There are 5 basic principles for personal transformation. Each principle is important and must be pursued intentionally.
- There must be a heart-felt desire for change. You must be ‘fed up’ with the status quo. Otherwise, the desire will be a mere wish, what the French call ‘the dream of a man asleep’. A heart felt desire will generate the dream of a man awake!
The trigger for this kind of dream is knowledge. The knowledge of the will of God for you to live at peace within and without; ‘in dominion’, not over your fellow man but certainly over all the earth.
You must choose this truth, in the heart, and it will create a wrestling within until it is satiated. That is faith.
And that is the ‘victory that overcomes the world, our faith’. Gospel
Otherwise, ignorance remains anything but bliss, sadly.
God says, “My people perish for lack of knowledge.” Torah
- You must write this desire down in words that describe what you will be like when you get there. It’s called a vision statement. There is power is ‘seeing’. For what you see stirs desire.
“Then the LORD answered me and said: “Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.” Torah
- The vision must be planted where it can flourish; the human heart. This mental desire must become a heart desire, for the heart is a spiritual soil. The vision must be communicated to the heart.
YOU DO THIS BY WORDS/TALKING!!
“My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” Psalm/ Zabur of David
- You must have a plan. This plan must be decent and orderly but in particular, involve baby steps at the beginning. Start small!
It takes discipline to stay with any transformation agenda. Motivation may start you going but only discipline will keep you going.
Taking baby steps will reinforce your discipline, especially as you win the baby battles and build confidence.
These baby steps or landmarks are called goals. Work little goals into you plan. For instance, if an hour a day ‘thinking time’ is your objective, start with a 5-minute daily plan. You may increase that to 10, then 15 and on and on, until you are doing an hour effortlessly.
Each baby goal achieved will spur your dare for the next bigger goal. And it gets easier and easier after each cycle. It’s a law called momentum.
But you must count the cost before you start and be sure you are ready for it. This is not just about the external resources but the internal resources as well; the commitment of your will and time for the task.
How important is the desire to you?
“Which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost to see if he has the resources to complete it?” Jesus Christ
- Do it. ‘An ounce of action is better than a ton of talking.’ Do whatever you have set out to do. And keep doing it until you achieve your desire.
“If you know these things, blessed/happy are you if you do them.”
The first 3 steps are a matter of the heart. What you know, see and hear will inform what you believe in the heart.
And what you believe in the heart is what you become.
“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.”
The next steps engage the mind. The heart and mind must work hand-in-glove. While transformation begins in the heart, it must be nurtured in the head.
As they say, where there is the will, there is a way. The head always finds the way.
There is a little understood principle of nature called the Paretto principle. It is a strange ‘disorder’ in nature, whereby a little cause among many causes generates a disproportionate effect.
Apparently, all causes do not generate equal effects. The ‘fingers are not equal’.
The spirit of man may be ‘hidden’ but it generates more output by far than the flesh ever can. It is the place to start.
“Guard your heart will all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” Torah
There are 7 Streams of Intelligence, or ‘the issues of life’, that we must engage for holistic transformation.
We use the word intelligence because it reflects the internal capacity, the passion if you will, of the human heart/spirit to generate these ‘issues of life’.