier as I had added all of the right disciplines to my life and yet, I was still the same. In January of 2023 I joined a fitness program called Eager 2 Motivate (E2M). It was a game changer for me. What I learned and gained from this program was remarkable and, at the same time, it was not too different from what I had tried before. What was different, however, is that I began to learn that losing weight is not simply about adding disciplines of health to my life as much as it was about making the right sacrifices. It is amazing how eating hot fries, hot Cheetos puffs, and even my beloved Chick Fil-A had an adverse affect - a blocking effect - on my weight loss.
Now, what you are probably thinking is what I thought before. I did not have to give those foods up I only needed to eat them in moderation, right? Well, yes and no. The act of eating was not the problem since we all have to eat. What I learned was that you cannot out-work or out-run a bad diet. In order to achieve my extraordinary (reaching my goal weight) I had to make specific sacrifices that work against my weight loss. This meant, not only the foods I ate, but I learned that I needed to sacrifice some activities as well! For instance, eating within a specific window, and prepping my meals were habits that I would have never thought worked towards weight loss. Each of these sacrifices, and there are more, were necessary to achieve my extraordinary. By the grace of God I did!
We can achieve whatever our extraordinary is if we are willing to evaluate our lives and situations to make the sacrifices that are required. A useful exercise to begin with is to evaluate your life and where it is that you wanted to be (thought you would be) at this point in your life. Then ask the question:
What disciplines, habits, attitudes, people and or decisions have hindered your
progress towards that extraordinary?
When you list them, kill them! I do not mean that literally, especially as it relates to people and yourself! What I mean is to replace those disciplines, habits, attitudes, people and or decisions with that which will inspire, encourage and push you on to the greatness the Lord has called you to. Then ask yourself this second, but very important, question:
What was it about me that made me allow those things to have that kind of power
over my life?
This is where you will find the real essence of the problem.
Nothing external to me can hinder me. Road-blocks only hide the road ahead, but they do not obliterate it. The road ahead is still there even though you cannot see it and you can still get to it if you are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to do so. This is where most dreams and progress towards extraordinary are stalled and even die: at the intersection of challenges. I am not minimizing challenges as some can be lethally daunting. However, until there is zero breath in you, meaning you are dead, there are always a paths towards your extraordinary and, with faith in Christ, all things are possible and every mountain (challenge) can be moved. Extraordinary requires sacrifice. What that will cost any of us I cannot tell you. But I can tell you this:
"It may cost you a little, it may cost you a lot, but it will cost you."
Soli Deo Gloria