Unconditional

"Not only does God command men to love their wives and women to 

respect their husbands, but that we must do this unconditionally."

Stress has a habit of debunking our good intentions.  Whether our goal is to be respectful to our spouse or to be encouraging to our selves, conditions tend to get in the way.  Let me give you an example.  I have been avidly reading Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.  He has emphasized time and time again how important it is to respect your husband even in the hardest of times.  I have been applying this principle whenever an interaction presents itself. Last night we decided to use the "cry it out" method of parenting.  In case you are unfamiliar with this strategy, the goal is to teach your child to fall asleep, but the process requires you to  leave their room and let them cry until they fall asleep.  An hour and a half went by and I couldn't take it anymore.

I turned to Marcus and said in tears, "Enough.  I can't do it anymore.  Can I go and get him?"  He said, "Yes we can go and get him, but let me go in first and I will be calm and show him that there is nothing the matter.  If you go in there you will be gushing all over him and make him feel that his crying is justified."  If I was applying the principles the book encourages, my response would have been: "Ok darling, beloved husband of mine.  I will submit to your leadership."  Instead, in all of my disrespectful glory I responded.  "No, I neeeeeed to get him nowwwww."  Pathetic?  Yup.  Dignified?  Nope.   Consistent with my goals of being respectful?  Nope.  Because the stress of the situation overrode my goals of respect.  In order to have consistent success our desire to overcome has to override the desire to give up.  The larger the stress, the greater the temptation to give up.

So how do we increase our desire for success?  Practice.  Like anything, the more we practice, the better we will get.  And one of the best ways to improve is to focus on improving 1-3 things at a time.  Any more and we won't be able to focus on them all.  You see, winning is habitual; and so is failure.  If you allow yourself to give in on your standards or goals, it is easier to give in the next time, and so it goes.  How many times have you given yourself a break from working out just to have that be the start of a streak of exercise-less days?  The more we allow for compromise in our standards, the more that compromise will determine us more than the success does.  That is why procrastination is so dangerous.  If we allow it to become a habit, we allow that to potentially become part of our character.  

So as I am embark on pursuing not only self-esteem, but excellence, one of the greatest methods for success is not giving in, even when the stress tries to overwhelm it.

"Whatever you have learned or received or seen in me--put it into practice.  And the God of Peace will be with you." -Philippians 4:9