Do you ever feel like what you do just doesn't matter?
Check this article by
Stephen Palmer out!
"Four "Nothing" Habits That Can Change Everything"
The story is told of a sparrow and a dove perched on a branch in the winter.
“Tell me the weight of a snowflake,” the sparrow asked the dove.
“Nothing more than nothing,” the dove answered.
“In that case I must tell you a marvelous story,” the sparrow said.
“I sat on a fir branch close to the trunk when it began to snow. Not
heavily, not in a raging blizzard. No, just like in a dream, without any
violence at all.
“Since I didn’t have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes
settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly
3,471,952. When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch — nothing
more than nothing, as you say — the branch broke off.”
Having said that, the sparrow flew away.
The dove, since Noah’s time an authority on peace, thought about the
story for a while. Finally, she said to herself, “Perhaps there is only
one person’s voice lacking for peace to come to the world.”
Like snowflakes accumulating on that branch,
your life does not change, your greatness is not unleashed by monumental actions, but by small, daily habits.
Here are four specific habits whose value will accumulate in your
life like “nothing more than nothing” until, after years of steady
discipline, will break your limitations and emerge as greatness:
1. Read
Reading the best books immerses you in the thoughts of the best thinkers, saturates you with the courage of the greatest souls.
Whatever you put into your mind emerges as behavior. You can’t read
C.S. Lewis without grasping for heaven. You can’t read Viktor Frankl and
not exercise your power to choose more wisely. You can’t read Rabbi
Daniel Lapin without changing how you think about and spend money.
Every great book read is a snowflake falling on the ceiling of your
limitations. Read one per week for five years and watch that ceiling
crack.
2. Meditate
You are not your body; you have a body. You are not your mind; you
have a mind. You are the “I Am” that observes the thoughts in your mind.
Your mind is a fabulous servant but a horrible master. It tends
toward negative thinking and is plagued by fear, doubt, and worry. It
holds you captive to your emotions.
To access your greatness you must transcend the negative-thinking mind.
Meditation is the single most powerful tool for doing so.
Sit still in a quiet solitude and meditate for just ten minutes a day and watch the snowflakes fall…
3. Change Your Morning Routine
Leadership expert John Maxwell said,
“You will never change your life until you change
something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your
daily routine.”
The most important thing you can change in this regard is your morning routine.
Make it a habit to get up an hour or even a half hour earlier than
usual. Start your day with a prayer of thanksgiving. Meditate. Read.
Exercise.
Do that every day for three years and you’ll feel branches of limitations snapping in your life.
4. Follow Spiritual Promptings
Call them whatever you’d like. Hunches. Intuitions. Sparks of inspiration. Whispers of conscience.
You feel them. Do you follow them?
You once had the thought to write a book. Have you written it yet?
Something told you to stop when you saw that car on the side of the road
with its flashers on. Did you stop?
The more quickly, courageously, and zealously you follow those
promptings,
the more of them you receive. The more you receive and follow, the
faster your acceleration to greatness. Conversely, the less you follow
these, the less you receive, the more you stay stuck.
Like the weight of one snowflake, the impact of any action taken one
time is “nothing more than nothing.” But the impact of wise, daily
actions cultivated into habits and lived for years is enough to break
your limitations and change everything.
