First: What is the function of a piece of armor?
Armor protects the warrior.

Anything that is thrown at you from the enemy can be stopped by the ARMOR you are wearing or carrying.

When you are protected you are not focused AS MUCH on being defensive, so you are freer to focus on the OFFENSIVE.

This means your battle strategy and energies are used to advance. You are not stuck in one place trying to defend yourself.

That is certainly better than spending so much energy and resources defending yourself that you have little left over to advance.

Second: What is the best piece of armor to defend yourself with?
Today is Day 89 of following the 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club Affirmation Challenge that I am involved in and blogging about.

The best piece of armor you can use is your FAITH.

Third: What is faith really?
There is a very interesting description of faith found in the Bible (yes, I believe and love the Bible). It is found in the book of Hebrews 11:1 in the New Testament. You may well have heard of it:

Now faith is the assurance of things we hope for,
the certainty of things we cannot see.

There are two key words here:
Assurance … and
Certainty

Assurance:

I looked up the dictionary meaning of the word “assurance” and found a VERY interesting definition.

A positive declaration intended to give confidence. This indicates that faith is not passive, and this is true. The apostle James in his book (James in the New Testament) made this declaration:

Yes, faith is ACTIVE. You reveal your faith by your words (thought and spoken) and by your actions.

Now, here is another fact: you also reveal your FEAR by your words and by your actions (or lack of action). Why did I add, “lack of action”? Because fear paralyzes.

Fear is your enemy. In fact fear is your biggest enemy. It will always try to stop you from pursing your dream. This is why you need a strong armor of faith.

Fear is actually faith reversed. Fear is faith in evil and expects the worst.
Faith believes for the best. Faith is focused on the positive. Fear of course is focused on the negative.

Again: Assurance is “a positive declaration intended to give confidence”. This is why declaring positive and strategic affirmations is an important part of your strategy to achieve your life dreams.

Certainty

What does the dictionary have to say about this word “certainty”?
The quality or state of being certain of a true fact or an event that is definitely going to take place. Certainty goes beyond any doubt.

There is no room for doubt when you are full of faith.
But, you might be thinking: how do I KNOW that it is a true fact? You KNOW because of faith. Remember the description of faith we found in the book of Hebrews? Faith is the assurance of things we hope for, the certainty of things we cannot see.

Today’s Challenge:

• Take a look at this video of Tony Robbins demonstrating what real certainty is. Watch it several times until it REALLY sinks in!
• Make sure you are building your faith every day with your daily habits of listening to, watching and reading good inspirational material that will build your faith.

Make sure you REALLY KNOW you are a champion! Read, and reread this book Champions Are Born, Losers Are Made.
Make sure also that you have these audios and videos in your library and you are USING them. They are FREE.

• No one else has the same fingerprints that you do.
• No one else has the exact same thinking style as you do.
• No one else has the exact same dreams that you do.

And above all:

• No one else has the exact same destiny as you do.

You have a destiny that no one else can fill. Did you know that?

Today is Day 29 of following the 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club Affirmation Challenge.

Affirmation No. 29 is so powerful because you are cutting through much rejection and low self belief that you may have been hammered with across the years.

Yes, this is YOU.

• You are unique.
• You are created by God with a purpose.
• You can life this purpose right NOW.

There is an interesting verse in the Bible in the book of the prophet Jeremiah 29:11.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (NIV version of the Bible).

• You have a future.
• You have a hope.
• You have a destiny!

Take courage and with boldness affirm this today:

And don’t forget to add the first 28 affirmations to your daily affirmation exercise today.

With this exercise you are retraining your brain to focus on your life purpose and your dreams.
You are also training your brain to believe in yourself and your dreams.
The first step towards achieving your life purpose and dreams is to train your brain.

This is why I strongly recommend that you get involved in the 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club’s Affirmation Challenge.

Go to the Lifestyle Freedom Club Blog right now, then click on the menu at the top that says: “Affirmation Challenge” and get started NOW.

Your life will never be the same. You owe it to yourself because:

Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power
Shirley McClaine

When you dwell on something, you are focusing your mind on it.

I am sure you have experienced those mental dramas that play again and again in your mind.

They are those “what if it happens” and “what if it does not happen”.

The only thing that you and I achieve when we allow these little dramas to play in our minds is FEAR.

Remember:

Molly Gordon describes fear as:
Fantasy Expectations Appearing Real

Notice the words “fantasy expectations”.
** They are not real.
** They have not happened.
** They may never happen – UNLESS.

Unless what? They may never happen unless you allow your mind to dwell on them so much that you actually attract what you fear.

Remember Job in the Bible? He made an interesting comment. “That which I feared has come upon me”. (Job 3:25 in the Bible). Wow – Job was admitting that the very thing he feared, happened to him. Why?

Well here is something else to thing about.
I had an Uncle who was my Dad’s only brother. This Uncle grew up during the time when Polio was an epidemic. Uncle Ian had one fear in life, and that was getting sick with Polio. It was obviously a very strong fear because it was talked about in the family, especially after he died of Polio at the age of 21.

Yes FEAR can be real.

But FAITH is just as real, and the choice is yours and mine as to which focus we allow our minds to stay on.

Fear is actually faith in evil. In other words fear is a twisted version of faith.

So to combat fear you need real faith. However the reality is that fear can be very strong.

Your faith needs to be stronger.

How can you increase your faith?

1. Make a strong decision and a commitment to focus on solutions.
2. Build up your faith every day by closing your ears to all the negative and focus on the positive things. This means you will be only listening to positive teachings, watching positive videos and reading motivating, challenging and learning books.
3. Exercise your faith every day. Whenever there is a challenge, deliberately meet it with the attitude of looking for the solution. You will find it especially when you are taking the time every day to work on No 2.

However this is true. Just before you were conceived, there was a moment in time when the race was on. Millions of sperms raced towards the goal of fertilizing the egg, and you won!

You were the winner!
It took a winner to get ahead of the millions of competing sperms and be the one that fertilized the egg that created the human being.

The human being that was created as a result of this race was YOU. You were the one in the million that made it, and took the prize of the privilege of living on this earth. Yes, you are one in a million.

That makes you a champion! So you can see that only champions get to arrive on this earth.

So even before you were born, you had already made a one in a million achievement. You were born a champion!

Discover your champion spirit!

Why do I use the word discover?

1. Your present lifestyle may not show the qualities of a champion.
2. You may not feel like a champion.
3. You may not be acting like a champion.

It is very possible that your champion spirit has been buried across the years. How?

I recently read that Jack Canfield once sent a team of researchers out to accompany 100 school children for a whole day. They were asked to note every negative and positive statement or comment that were spoken by these youngsters. Here are the astounding results:

• The average positive comments spoken were 72 while
• The average negative comments spoken were 684!

That is almost a 10 to 1 difference between the positive and negative words spoken.

The key to discovering your champion spirit.
Now words and thoughts create our destiny.

You and I were born champions and our designed destiny is to be champions in life.

But there are two other very important factors involved that will decide whether you fulfill your championship destiny or not.

• You were born with a free will. You have the power to decide to follow your destiny or not.
• You were born in the image of your Creator. One of the major charactistics of our Creator is that He created by the power of His Words.

The Bible tells us that God spoke and it was so. (See Genesis chapter 1). Now you may not believe this, that is ok. But before you start shutting down on me, please hear me out.

When you spend your day speaking mostly negative words, how does it make you feel? What sort of things happen during that day? Good things or bad things? Why? Because you get what you expect to receive.

Conversely when you spend your day speaking positive words, how does it make you feel? What sort of things happen during that day?

There is a greater awareness today of the power of our words (and that means words spoken and thought).

Now I am not saying here that all we need to do is speak and things will magically happen (although sometimes it may appear that way). ACTION is a very necessary part of the equation! Here is the complete formula for success:

• Words plus action = results
• Positive words plus positive action = successful results.
• Negative words plus negative action = negative results.

So the first step towards discovering your champion spirit is to check your vocabulary and start:

• Speaking more positive words. Affirm your abilities. Yes you can!
• Focusing on positive goals.
• Believing you can achieve dreams.

And don’t ever forget ..

P.S. Watch out for more posts that will challenge you further to follow your champion spirit and win the race of life!

With this in mind, here are some tips to help you MAKE 2009 be your best year yet! These are things that I have done (and some I am still in the process of doing).

This is a great exercise to do on January 1st, and will help to set the course for a great year!

First print out this page, and the following two articles from this blog:

Your Passion in Life

Discovering Life’s Purpose

Now you need to find a quiet moment and a quiet place (away from the computer and Twitter!). This may be dificult at this time of the year if you have family and friends visiting, but I am sure you will be able to find at least 15-20 minutes at some time of the day. If not, don’t fret, this is not Cinderella here (i.e. if you have to wait til January 2nd to find the time, it will still work!).

Don’t forget to take a good old notepad and pen or pencil with you to your quiet place (yes pens and pencils do still exist in this digital world

Closing Chapter 2008!

Before thinking about new goals for 2009, take a moment to reflect on 2008. Perhaps it was a good year for you, perhaps not. But the key is:

• What did you achieve?

• Are you closer now to your life’s goals than you were at the end of 2007? (Not sure of your life’s goals? The two articles you printed out may help you to discover these).
• If you are not closer, why? If you discover that you have lost your vision or it has dimmed, this is a good time to refocus and get back on track.

  It is also a good time to tweak your life’s goals and vision. Was you vision too small? Too dim? Too vague before?

  Adjustments are ok, as long as you are following YOUR heart. (That’s why we are doing this away from all the noise and influence of our friends and family).

• Are there some things in 2008 you regret? This is a time to forgive the people involved, forgive yourself, close the chapter and be free to open chapter 2009!
• Are there some achievements you are glad about in 2008? Great, but don’t camp there! There is more to do, more to achieve. Your achievements of 2008 are building blocks for greater things.

Ok, ready to close chapter 2008?

Getting Started on Chapter 2009

Let’s get started on our goals for 2009.

There are 3 main things we are going to bear in mind while looking at your plan for 2009:

1. It has to line up with your life vision and passion.

2. It has to include a balance for all areas of your life. You, your mental, spiritual and physical health, your family, your business achievements, your leisure time and any other achievements you plan on doing are all equally important.
3. Life can always throw us some curves, so there needs to be some flexibility in our projects.

Here is an outline of some things you might want to write down for 2009. The following items are just ideas to help you get your inspiration flowing:

What do I want for myself?

• Excellent health, I take care of my health so I will be more careful with what I eat, avoid processed foods. I will also make sure I get adequate rest and exercise more.
• Be more alive spiritually, so I will take some time (or more time) every day to read the Bible and fellowship with God .
• Open up new areas of my mind, so I will read 1-3 books a month, learn a new language or start something new like working on brain teasers.
• Spend more time enjoying life, so I will make sure I get to take time to enjoy some bicycle riding, or sports, take up a new hobby and make new friends.

My goals for my family are:

• Spend more time with them doing active things together where there is more interaction (not watching just TV together)
• Involve them more in my business so they will feel a part of this area of my life too.
• Take time to explore new things together (such as learning a new language together, learning about other cultures and countries together, learning a new sport together)

My goals to reach out to others are:

• Join a voluntary organization to help support the community.
• Start supporting new organizations such as perhaps sponsoring a child, supporting St Judes Children’s Hospital, giving to organizations providing clean water where there is none available.
• Take an interest in a needy family and look for ways to help them.
• “Adopt” a teenager and be their mentor.

My business goals are:
I plan on having my business fully support me by ………. (set a challenging but realistic date here).

To do this I will: (This could include things like:)

• Write at least 3 posts a week for my blog (or it might be 1 a day – whatever is a challenge for you, yet attainable within your time schedule)
• Write at least 3-5 articles a week.
• Learn a new area of business (perhaps more about SEO, or traffic, or website building etc)
• Find some new partners to master mind with.
• Find a mentor to guide me.
• Have a daily plan and make sure I keep on track.

Well these are some things that will guide you to create your own plans for 2009, so that you can MAKE 2009 your best year yet!

This is a great book to work through for the New Year (yes it is not really one to simply sit down and read, it is one to study and make notes on). It will help you move up to the new heights you plan for 2009!

Success Principles:

How To Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be.

Jack Cranfield Co-author of the Chicken Soup For The Soul series, went from being a school teacher to holding a Guinness world record for having seven books simultaneously on The New York Times® Best Sellers list.

This book contains 64 principles, each principle a chapter that challenges the reader to take practical and positive action to risk creating their lives exactly as they want them.

Some principles are better known (such as “Take 100% responsibility for your life”) while others are inventive (such as “Become an Inverse Paranoid”).

All are well worth studying, considering and acting on as they can only enrich your life and help you get to where you want to be.

Recommended reading: 10 Simple Tips for Making (New Year’s) Resolutions Stick