MY TWO CENTS:
The idea of diligence popped into my head this morning as I was thinking through the challenging times that everyone faces. Family challenges, work and business challenges, relationship challenges, money challenges, plan challenges, investment market challenges; the list goes on and on!
Merriam-Webster defines diligence as “steady, earnest, and energetic effort: devoted and painstaking work and application to accomplish an undertaking.”
An old proverb says,
“A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.”
We often spend time worried about those challenges of life that we can’t control. How would it look if we were diligent about those things we CAN control? It seems reasonable to me that diligent effort applied will create greater opportunity for our desires to be fully satisfied.
Imagine with me a minute what the outcomes in our lives might be if we applied “steady, earnest, and energetic effort” toward:
- Showing our love, appreciation, and affection for our spouses.
- Engaging with our kids where they are and about things affecting them personally.
- Investing in our grandkids the truth, hope, and joy we see for them.
- Completing that lingering project that’s been hanging over our heads.
- Launching that new endeavor that has excited us but we’ve been too afraid to tackle.
- Adjusting our habits so we can be more healthy, wealthy, and wise.
- Believing that we are confident and capable to achieve exciting things.
There’s a lot we can’t control, and a lot of those things create real and unavoidable challenges. Our diligent effort focused on what we can control not only gives us greater opportunity to achieve, it lifts our perspective in a way that we start to realize we’re only scratching the surface.
So…to what thing are you going to apply steady, earnest, and energetic effort? Where is this next week, or month, or year going to find you exerting devoted and painstaking work and application to accomplish an undertaking?
Make it a great week!
Scott Cousino, CFP®, CEPA®
President