Living an Incredible life is much simpler than we all make it seem. An Incredible Life is a mindset, a state of mind, if you will. Very easily, you can take the lid off of your thinking and move from forgettable to Incredible! Once you start living out on the branch where the fruit of life is, you will notice that every day problems and obstacles no longer become hindrances or stumbling blocks that get in your way and keep you from fulfilling your Incredible life goals and dreams. In your personal or professional life, the keys to an Incredible life are simple:

1. Consult your higher source for everything you need, want, believe and dream. Make your source, (mine is the One and True Living God) your CEO. Give control over your destiny to Him, He will handle your dreams with care. He will line up relationships that are Incredible!

2. Evaluate and re-evaluate your associations – you become like the 5 people you spend your time with. Each quarter, I make a list of the people who are in my space and I re-evaluate their place in my life. If, when I think of them, I am inspired and believe that they are an Incredible part of my world, they get a +. If, when I think of them, I feel negativity or am perplexed at the thought of the value they add to my existence, they get a -. If I feel absolutely nothing one way of another, they get a /. I am sure that by now you’ve guessed it, + signs get to stay! – signs have to go and / signs have one more quarter to influence my life Incrediblly so that they can stay or they have to hit the road. Constantly evaluating your associations will help to ensure that the Incredible person you are becoming does not get jaded or crowded by Incredible snatchers – those people who only want to suck the Incredible out of you!

3.Make a Vision Board or Goal Poster. Habakkuk 2:2 in the Old Testament of the King James Bible says “write the vision and make it plain.” It goes on to say, “write it on tablets [goal poster].” Where are you going in this life? Ask yourself the following question, “What can I begin to do today to make my life Incredible?” Follow that question with this one: “If I could be doing anything in the world and money was not an object, what would I be doing?” Then write it down. From there, brainstorm and come up with more ideas that all lead back to that first question. An old business model says that “what gets attended to gets done”….You want to make sure that your 16×20 sized goal is back by a 16×20 sized POSTER or VISION BOARD. Don’t believe that you will remember it, write it down. In fact, get some post-it notes and stick smaller versions of your goals all over the place to serve as a constant reminder that you can achieve anything you put your mind to!

4. Do something everyday that gets you closer to the vision you have for an Incredible life. Daily activity creates habits and habits create consistency, consistency creates confidence and consistent confidence is the gateway to dreams realized!

5. Live with PACE

P- Plan with Purposeful Passion: For all that you do, ensure that it has purpose and your passion is fueled. Plan so that your goals are being realized with every plan made.
A – Achieve with Abundant Attitude: As you set goals, decide now to achieve them with an attitude of abundance. Keep in mind that abundance is not material; it is living above strife and contention.
C – Create with Consistent Confidence: As you think of your goals and dreams develop the confidence and belief that you can carry them out. Remember, you are exactly who or what you say that you are. More importantly, you are exactly who you think you are so have confidence that you can achieve your vision. Although life had highs and lows, develop a consistent approach for creating your vision. Start with what you do better than anyone else in the world, usually you will find your passion there!
E – Execute with Enthusiastic Expectation: There is no need to plan, achieve or create if you are not going to execute. But don’t just do it, do it well. Additionally, have an enthusiastic expectation that you will grow, learn and experience new things and do what you set out to do. Believe that the power lies within you to be Incredible.

Believe in yourself as I believe in you!

Get Inspired, Feel Incredible!

Always remember, if you can see the invisible, God can do the impossible so dream the INCREDIBLE!

The Incredible You

Shawndra Johnson (Editor). IOE Publications 2009, Paperback, 180 pages, $14.95

Simply put, being Incredible is the realization that you were born that way. So many of us allow life to beat us down and prevent us from walking into our birthright. Sound familiar?

Do you want to live an Incredible Life? Do you desire to be considered Incredible in your own right? Are you ready for this, it will be mind blowing….The only thing separating you from the Incredible You is yourself. Your mindset is the key to unlocking passion, abundance, confidence and expectation in your life. Get excited, you are only a step away from living a PACE life.

Being Incredible has absolutely nothing to do with what others think of you, being Incredible is about self-esteem, self-worth and self-love. Do you believe that you possess the keys to an Incredible life? I believe you do!

When I was twenty-five years old, the bottom fell out of my life. I felt like I had lost everything because I allowed a man to define my worth. When the dust settled and I began to pick up the pieces of my shattered existence, I realized that I already possessed everything I needed to turn my thought process and mindset around. I was the master of my mind and mediocrity was removed from my vocabulary. Because today, I know that I am living an Incredible Life, I was able to finally write a book about that chapter in my life. If You Understood My Past, You Would Understand My Praise chronicles that life’s chapter. But if you understood my past, you would understand why today, helping others define their Incredibleness is so important to me.

What changed? Something simple, I started to believe in myself and I developed a personal relationship with the Lord, giving myself permission to be my best and march to the beat of my own drum. I forgave myself for the past, those wrongs suffered me as well as those wrongs I did to others out of anger, rage or sheer discontentment. I began to dream and think about what I wanted to do with my life whereas before, I wanted what others wanted for me. My passion was born out of my brokenness and I desired to change my outlook so that I could later help others to do the same.

As I underwent this transformation, I stumbled upon these self-determined keys to an Incredible life. I now desire to share them with the world. The keys are simple and indicated below. Stay tuned for my upcoming book, which will highlight these keys, expand upon them with supporting biblical text and offer solutions to make the key changes and mind shifts necessary to walk into your Incredibleness.

These keys will lead you to unleashing the Incredible You, a you bursting with passion, abundance, confidence and expectation:

1. Trust that God has your best interest at heart.
2. Have a heart that is ready to serve others.
3. Experience life through eyes of faith.
4. In all things, be grateful. An attitude of gratitude fills your cup.
5. Never give up on yourself no matter what others may say.
6. Create a life where everything is in proper balance and perspective.
7. Release yourself from the issues, hurts and struggles of your past.
8. Expect God’s unmerited favor in your life.
9. Decide that vision is your key to victory.
10. Increase your self-image; you are who you say you are.
11. Be who you were created to be.
12. Live a life that is pleasing to God.
13. Execute your goals and dreams with enthusiastic expectation.
14. You already possess the keys to Incredible Success, believe it!
15. Offer yourself the opportunity to overcome obstacles and adversity with passion and promise.
16. Unleash God’s promises for an Incredible life!

You can do it, I can help.
Be Incredible!

Suggested Reading:

Goals!

Brian Tracy. ReadHowYouWant 2010, Paperback, 408 pages, $52.97

Guiding Growth

Mark Lipton. Harvard Business Review Press 2003, Hardcover, 288 pages, $13.20

As it is said, the past is a canceled check, you can’t get it back yet so many of us, keep allowing it to keep us from our future. Why?

We are all afraid to unlock that little box that holds our family secrets and issues. All of us. For many years I pretended as if it didn’t exist. But finally I wanted liberation. I was so sick and tired of using my past as an excuse. If I had a nickel for every time I said, “But because of how I was raised, I do things this way.” I would be Oprah rich. The excuses, which are nothing more than the tools that incompetent, people use to keep them bound to the issues that they are defending got old. I realized that it was time to put on a pair of big girl panties and deal with my past.

After all, you cannot conquer what you refuse to confront. If you don’t deal with it, it lingers and festers. It starts to stink and when you have an odor, everyone knows. And usually, no one tells you so you just walk around thinking you are cute yet smelling a hot mess! And I don’t have to tell you, that is not cute or productive.

Bondage is not going to get you closer to the Incredible You. You have to free yourself.

We have all had things happen to us in the past. Big deal. It is over. You cannot change the past. In fact, the past is a canceled check. It is no longer worth anything of substance. Why allow it to keep you from getting to where you want to be? There is no good reason why.

It was years ago. Release it and trust that God will ease the pain in your heart. When you hold onto the issues of the past, you are the one who suffers. The one who wronged you is over it, if they are even aware that they hurt you at all. Let it go and walk into your future.

I love what II Timothy 2:21 says, If a man cleanses himself from the latter [the past], he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. Need I say more?

Seriously though, when you get past what is behind you, you can be used for good things and be an example for others of the goodness of forward motion and thought can be. Dealing with my past brought me to a place of praise. It was my way of helping others to realize that there is a praise on the other side of your past. Life gets better when you let things go. In fact, life becomes Incredible! Your mind is clear and void of confusion and your heart is whole, absent of anger, contempt or defeat. When your mind is clear and your heart whole, Incredibleness is just around the corner and all you have to do is walk toward it.

When I think about the storms of my life, I get excited because they were all catalysts to my destiny! Had it not been for that betrayal, that abuse, that financial downfall, I would not be the Incredible person that I was born to be. I am able, by the grace of God to be excited about the things that I have been through. The trials and tribulations only made me stronger.

Think about Marvin Sapp’s Never Would Have Made it. He can only sing that song and you and I bob our heads and raise our hands in praise, if we let the past go. Think about it. If you are here and you are alive and healthy, you ought to be praising right now. You have already proved that you can make it through other life trials. So get excited that you will come out of the past stronger, wiser and better. So get excited and let it go.

I have decided to PRESS or to Persistently Run Expecting Supernatural Success. A woman in my church, Sheila, shared her testimony with us and said that she realized that in order to make it through, she had to PRESS and she created this amazing acronym. Sheila is amazing and through this acronym she will bless so many lives.

Pressing is moving forward regardless of what is coming your way. It is important that you press persistently. It means that you have decided that you will not give up. You will keep going no matter what comes your way. Running is about action versus standing still and letting this happen to you; running allows you to be proactive to change and stress. Standing still is the sign of completed work, where as running is about the realization that the work is not yet done but deciding that you will embrace the change and embrace it with a supernatural expectation.

Wow, if you are not empowered now, I don’t know what to tell you. Success will be yours when you decide to take action against the problems, trials and tribulations that come your way.

The Incredible You is just over the horizon from the past hurts, failures and strife that is already over. PRESS toward the future, PRESS toward the Incredible You. Don’t you want to meet the Incredible You?

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13,14

If You Understood My Past, You Would Understand My Praise

n/a (Illustrator). Incredible One Enterprises Publications 2008, Paperback, 238 pages, $12.36

If you can see the invisible, God can do the impossible, so dream the Incredible.

As a success coach, I am often challenged to help people develop vision that sees the invisible and believes that anything is possible. When I think of vision, I am reminded of a child who has an imaginary friend. With their imaginary friend in tow, that child pursues situations and obstacles with a consistent confidence and enthusiastic expectation that is unparalleled in the world today. I often wonder why our minds don’t allow us to think and act as children when it comes to taking the necessary risks and faith walks to live an incredible life filled with dream fulfillment and passion, abundance, confidence and expectation.

As adults, we don’t believe in imaginary friends, but when you have vision, you see possibilities and results that are not visible to others. Being a visionary is an important key to becoming the Incredible You. When you have vision, you have victory. One of my favorite personal statements that I created when I first started working with other people as a success coach was “if you can see the invisible, God can do the impossible, so dream the Incredible.“ When I say this statement each day, I am focusing on helping people to become visionaries for their lives and the lives of their family members. Situations are changed because of vision. Nothing great in this life was ever accomplished without vision. Think of anyone that you admire in this world. No matter whom they are and how significant their triumph, they possessed an uncanny ability to see the invisible and do the impossible, otherwise, you would not look up to them.

When you have the foresight to see those things that do not exist currently but know in your heart, mind and spirit that they will come to pass, you are becoming a visionary, much like the people you admire. No vision is too small and I admonish you not to compare your triumphs with that of others as we are all on an individual journey. Visionaries think outside of the box. Visionaries are able to do things a little differently to get a victorious result. Visionaries never give up because they don’t know what is coming around the next corner. It is always too early to throw in the towel on your hopes, dreams and desires.

Vision is the key to maximizing and unlocking your potential. Not a visionary? Make a non-negotiable decision that the time is now to receive the victory in your life. You can be a visionary as soon as you realize that all that it takes is for you to be able to say right now that you are able to accomplish that which you desire to do. If you can see it, it can be a reality. Do you have faith and believe that you can do anything that you put your mind to? In this time of economic downturn, vision is looking at your checkbook and getting excited because the money is on the way. Although you can’t see it now, you have full knowledge and belief that you possess what it takes to move from victim to visionary. If you want to have victory, you have to be optimistic. Is your glass half full? When your glass is half full, you are closing in on your victory. When you are able to see clearly those things which do not yet exist, you are walking in a liberating victory because those dreams, goals and desires are just an action away from becoming reality and catapulting you into a personal triumph.

Having vision is pivotal if you want to achieve anything in life. So think, see and then do. You can do it, Incredible One. I believe in you. The Incredible You is waiting; he or she is standing just behind your vision.