Edition #012 | IDENTITY | Resilience through Identity | March 10

Pressure does one of two things to a person. It reveals who they already are. Or it convinces them to become someone they are not.

Most people wait for a crisis to figure out how they will react. They let the bad grade, the angry boss, or the sudden failure dictate their mood and their mouth. When you wait for the pressure to arrive to make a choice, the pressure usually wins the negotiation.

There is a better way to handle the fire.

Let’s get into it.

1 REAL DEAL PRINCIPLE, VOICE, VERSE, & CHALLENGE

1 PRINCIPLE

The Pre-Decision

The natural response to a hard moment is panic and reaction. You get hit, so you hit back or you hide. The Pre-Decision is the act of defining exactly who you will be and how you will act long before a stressful moment ever happens. It is a commitment you make in the calm so you can execute it in the chaos. If you wait until you are angry to decide how to speak, you will say the wrong thing.

Picture a firefighter walking into a burning building. They do not stop at the door to debate if they are brave enough to go inside. They decided who they were at the academy months or years ago. The fire is just the test of a decision that was already made. Your life works the exact same way. The pressure is not the problem. The problem is having no pre-decision to fall back on when the pressure arrives.

What pre-decision have you already made about who you are?

1 VERSE

Romans 12:2

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

Transformation is not what happens to you by accident. It is what you decide to build inside yourself before the world tries to shape you into something else.

1 VOICE

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire during war, plague, and deep betrayal. He did not survive those years by reacting emotionally to each new crisis that hit his “desk”. He survived because he spent years writing private journals that trained his mind for exactly those moments.

"You have power over your mind, not outside events."

The pre-decision lives in the discipline you build before the crisis arrives.

1 CHALLENGE

The Pre-Decision Statement

Write this sentence and finish it:

"When things get hard this week, I am the kind of person who _______________."

Do not overthink it. Write what is true about who you want to be. Put it somewhere you will see it tomorrow morning.

That is your pre-decision statement.

If you know a young person who needs this... Sign Them Up & Tell Them You Did!