1 Corinthians 9:25 says, “To win the contest, you must deny yourselves many things that would keep you from doing your best.”

When I came across this scripture, it spoke volumes to me about things that keep us from doing our best.  There is a myriad of things that keep us from doing our best or from doing things with excellence.  Take a moment and think about one or two things that may be keeping you from putting forth your best effort.  What can you change about it?  Do you have the power to remove those things?

This verse also tells us that WE must deny them.  It has to be a deliberate choice.  Some of these things are difficult to let go of but are necessary to remove if we want to win.  The verse prior to this one says we should run the race in an effort to win first place.  That takes maximum effort and 100% commitment.

When I was training for the marathon, I had many opportunities to give up.  I had to discipline myself to run in all types of weather and on days when I didn’t feel my best.  But what I realize now is if I hadn’t disciplined my body to run when I didn’t feel like it, I would have given myself permission to not do my best.  We all have opportunity to half do things or find excuses not to finish.  Winning comes when we develop the discipline to stay the course and willingly deny ourselves the pleasure of entertaining distractions and other things that keep us from running the race with excellence.

What is hindering you from giving your best to accomplishing your goals? How can you change that today?

~Coletta Jones Patterson

Coletta is an author, life coach, business executive and weekly blogger.  Connect with Coletta at info@moveu4ward.com.