When You Show Up

I’ve got good news for you. After many years of searching, I found that crystal ball I’ve been looking for! It was up in the attic, next to the ab cruncher I forgot about and the mountain bike that I never used. So I dusted it off and peered into the great beyond. I already know what this year is going to be like.

This coming year will be a good year.

Not because of luck or fate. It won’t be due to your amazing skills or all your connections. This year will not rock because of the job market or the booming economy. We have no control over what will happen this coming year, we can only put the work in and hope for the best. The results are up to God.

This year will not magically turn into a good one by the power of positive thinking.

(Maybe now is the time to tell you the bit about the crystal ball, I made it up. There is no such thing. Sorry about that. It’s called poetic license. Google it.)

2025 will be a good year because you will not stop until it is good.

It will be a good year because God is with you and He will give you the power to keep going even when you want to give up.

When it’s cold, you’ll build a fire.

If someone is thirsty, you’ll be ready with a cold one!

When your plans have colossally failed, you will grieve, regroup, and make better ones.

When a relationship tanks, you won’t isolate, you’ll continue to be vulnerable, unapologetically yourself, and give other people room to do the same.

Your workout plan will fail but you won’t despair. You’ll persist and come up with a plan that better fits your life.

This year, you won’t believe the lie that says you can do this alone. You’ll link arms with other people on the same trajectory and help each other achieve your goals.

You won’t live in the wreckage of shame and guilt, you’ll learn from your failures and be a better version of yourself because of it!

Other people will use and abuse their influence in 2025, but you won’t. You’ll lead with integrity and compassion even though it has a gradual payoff versus an overnight success.

You will choose service over fame, humility over self-promotion, and hard work over shortcuts. You’ll do that because you know that who you are is more important than what you achieve.

The truth is, you’ll never accomplish genuinely great things unless you focus on being the best version of you that you are capable of being. But you knew that!

You’ll have an awareness of who you are and what you are designed to do, and THAT will keep you on task.

I love what architect and visionary Norman Foster said about his philosophy for designing a truly great building.

“As an architect, you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.” Norman Foster

I love that! In 2025 you won’t be paralyzed by your past nor will you be confounded by what your future looks like.

You will live in the present, learn from your past, and be informed by a future you would like to see.

Then, when 2026 rolls around, and you look back at 2025, and it was not what you thought it would be, you won’t be distraught or depressed. You’ll be proud of yourself and hold your head high because of who you’ve become. Then…you’ll start making goals for your future self in 2027.

You won’t stop striving, because in the struggle, when you rage against the machine, when you pick yourself up and dust yourself off, you are the best version of yourself.

The truth is, none of us have a crystal ball. We can’t know what this year will be like. All we can do is choose who we will be in the face of those circumstances and how we will react when our plans take a left turn, fail, or have unintended consequences.

This year, choose who you will be and show up.

Because when you show up, and others do the same, the world is a better place!

Happy New Year my friends! Cheers to a great 2025!

Matt

“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

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