What comes into your mind comes out in your life

​Yesterday, while I was out running, I listened to a sermon. The sermon helped me connect something I wrote about last week with something I wrote yesterday. And when a dear friend reached out and told me she too had made that connection, I knew what I had to write about today.

My friend told me, "in order for my cup to be filled with what I need and want to spill over when I'm shaken and rattled, I have to schedule time for the things in life that fill me with 'good' feelings. It's easy for me to do in the summer when I'm not teaching, but much harder to do during the school year. But that's because I rarely schedule time during the week to do things that fill me up with the good stuff."

My friend was connecting the idea I wrote about last week - that what we pour into our lives instinctually spills out in tough times - with the idea that we have to be intentional and planful about when and what we pour in.

Do you realize what comes out of your life today is a product of what you've filled your mind with over the years? The you the world will see today is a great reflection of what you filled your mind with yesterday.

And taking it one step further, you are either a product of what the world wanted to fill your mind with, or - you are a product of what YOU have decided to fill your mind with.

When you decide to hang out with people who encourage you, you want to be someone who encourages other people.

When you decide to spend your mornings writing about the good you want to see in the world, you go into the world wanting to create that good.

When you decide to spend part of your day reading books that encourage you to love every person you cross paths with, you go into the world wanting to love every person you cross paths with.

When you decide to eliminate the posts on your social media flow that make you bitter towards the world, you go into the world wanting to be less bitter.

When you decide who you want to be in the world, you fill your mind with things that support becoming that person. Because here is the cold, hard truth. You will NEVER become that person if you don't fill your mind with things that support that person.

And even more truth, you will never fill your mind with things that support becoming that person if you don't intentionally schedule time for your mind to engage in them.

That's the difference between wishing you could be someone and absolutely deciding I AM going to BE that someone.

It's a great question to ask yourself throughout the day. What am I filling my mind with right now? The answer to that question is who the world will see tomorrow.

Who do you want the world to see?

Fill your mind with that person. Schedule time to do it.