How Do I Get More JOY?!

Who is ready to get a little bit better. Me. You. I’m ready to get a little bit better. And I hope you’re ready to get a little bit better. Let’s talk about something everyone wants more of: joy. How do I get more joy in my life? You want more of that? I mean, who doesn’t want more joy in their lives?

You know there are some people when you get around them, you feel their energy and when you walk away, you walk away smiling. I want you to have more joy in your life. I want to have more joy in my life.

I just had an experience this past weekend and it was an event that my church hosted and it was phenomenal. It was mind blowing, supernatural, divine encounters. For those of you that are new to the community, I am a Christian. I love Jesus a whole lot, but I am not a fan of religion. I think that religion is the thief of God’s power, but the relationship with God… That’s what it is all about. A relationship with a God who loves you. I am still processing some of the takeaways and that’s how I came to a lot of these points and I am able to frame it up. So the question is: How do I get More JOY?

Lock into Life Giving Community

You want more joy, who you surround yourself with is who you are going to become. Proximity is power. Your life is going to be a direct reflection of the expectation of your peer group. Get around some people that make you better. And not just make you better, they want you to be better; they want you to thrive and live into abundance. They want you to have everything God designed for you and everything you’ve ever dreamt of. Get around and get locked into a community.

Like I said, about this amazing event. I was hanging out with some powerful guys who came and spoke at this event. And my son, my 13 year old, made this comment to me when we were in the car, just the two of us. He said, Dad, seeing you hang out with those men makes me want to be able to hang out with those men. This event, everywhere I looked I saw old people, young people, middle people. And the person my son most admired was probably 50 years older than him. My son talked about how this man and his wife were his favorite people at this event. It was a very powerful multi-generational, the wisdom of years and the zeal of youth getting in community that just made this all better.

Get around some people if you want joy.

My kids are locked into community, my family is locked into community, my friends are around me. Community can bring you more joy in your life.

Serve People

Find joy in adding value to other people’s lives. You know it is easy to be a good person but there is a power that is released in your life when you are dedicated in service to other people. I just had a really good lunch with a friend. Many of you are business owners yourselves and he had asked me this question, What is it that makes you able? We were talking about coaching and different things and I said something along the lines of If I have four or five hours of coaching, I feel like that is a light day. I mean I have done nine hours of coaching back to back… but he was wondering what makes me able to do that. Because most people think they would be exhausted.

So what makes me able to bring that energy, sustain energy, serve people at a high level for several hours? And that was a great question. My quick response was I really love people. If I didn’t love people, it would be hard to sustain a level of energy to serve them. If you want to bring joy to your life, serve. And if you don’t, maybe you just need to tap into the people you love. Maybe you’re not in the right space and you need to be serving the people that you’re supposed to be serving. Maybe you are not giving your greatness to the world because you aren’t ready to believe it… But, you know I believe there is greatness on the inside of you and you need to give it away, especially if you want more joy in your life.

Get in community and serve people.

Have Faith in Something Bigger than Yourself

Now, I am not trying to do an altar call here, BUT I am a Christian. I love Jesus. I believe Jesus went to the cross and died for the penalty of my sin and brought me back into right relationship with God the Father. I believe God loves me unconditionally just the way I am, not the way I should be. That is what I believe.

And you have got to believe in something, I am kind of a pretty firm believer this is a good path, maybe you should try it out. I understand many people have been hurt by religion. I don’t like religion. People get hurt by religion. I don’t put faith in people. I put my faith in a loving God. Can I just encourage you to maybe consider it? For some of you that might mean taking some steps to explore different paths of faith. I don;t know, for me I didn’t really have to explore a bunch of paths. I just found a path that felt true and right. It also has a whole lot of evidence, centuries of history and results in people’s lives.

God is real. His love is real. His love has changed everything in my life and I have seen it happen for so many people. Watching my kids grow in faith this weekend, experiencing something other than this earthly realm, experiencing supernatural divine encounters… there is nothing more powerful to me than that. When my 11 year old can feel the presence of God and be able to know that he is loved, he doesn’t have to have a bunch of degrees, understanding or memorize the whole Bible. He doesn’t, he just knows the presence of God, the love of God and that is real.

If you want more joy in your life, there’s a God that loves you. There, I said it.

Increase Your Gratitude

I know this isn’t new, this isn’t rocket science, but if you want to increase the level of joy in your life… increase your level of gratitude. Remove complaining, murmuring, negativity, and gossip. If you have all that stuff in your life, there is no possible way you can have sustainable joy.

I am going to share my deep, deep wisdom and thoughts here. If you are complaining, living in negativity, murmuring, gossiping… if those things are constant in your life, there is a surefire way to shift in the right direction. Stop. Just stop it. Make a freaking decision and stop playing the victim and acting powerless. You can choose positivity and how does it start? It starts with gratitude.

ONe of the pastors ministering said there is no problem in your life that seven minutes of praise can’t fix. I had a pretty tough moment with one of my kids today. And to watch her apply the power of praising God that loves her, shifted her off of the circumstances and back into a place of gratitude. Praise is a powerful thing. It works.

People who increase their level of gratitude, practice gratitude are going to have more joy in their lives. Start your day in gratitude with priming. I don’t care what you do, but if you increase your gratitude, you will increase the level of joy!!

Get into community, serve people, have faith and increase your gratitude so you can have more joy. It will literally explode in your life. And it is going to come from the inside out.
I hope you increase the joy in your life. How are you going to live more intentionally this week? I love you people, this is where you should go out there and give your greatness to the world because somebody needs what is on the inside of you. Go out there and give it away!! By the way, it is going to increase your joy!!

Have a great week.