My cousin-in-law shared this on her Facebook wall a few months ago and I really liked it! It's actually what got me really thinking again about waking up early and making some good changes in my life.
This came from a 'life manifestos' blog... here.
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.”
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.
I really like all of these suggestions, but in place of meditation, I would say 'ponder,' which is basically the same thing. I remember several years ago a lady who I really look up to was giving a presentation. She is a brilliant woman and has studied the lives of many great leaders of our nation and church. She said that one of the things she found they had in common was that they were all early-morning risers. They would get up early and take time to pray and ponder before carrying on with the rest of their day.
I have a long way to go before these things become habits for me, but I'm working on it. Some mornings go well and some mornings are total flops (like this one today). Tomorrow morning will be a good one.
The kiddies enjoying some morning Miami rain.
It doesn't snow in Miami, but it rains a lot, so I'll have to think of my daily habits as raindrops instead of snowflakes.
I really like all of these suggestions, but in place of meditation, I would say 'ponder,' which is basically the same thing. I remember several years ago a lady who I really look up to was giving a presentation. She is a brilliant woman and has studied the lives of many great leaders of our nation and church. She said that one of the things she found they had in common was that they were all early-morning risers. They would get up early and take time to pray and ponder before carrying on with the rest of their day.
I have a long way to go before these things become habits for me, but I'm working on it. Some mornings go well and some mornings are total flops (like this one today). Tomorrow morning will be a good one.
It doesn't snow in Miami, but it rains a lot, so I'll have to think of my daily habits as raindrops instead of snowflakes.
