Everything You Hoped For

“The thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices.” 

This lyric comes from a well-known Christmas carol “O Holy Night”. The line in the song stood out to me recently at a Christmas church service. I’m intrigued by the idea of how “thrilling” the concept of HOPE is.

Hope is usually something that we need more than we realize. Without hope, life is desperate, depressing, and we feel alone. Like the song says, we feel “weary.” I don’t know what makes you weary. Life itself can be weary. We get busy. We lose sleep. We struggle to pay bills. Our families suffer. Troubled relationships arise. We bend over backwards to please others... Life has a way of handing us: Headaches, hassles, hardships and hurdles!

But HOPE... that’s what we need in order to endure the trials and troubles that inevitably happen in life. 

On a lighter note, hope is what allows Chicago Cubs fans, like myself, to continue rooting year after year for a team that has not won a World Series since 1908! That’s over 100 years of failure! But true-blue Cub fans hold out hope that one day soon (maybe this year) the Cubs will overcome their perennial futility and finally win a long-awaited Championship. So far, in my lifetime, every season ends in disappointment, but there’s always the off-season sentiment: “Wait ‘til next year!”

What makes following the Cubs worthwhile is when they’re winning. Hope begins to burn in a Cub fan’s heart when the team is within reach of the playoffs late in the season. It doesn’t happen often, but like the Christmas carol says, it is a “thrill” to be filled with that kind of hope. Each game is more and more exciting to watch. It’s during seasons of success that hope becomes thrilling to experience. In fact, it’s addictive. 

The fact is, we all NEED hope in order to carry on. Without it, our failures will paralyze, our defeats will be crushing, and our disappointments will demoralize. So what disappointments do you face year after year? I’d encourage you to stoke the fire of HOPE in your life. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. And the darkness of your disappointment is usually only a temporary circumstance. When you’re weary and in need of strength, seek out the source of your hope! You’ll find it if you’re willing to keep moving forward. I hope to see you at the end of your tunnel, “for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!” Until then...

I gotta grow!

J.T. Bean

Email: jamestbean@gmaill.com 

Twitter: @58beans
YouTube Channel: JTBeanScenes

I'm Not Sure I Can Do This

This post is all about... CONFIDENCE

I think one of the biggest obstacles in life for many people is that they lack confidence in their ability to accomplish certain tasks. Too often we listen to the voices that tell us, “you can’t do that”, “it’ll never work” or “don’t risk it.” Those voices come from naysayers in our lives. But sometimes the voice is our own. The naysayers are easy enough to deal with--you can just avoid them and not waste your time listening to their negativity. But when the voice is your own, that’s a different story. You can’t avoid that. Instead you have to focus on erasing those tapes in your mind that tell you words like “can’t,” “never” and “don’t”.

Confidence begins when you start replacing those tapes with questions like: “Why not?” “Who says so?” and “Yes I can.” And after that, you take baby steps toward accomplishing what you’re after. The biggest confidence crisis I faced in life was in the summer of 2008 after my wife and I filed for bankruptcy. I had allowed our debt to grow totally out of control. And shortly after that letdown, I lost my job. Now I had to do something new, and I had no idea what else was out there that I could do, or wanted to do.

When the opportunity to begin a part-time network marketing business came up, I was intrigued. As I began explore the possibilities I got excited about it. But still, I lacked confidence. I knew nothing about network marketing or the company I was promoting. But I quickly realized that to gain confidence, I had to submit myself to a couple of critical realities:

(#1) Gaining confidence in a new venture TAKES TIME. You cannot learn all you need to know overnight. You have to be patient and allow yourself time to develop the knowledge and skills that will help you to be successful. Experience comes through trial and error. And as you learn, you grow. And as you grow, you gain confidence in what you’re doing and the tapes in your head start playing a new tune!

(#2) Gaining confidence TAKES EFFORT. You have to force yourself to do things that are difficult and uncomfortable. It’s hard to succeed in life if you aren’t willing to work at it. Success doesn’t happen accidentally. It’s a result of purposeful, intentional energy and effort that you put forth in achieving your goal.

Confidence is the result of doing something consistently, tweaking your methods as you go, in order to produce a desired result. They say that “practice makes perfect”. I agree with that to a point. Nobody’s perfect. But practice does make you more CONFIDENT in what you’re doing. So my encouragement to you is to TAKE TIME and EFFORT to develop CONFIDENCE. What is it that you’re after in life? Listen to me: “You can do it!” 

If you need the confidence to believe in yourself and take a risk, change the tapes, listen to the voices that support and inspire you. Until next time...

I gotta grow!

J.T. Bean

Email: jamestbean@gmail.com
Twitter: @58beans

YouTube Channel: JTBeanScenes