Tag: choices

Fortitude, Personal Development

Groundhog Day Wake Up Call

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I’m willing to bet you don’t know Phil Connors of Groundhog Day like I do. For more than 20 years I watched this hilarious classic movie every Feb 2. My poor wife has endured it with me most years, God bless her! We’re watching it tonight…again. You should watch it too, or else you won’t get my jokes.

In the movie, Phil (Bill Murray) was stuck in a rut. His results in life were the same despite his efforts to change. Eventually, Phil figured out what he needed to do to get unstuck and escape the hilarious nightmare of repeating the same day over and over.

I believe the same can be said for us in our healthy living journey. We really WANT to change and we say we want results, but nothing seems to work and we don’t know why. Just like Phil through most of the movie, we try and fail at all the tricks and gimmicks we can think of to get the desired results. It seems impossible so we give up, take the cursed groundhog hostage and drive ourselves over a cliff in a stolen truck. OK, maybe we don’t go that far, but you get the point. Only when Phil changed his mindset about his circumstance and took appropriate action did he finally win.

You can get unstuck once and for all. It’s not easy though. It takes work, discipline, sacrifice, and maybe even some pain, but the results are worth it.

It doesn’t matter what goal you want to accomplish or what you want to change in your life. Maybe you want to quit smoking or drinking. Maybe you need to quit looking at inappropriate websites, or wasting money at the casino. Maybe you need to lose the same 20 or 50 lbs you’ve lost several times over the years but can’t seem to keep it off. Maybe you need to quit giving up on (fill in the blank) every time it gets hard. You know what the thing is for you. You know change is required.

Let Groundhog Day be your wake up call.

Truth bomb: Change is hard. It’s in our nature to want things to be easy. Our whole world is bent on making everything easier. But the world does a lousy job of making it easy to change what really matters.  If you are ready to change for real, then you must first change your mind.

“Gee whiz Chad, that’s great advice, but how do I change my mind?” Listen, I’m no shrink or certified counselor, but I’ve been on a personal journey of change between my ears for a while now and I testify that you must CHOOSE to change. Just like Phil Connors did. Get to the very end of your rope and DECIDE once for all that what are doing, how you’re living, what you have, etc. is not what you want. It’s not what your ’20 years ago self’ envisioned for your today, and surely not what you want your future self to be. Are you there?

This is what Team Quadzilla is all about. Encouraging you to live with purpose, be your best self mentally, physically, spiritually, and sharing resources to inspire your journey. So don’t eat a table full of donuts or step in front of a semi because life is hard and you failed again. Get back up, make the hard choice(s), and be accountable to a trusted friend. You can do this! Hey, if Phil Connors can do it, you can too. Am I right, or am I right, or am I right? Right? Right? Right?

faith, Family

The Most Important Choice You’ll Ever Make

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A theme I share often in Quadzilla is the idea of “choosing your hard.” Most people like to put off the hard work today and deal with it later. Procrastination. For physical health, that means we can expect life to be hard later. Everyone knows someone who is in really rough shape, a “victim” of “hard living.” We say, “It’s a shame they didn’t take better care of themselves.”

If we procrastinate about our health, our future self will likely have poor health, be overweight, stiff, over medicated, and spend way too much money and time on doctors and drugs, etc. The wise alternative is to do the hard work of taking care of ourselves today to maintain good health now AND later which reduces risk of the poor health and related pains and expenses that go with it. Follow me?

In the Bible we read about the same idea regarding our spiritual health.

Check this out from Matthew 7:13-14

Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

The narrow, unnatural, unpopular, difficult path leads to life forever with God in Heaven. The wide, easy, natural, popular path many prefer to take today leads to death, destruction, and eternity in Hell separated from God. Everyone faces the choice of which path to take.

Will you choose the easy way today and ignore God, do whatever pleases you for this short life on earth, and spend all eternity suffering the consequence of that choice? Or will you take the narrow and unnatural path today, drawing on the power of Jesus to help you live a different way today (and a very healthy, fulfilling, peaceful, and joy filled way) so you can live in Paradise with God for all eternity where there is no pain, sorrow, or suffering?

I don’t know about you, but to me the choice seems obvious. Do the hard thing now, go against the flow for the short time we have to live this life here on earth and receive God’s blessing now and for all eternity. Don’t wait.

Now is the time to choose Jesus. No one can do it for you. Your good deeds and “I’m better than the next guy” comparison won’t cut it. You must acknowledge with your lips that Jesus is your Lord and Savior and the only one who can save you from your sins. This is the most important choice you will ever make.

Note: If you have questions about the choice I’ve described, I’d LOVE to talk with you about it personally. Just click HERE to start the conversation.