Eight Ways to Rewire Negative Responses

I am often sad. I asked God why? He brought to my attention that my neurological pathways are wired for sad feelings. My family makes fun of me for my self-pity bouts. It makes sense that my brain is wired or programmed for sadness because I experienced a lot of rejection and trauma for many years of my life. Some people worry constantly, are angry, or complain all the time. When a negative emotion is persistent, it is because of the neurological programming or wiring of your brain. The good news is that we can rewire our brains due to neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change response pathways. You can rewire your brain for addictive issues as well.

I know that neuroplasticity is legitimate because I have experienced significant changes in my brain through healing bad memories and unhealthy beliefs.  I am still in the process of reprogramming automatic responses to stress. You can read about how to change your brain in my free book on my website. I also wrote “Breaking Mental Strongholds.” My strongholds are destroyed, and most of my bad memories are healed, but I still have some rewiring to do. Some people say reprogramming, but you get the idea.

Here are the steps I use to rewire my emotional responses.

  1. Be aware of my emotions, even ambivalence.
  2. Ask myself, “Why am I feeling this way?”
  3. When in my past have I felt this feeling, and why?
  4. Is the situation triggering a resentment or painful memory? If so, ask God to show me. Read my website book to learn how I resolve resentment and painful memories.
  5. Am I disappointed? Why am I disappointed? What expectation was not met, even unspoken ones? Accept that I am not in control of how other people respond, but I can only control how I react and feel. To learn more, read How to Develop Emotional Resilience.
  6. What unhealthy belief triggered this emotion? What is a healthy belief instead?
  7. Have I given someone or a situation power to control my thoughts? Why?
  8. What can I be thankful for?

Writing the answers to these questions is insightful, and they will help you train your brain to recognize and process negative emotions and remain in control. Though I tend to feel sad, I don’t need to let it control my thoughts. Changing my emotional response is improving as I change my thinking, which is a form of neuroplasticity. I am getting quicker at going through the eight steps when I experience a negative response.

Keep in mind that negative emotions increase the stress hormone cortisol, which triggers your body’s fight-or-flight response. I wrote about this in The Best Way to Manage Stress. When you think good or thankful thoughts, it triggers the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine. The key is to recognize negative feelings and address them promptly, without ignoring them. Ignoring them does not change your ability to manage your emotions or stress in healthy way.

Here are several good articles. Rewiring the Traumatized Brain for Positivity

Discover evidence-based interventions to reduce chronic negative thinking

 From Triggered to Empowered: Rewiring Your Emotional Responses.

May God bless you as you grow a healthy response.

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All verses are from the English Standard Version. If you find my posts and website helpful, please share this link with your friends and family: hopeforcompletehealing.com. The information is copyright-protected. Please do not reproduce any part of the posts or my book without proper citation to Joyce Hanscom and this website.

My latest book is Unlocking God’s Promises, which explains 18 categories of promises that are relevant to each of our lives. It also includes the promises in Psalm 91.

If you find this website helpful, you would like to read Breaking Mental Strongholds, which expands on my website book and includes many of my posts.

Additionally, consider my book Fighting Unseen Battles, which describes the many unhealthy beliefs that control our lives and what the truths are. To learn more about this book, read the post How to Fight Unseen Battles

Contact me at hopeforcompletehealing@gmail.com and ask for a PDF of Eight Life-Changing Prayers from the Bible. The prayers are for the Spirit of wisdom, renewal, spiritual strength, knowledge of His will, virtues of God, non-believers, the 23rd Psalm, and victory. I will also send you the Lord’s Prayer Model to pray effectively. Please leave your name, so I know you are a real person making the request.

EIGHT WAYS TO EMPATHETIC LISTENING 

Are you quick to offer advice without fully understanding the underlying issue? Do you feel people don’t listen to you? Do you empathetically listen to others and seek to understand, or do you only want to be understood? Seeking to understand is an empathetic way of communicating that many people don’t know how to do.  

I have been writing about mental health issues this year. Learning to understand others and practicing empathetic listening can be challenging if you are consumed by your own problems, which I was at one time. Or if you are a problem solver like me. I am quick to offer advice without fully understanding the situation first. Stephen Covey explains how to empathetically listen to people in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”  

How Do You Communicate? 

  • Listen with the intent to reply.   
  • Speaking or preparing to speak.   
  • Filtering everything through your paradigms or perspective. 
  • Reading your autobiography into other people’s lives, thinking what worked for you will work for them.  

Four Autobiographical Responses (Stephen Covey) 

Because we listen autobiographically, we tend to respond in one of four ways.   

  • We evaluate by either agreeing or disagreeing; 
  • We probe by asking questions from our own frame of reference;  
  • We advise and give counsel based on our own experience; or  
  • We interpret and try to figure people out, to explain their motives, their behavior, based on our own motives and behavior. 

What is Empathetic Listening? 

  • Empathic (from empathy) listening gets inside another person’s frame of reference.   
  • You look out through it; you see the world the way they see the world. 
  • You understand their paradigm from their perspective. 
  • You understand how they feel.  
  • The essence of empathic listening is not that you agree with someone; it’s that you fully and deeply understand that person, both emotionally and intellectually. 

Stephen Covey explains, “In addition, empathic listening is the key to making deposits in Emotional Bank Accounts, because nothing you do is a deposit unless the other person perceives it as such.  You can work your fingers to the bone to make a deposit, only to have it turn into a withdrawal when a person regards your efforts as manipulative, self-serving, intimidating, or condescending because you don’t understand what really matters to him.  Empathic listening is, in itself, a tremendous deposit in the Emotional Bank Account.  It’s deeply therapeutic and healing because it gives a person ‘psychological air.’” To learn more about how to build a person’s emotional bank account, see my previous post, 10 Ways to Build an Emotional Bank Account

Empathetic listening is essential for creating win-win agreements. Because if you don’t understand the thoughts and feelings of another person, it will be impossible for it to be win/win.  To learn more about creating win/win agreements, read How to Build Trust with Win/Win Agreements. Empathetic listening lets the other person know you value them, which is a psychological need every person has. Once they feel you understand and value them, you can focus on influencing or problem-solving. 

Most people are taught to either repeat or rephrase what someone says to show you heard them. That is not understanding them. The key is to understand how the other person feels. For example, a child says, “I hate my teacher, she is mean.” Empathetic listening will want to know why; “You sound frustrated, tell me why you think she is being mean?” “Do you feel she is being unfair?” By rephrasing and reflecting the feelings, you get the other person to open up about why they believe something is true. Then you can lead them to think with their prefrontal cortex, where logic is. Next, you can help them develop a healthier way of thinking or come up with a solution to the problem. 

Eight Actions to Be an Empathetic Listener. 

1.  I will listen with the intent to understand and not reply. 

2.  I will try not to read my autobiography into other people’s lives. 

3.  I will get into the other person’s frame of reference, to see the world the way they see it, understand how they feel, and thus give them “psychological air.” 

4.  I will not evaluate by either agreeing or disagreeing. 

5.  I will not probe with questions from my frame of reference or perspective. 

6.  I will not advise or give counsel based on my own experience. 

7.  I will not interpret by trying to figure people out, to explain their motives, their behavior, based on my motives and behavior. 

8.  I will rephrase the content and reflect the feeling. 

Conclusion: Then Seek to Be Understood 

In the post discussing win/win agreements, Stephen Covey defined maturity as the balance between courage and consideration. Seeking to understand requires consideration; seeking to be understood takes courage.  Win/Win requires a high degree of both. So it becomes important in interdependent situations for us to be understood. Being interdependent fosters rich, enduring, and highly productive relationships with others. When you can present your own ideas clearly, specifically, visually, and most importantly, contextually, in the context of a deep understanding of their paradigms and concerns, you significantly increase the credibility of your ideas. 

Read Mental Health Posts 

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All verses are from the English Standard Version. If you find my posts and website helpful, please share this link with your friends and family: hopeforcompletehealing.com. The information is copyright protected. Please do not reproduce any part of the posts or my book without proper citation to Joyce Hanscom and this website. 

My latest book, Unlocking God’s Promises, explains 18 categories of relevant promises to each of our lives. It also includes the promises in Psalm 91.

If you find this website helpful, you will like to read Breaking Mental Strongholds, available on Amazon. 

Additionally, consider my book Fighting Unseen Battles, found on Amazon.  To learn more about my book, read: How to Fight Unseen Battles. I would love to hear what you think so please leave a review. 

Contact me at hopeforcompletehealing@gmail.com and ask for a PDF of Eight Life-Changing Prayers from the Bible. The prayers are for the Spirit of wisdom, renewal, spiritual strength, knowledge of His will, virtues of God, non-believers, the 23rd Psalm, and victory. I will also send you the Lord’s Prayer Model to pray effectively. Please leave your name, so I know you are a real person making the request. 

MENTALLY HEALTHY PEOPLE PRIORITIZE

Do you feel like you don’t have time to spend with your family? Or, do you sometimes say, you don’t have time to accomplish your to-do list? The principle of putting first things first is about personal management. In this post, you will learn how to organize your life around priorities that align with your individual goals. I am sharing insights from Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” Habit Three: Put First Things First. Too often, we allow problems to control our time, which is stressful and emotionally draining.

The Four Areas Of Time Management That Control Us Are.

Quadrant 1. Urgent essential needs and crisis management. Things like deadline-driven projects, health needs, or crises. Feeling you need to assist others with their immediate challenges.

Quadrant 2. Important needs but not urgent. Activities that prevent a problem from happening, investing in relationships, planning recreation, and working toward goals.

Quadrant 3. Urgent, non-important needs. Like responding to social media posts, emails, or phone messages, going through the mail, and maybe popular activities that do not contribute to your goals.

Quadrant 4. Not important, and not urgent. These are time-wasters, such as scrolling through social media posts, watching TV, YouTubing, gaming, and so on.

Staying Mentally Healthy and Fulfilled.

When you accomplish a goal or principle, how does it make you feel? My mental health improves when I accomplish a priority, even small ones like taking out the trash or dusting. The more you stay in the second quadrant of time management, the less you will deal with crisis management in the first quadrant. Also, limit your time on non-important tasks or activities in quadrants three and four that steal valuable time you can never get back. Mental health improves when you avoid all tasks or activities that do not help you accomplish the things that are important or align with your principles. For example, if you want to exercise, plus learn Scripture, you could go for a walk and memorize Scripture or pray, instead of watching TV and eating chips.

Quadrant II Organizing Involves Four Key Activities:

IDENTIFYING ROLES. The first task is to write down your key roles.  Individual, Husband/Father, Wife/Mother, Chairman United Way, Real Estate Salesperson, Board Member, Sunday School Teacher, and so on.

SELECTING GOALS. The next step is to think of two or three important results you feel you should accomplish in each role during the next seven days.

SCHEDULING. Now you can look at the week ahead with your goals in mind and schedule time to achieve them.

DAILY ADAPTING. With Quadrant II weekly organizing, daily planning becomes more of a function of daily adapting, or prioritizing activities and responding to unanticipated events, relationships, and experiences in a meaningful way.

Stephan Covey shares the following computer metaphor: Habit 1 says “You’re the programmer,” and Habit 2 says “Write the program,” then Habit 3 says, “Run or live the program.” The popularity of reacting to the urgent but unimportant priorities of other people in quadrant III or the pleasure of escaping to Quadrant IV will threaten to overpower the important Quadrant II activities you have planned.

If you have Habit 2 deeply ingrained in your heart and mind, you are driven by those higher values. You can align your schedule with those values with integrity, but you can also be flexible. You don’t need to feel guilty when you don’t meet your scheduled goals or when you have to change your schedule. When I don’t write down the goals I need or want to accomplish that week and make time for them, then I feel depressed or anxious.

For example, I have an overnight guest coming in a week. I have several tasks to complete to prepare for my visitor. I have to identify the tasks that I need to do, then I schedule them throughout the week, so when my guest comes, I am not anxious or depressed about what still needs to be done.

Healthy Beliefs to Put First Things First.

1. I will organize and execute around priorities.

2. I will not be problem-minded but opportunity-minded.

3. I will not react to the urgent but unimportant priorities of other people in Quadrant III or the pleasure of escaping to Quadrant IV.

4. I will think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things.

5. I will define my roles and goals for the week, then schedule those goals at the beginning of each week.

6. I will use stewardship delegation and focus on results instead of methods, or gofer delegation.

Conclusion

I have been writing about how to improve mental health this year. Go to my mental health page to read these posts.

Review Habit 1:

10 Ways to be Proactive Instead of Reactive

HOW TO BE PROACTIVE: cont.

Review Habit 2:

TWELVE WAYS TO ACHIEVE HEALTHY GOALS

Three ways to Unlock Your Potential: Achieving Goals Continued.

A MENTALLY HEALTHY PERSON IS PRINCIPLE-CENTERED.

THE GREATEST PRINCIPLE TO LIVE BY

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All verses are from the English Standard Version. If you find my posts and website helpful, please share this link with your friends and family: hopeforcompletehealing.com. The information is copyright protected. Please do not reproduce any part of the posts or my book without proper citation to Joyce Hanscom and this website.

My latest book, Unlocking God’s Promises, explains 18 categories of promises relevant to each of our lives. It also includes the promises in Psalm 91.  

If you find this website helpful, you would like to read Breaking Mental Strongholds, which expands on my website book and includes many of my posts. 

Additionally, consider my book Fighting Unseen Battles, which describes the many unhealthy beliefs that control our lives and what the truths are. To learn more about this book, read the post How to Fight Unseen Battles.  

Contact me at hopeforcompletehealing@gmail.com and ask for a PDF of Eight Life-Changing Prayers from the Bible. The prayers are for the Spirit of wisdom, renewal, spiritual strength, knowledge of His will, virtues of God, non-believers, the 23rd Psalm, and victory. I will also send you the Lord’s Prayer Model to pray effectively. Please leave your name, so I know you are a real person making the request.

A MENTALLY HEALTHY PERSON IS PRINCIPLE-CENTERED.

What does a principle-centered person look like? What principles do you live by? This post continues “Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind,” by Stephen Covey. In the post ACHIEVE HEALTHY GOALS IN 12 WAYS,I explained how to achieve your goals by cultivating thoughts to achieve a desired outcome. I also shared my mission statement for my life and the goals to achieve my mission. In the post Three Ways to Unlock Your Potential: Achieving Goals Continued, I explained how to rewrite defeating scripts written by unhealthy beliefs. Unhealthy beliefs develop from painful experiences. You can write a new script by exchanging unhealthy beliefs with true or positive beliefs.

Of the 12 ways to achieve healthy goals, this post will explain the following two ways:

  1. I will be principle-centered, not spouse-centered, family-centered, money-centered, work-centered, possession-centered, pleasure-centered, friend-centered, enemy-centered, church-centered, or self-centered. I will be Christ-centered, showing love to everyone.
  2. As a principle-centered person, I will try to separate myself from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that might affect me and evaluate the options.

In his book, Stephan Covey explains each of the other ways to be centered in number 8 above. The decisions you make depend on what your life is centered around. In this post, I will only share what he says about being principle-centered. Though Stephan’s book is not a Christian book, the principles are applicable. So when you read about being principle-centered, think about the truths of God’s word.

Excerpts from Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Principles are deep, fundamental truths and classic truths. (e.g., truths found in the Bible.)

Security

1.   Your security is based on correct principles that do not change, regardless of external conditions or circumstances.

2.   You know that true principles can repeatedly be validated in your own life, through your own experiences.

3.   Correct principles help you understand your development, giving you the confidence to learn more, thereby increasing your knowledge and understanding.

4.   Your source of security provides you with an immovable, unchanging, unfailing core, enabling you to see change as an exciting adventure and opportunity to make significant contributions.

Guidance

1.   You are guided by a compass, which enables you to see where you want to go and how you will get there.

2.   You use accurate data, which makes your decisions both implementable and meaningful.

3.   You stand apart from life’s situations, emotions, and circumstances, and look at the balanced whole. Your decisions and actions reflect both short- and long-term considerations and implications.

4.   In every situation, you consciously, proactively determine the best alternative, basing decisions on conscience educated by principles.

Wisdom

1.   Your judgment encompasses a broad spectrum of long-term consequences and reflects a wise balance and quiet assurance.

2.   You see things differently and thus you think and act differently from the largely reactive world.

3.   You see the world in terms of what you can do for the world and its people.

4.   You adopt a proactive lifestyle, seeking to serve and build others.

5.   You interpret life’s experiences in terms of opportunities for learning and contribution.

Power

1.   Your power is limited only by your understanding and observance of natural law and correct principles and by the natural consequences of the principles themselves.

2.   You become a self-aware, knowledgeable, proactive individual, largely unrestricted by the attitudes, behaviors, or actions of others.

3.   Your ability to act reaches far beyond your own resources and encourages highly developed levels of interdependency.

4.   Your decisions and actions are not driven by your current financial or circumstantial limitations.  You experience an interdependent freedom.

Remember that your paradigm (biblical concepts) is the source from which your attitudes and behaviors flow.  A paradigm is like a pair of glasses; it affects the way you see everything in your life.  …As a principle-centered person, you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the options. Looking at the balanced whole–the work needs, the family needs, other needs that may be involved and the possible implications of the various alternative decisions–you’ll try to come up with the best solution, considering all factors.

Writing and Using a Personal Mission Statement

Personal responsibility, or proactivity, is fundamental to the first creation. Returning to the computer metaphor, Habit 1 says, “You are the programmer.” Habit 2, then says, “Write the program.” Until you accept the idea that you are responsible, that you are the programmer, you won’t really invest in writing the program. …As proactive people, we can begin to give expression to what we want to be and to do in our lives.  We can write a personal mission statement, a personal constitution.

Writing or reviewing a mission statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs.

Using Your Whole Brain

Our self-awareness empowers us to examine our own thoughts.  This is particularly helpful in creating a personal mission statement because the two unique human endowments that enable us to practice Habit 2–imagination and conscience–are primarily functions of the right side of the brain.  Two Ways To Tap The Right Brain:  Through the powers of your imagination, you can visualize your own funeral, as we did at the beginning of this chapter.  Write your own eulogy.  Actually write it out.  Be specific.  What would you like your family to say about you.  What would you like your friends to say about you.  What would you like your co-workers to say about you.

Suppose I am a parent who really deeply loves my children.  Suppose I identify that as one of my fundamental values in my personal mission statement.  But suppose, on a daily basis, I have trouble overreacting.  I can use my right brain power of visualization to write an “affirmation” that will help me become more congruent with my deeper values in my daily life.  A good affirmation has five basic ingredients:  it’s personal, it’s positive, it’s present tense, it’s visual, and it’s emotional.  So I might write something like this:  “It is deeply satisfying (emotional) that I (personal) respond (present tense) with wisdom, love, firmness, and self-control (positive) when my children misbehave.”

      Then I can visualize it.  I can spend a few minutes each day and totally relax my mind and body.  I can think about situations in which my children might misbehave. The more clearly and vividly I can imagine the detail, the more deeply I will experience it, the less I will see it as a spectator.  Then I can see her do something very specific which normally makes my heart pound and my temper start to flare.  But instead of seeing my normal response, I can see myself handle the situation with all the love, the power, the self-control I have captured in my affirmation.  I can write the program, write the script, in harmony with my values, with my personal mission statement.  And if I do this, day after day my behavior will change.  Instead of living out of the scripts given to me by my own parents or by society or by genetics or my environment, I will be living out of the script I have written from my own self-selected value system.  …all the world-class athletes and other peak performers are visualizers.  They see it; they feel it; they experience it before they actually do it.  They begin with the end in mind.

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I pray you are inspired to read your Bible to learn more about developing Christ-centered principles. For the sake of time, I will write about Christ-centered principles in the next post.

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All verses are from the English Standard Version. If you find my posts and website helpful, please share this link with your friends and family: hopeforcompletehealing.com. The information is copyright protected. Please do not reproduce any part of the posts or my book without proper citation to Joyce Hanscom and this website. 

My latest book, Unlocking God’s Promises, explains 18 categories of relevant promises to each of our lives. It also includes the promises in Psalm 91.  

If you find this website helpful, you would like to read Breaking Mental Strongholds, which expands on my website book and includes many of my posts. 

Additionally, consider my book Fighting Unseen Battles, which describes the many unhealthy beliefs that control our lives and what the truths are. To learn more about this book, read the post How to Fight Unseen Battles.  

Contact me at hopeforcompletehealing@gmail.com, and ask for a PDF of Eight Life-changing Prayers from the Bible. The prayers are for the Spirit of wisdom, renewal, spiritual strength, knowledge of His will, virtues of God, non-believers, 23rd Psalm, and victory. I will also send you the Lord’s Prayer Model to pray effectively. Please leave your name, so I know you are a real person making the request.

TWELVE WAYS TO ACHIEVE HEALTHY GOALS

Have you ever wondered what people would think about you once you’re gone? Are you tired of never achieving your ideal life? Do you struggle to stay focused on achieving your goals? I have noticed how mentally unhealthy people live a chaotic life, and they go from one crisis to another. Your life may not be that bad, but is it your best? What could you improve? This post will explain how to set and achieve goals and live your healthiest, best life.

A mentally healthy person thinks grateful, productive thoughts. Before my memory healing, I could not control my thoughts because my unhealthy beliefs from hurtful memories controlled my thoughts. I could not have a healthy relationship with anyone. Since healing my memories, I can now take my pitiful, negative thoughts captive and transform them into positive, thankful thoughts. You may think you had a wonderful childhood, and that could be the case, but we live in a sinful, hurting world. No one evades getting a wounded heart. Often, a positive attitude hides the wounds, but they still exist and contribute to mental illness. One goal is to achieve mental health by healing the wounds in your heart.

After leaving my abusive husband, I had a goal to know how a mentally healthy person acts. I knew I was part of the problem and needed to change. But how? Going to counseling, church, Bible Studies, and reading my Bible did not change how I thought; I just felt more guilty. One of the books I read was Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey. In my last two posts, I discussed the first habit: being proactive and taking the initiative. The second habit is cultivating thoughts to achieve a desired outcome.

The first thought discipline of the 12 ways changed the trajectory of my life. I wanted to be seen as a kind person, not an angry one. What would people say about me at my funeral? As I reflected on how people perceive me, I began to make a conscious choice to make emotionally healthy choices. However, I first had to heal the hurtful memories that kept me angry. I explain how I did this in my book, Breaking Mental Strongholds, and in my website book, which is a condensed version.

I consolidated the second habit into twelve disciplines and right beliefs. I highly recommend reading Stephen Covey’s book to learn how I developed these twelve healthy ways of thinking to achieve your best life.

HABIT 2―Begin with the End in Mind

“By keeping that end clearly in mind, you can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day does not violate the criteria you have defined as supremely important, and that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful way to the vision you have of your life as a whole.” Stephen Covey.

  1. I will keep the end of my life clearly in my mind. What do I want others to say at my funeral?
  2. I will make sure my life contributes each day in a meaningful way to the vision of my life.
  3. I will use my unique human capacities of self-awareness, imagination, and conscience to examine old scripts and write new ones.
  4. I will determine if my ladder is leaning against the right wall.
  5. I will live out of my imagination instead of my memory.
  6. I will tie myself to my limitless potential, rather than my limiting past.
  7. I will develop and use a personal mission statement based on sound (Biblical) principles.
  8. I will be principle-centered, not spouse-centered, family-centered, money-centered, work-centered, possession-centered, pleasure-centered, friend-centered, enemy-centered, church-centered, or self-centered. I will be Christ-centered, showing love to everyone.
  9. As a principle-centered person, I will try to separate myself from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that might affect me and evaluate the options.
  10. I will imagine myself practicing my personal mission statement.
  11. I will define goals for each of my roles according to the principles in my mission statement to achieve a balance.
  12. I will develop and use a family mission statement to improve my family and our response to crisis.

Example of a Mission Statement?

A mission is setting goals to achieve something or create a desired outcome. For example, I produced the following personal mission statements and explained how to accomplish them.

My guiding principle is 2 Corinthians 5:10, which states, “For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”  What I do will have eternal value or contribute to it.

My life will reflect the following principles: 2Corinthians 5:14a&15b, which states, “For the love of Christ controls us (me), … those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

  • In my work, I will pray for those I work with and be kind in what I say and do.
  • In my home, I will give preference to my family’s interests and desires; Philippians 2:3-4Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4) Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” 
  • I will encourage my family to love God and to pursue holiness as I show them love and live in peace with them; Ephesians 4:2-3, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
  • In my church family, I will value my brothers and sisters in Christ by acknowledging them, saying a kind word, or doing a kind deed.  I will testify to the power of God’s Word to transform my life and their lives.

I will be heavenly-minded and not worldly-minded.

  • I will seek to support Christian missions in growing the kingdom of God.
  • I will fill my mind with scripture and memorize it so I do not sin: Psalm 119:11, “I have hidden Your Word in my heart, so that I might not sin against You.
  • I will not view worthless things that do not inspire me to do good and love well. (see Ps. 119:37, Ps 101:3).
  • I will do 1Thessalonians 5:16-18 to.

Rejoice always by thinking on the things above—Col. 3:1-3;

pray without ceasing and turn every thought into a prayer;

give thanks in all circumstances and not grumble or complain because I am His workmanshipEphesians 2:10 and Philippians 2:13.

  • I will not seek to fulfill the desires that draw me away from my devotion to God.
  • I will not desire worldly possessions beyond reasonable needs. 

I will make my time count for eternity.

  • To bless others through serving them as Christ did when He was on this earth (Matt. 20:28; Phil 2:3-7).
  • Seek and save the lost (Luke 19:1) by leading people to a saving knowledge of Christ Jesus through my blog, at the County jail, and Good News Clubs. 1John 4:17 states, “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.”
  • Teach Sunday School.
  • Hand out New Testament Bibles and be a good witness of the love of Christ.

I wrote the above mission statement in 1999 after reading about Habit 2. I still live by this mission. I hope and pray you found this post helpful and encouraging.

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All verses are from the English Standard Version. If you find my posts and website helpful, please share this link with your friends and family: hopeforcompletehealing.com. The information is copyright protected. Please do not reproduce any part of the posts or my book without proper citation to Joyce Hanscom and this website. 

My latest book, Unlocking God’s Promises, explains 18 categories of relevant promises to each of our lives. It also includes the promises in Psalm 91.  

If you find this website helpful, you would like to read Breaking Mental Strongholds, which expands on my website book and includes many of my posts. 

Additionally, consider my book Fighting Unseen Battles, which describes the many unhealthy beliefs that control our lives and what the truths are. To learn more about this book, read the post How to Fight Unseen Battles.  

Contact me at hopeforcompletehealing@gmail.com, and ask for a PDF of Eight Life-changing Prayers from the Bible. The prayers are for the Spirit of wisdom, renewal, spiritual strength, knowledge of His will, virtues of God, non-believers, 23rd Psalm, and victory. I will also send you the Lord’s Prayer Model to pray effectively. Please leave your name, so I know you are a real person making the request.