This week in our Come Follow Me lesson, a talk is recommended by President Henry B. Eyring titled, "Holiness and the Plan of Happiness." I have listened to the talk repeatedly because lines in his message are meaningful to me, and particularly appropriate for my circumstance.

President Eyring states, "Greater happiness comes from greater personal holiness. Greater holiness will not come simply by asking for it, it will come by doing what is needed for God to change us."

I seek for both greater happiness and greater holiness. I understand that to become more holy I need to allow God to change me, and that requires action on my part, not just wishful thoughts. I have been praying for humility and have been repenting daily, and I can feel a cleansing going on, and an opening of my heart. For some reason, this mission has provided me a chance to thoroughly examine myself, and my weaknesses are glaringly evident. I appreciate the thorough cleaning, though this process is hard work and sometimes painful.

President Eyring quoted President Nelson, "The Lord does not expect perfection from us at this point, but He does expect us to become increasingly pure. Daily repentance is the pathway to purity."

To become "increasingly pure" is such a beautiful phrase. This is my character goal--to become increasingly pure as the world becomes more wicked, to become more like the Savior and full of light, and to allow the Lord to refine and polish me. This purifying process will probably happen slowly and incrementally, but I am trying to face in the right direction and take steps to progress.

Clayton Young is a professional runner who will be representing the United States in the Olympics this summer. I listened to him speak in a podcast this week and here are some of his wise words:

"Excellence is the result of boring and repetitive tasks over a long period of time. Excellences really is mundane because it focuses on the process instead of the outcome.  The excellent outcome is often the result of the mundane process, so the more you focus on the mundane process, the more excellent the outcome will be. When the mundane shifts form a checklist in your head to a checklist in your heart, that's when you really start to see a positive outcome."
 

Today I sat through a wonderful Sunday School lesson taught by Sister Wilde. At the conclusion of the lesson, Sister Wilde left us with an encouraging thought.  Nephi was asked by the Lord to do something very difficult--to build a boat. He did it with the Lord's help! We have also faced difficult circumstances in our lives and we have tried to manage them with the help of the Lord. 

Sister Wilde then read this list, a list of possible things we have encountered and dealt with along our life's journey:

--Overcoming habits or addictions

--Changing your lifestyle

--Going through repentance after making serious errors

--Conquering your fears

--Mastering your talents

--Fulfilling a difficult calling

--Consecrating all that you have to God

--Forgiving the unforgivable

--Loving the unlovable

--Raising a righteous family in an unrighteous world

--Enduring crushing disappointment, such as financial setbacks, physical and emotional illness, wayward children, an unhappy marriage, no marriage, fertility problems, or an untimely death.

--Rising from an abusive, oppressive background

--Living chastely in an immoral world

--Being "as I am"

We stand with Nephi in our desire to keep the commandments, rely on the Lord for help, and "go and do" with courage and power.

I really liked a digital-only article in the September Liahona titled, "What If Everything I Did Was Motivated by Love for God?" by Maryssa Dennis. 

Maryssa begins, "I used to think of being Christlike as a hefty list of things I had to do and be.  When I tried to set goals, I'd get overwhelmed thinking about how far I was from where I should be. I felt like I was failing in so many ways I didn't know where to start. I realized that I'd been more focused on "doing" the gospel than becoming like the Savior.  Somehow, with so many distractions, the love got lost along the way.  But wasn't love supposed to be the point?

I decided to set a simple goal: "Do one thing each day to love God, others, and myself."

After just a few days, I was amazed by the difference.  With showing Christlike love as my goal, things that usually felt like a chore became expressions of love for God, others, and myself. I started looking for new opportunities to express love. I felt like I was seeing the world with new eyes, and as I looked for ways to love, I also noticed the love that was all around me every day.  I added a new section to my journal entries: "How I've seen God's love today."

When I felt like I was failing, Jesus Christ's love is what lifted me back up. When I feel the Savior's love, I want to reflect it back into the world.

Advice from Angela Duckworth on perfectionism:

Let me give you some advice based on the following. First of all, I like perfectionism. I think it’s great, because you know what comes out of world-class standards? World-class performance.  I think that’s terrific. But how do you manage it, right?  It also can sometimes be paralyzing, right?

So here’s my very practical advice. I believe in short-cycle perfectionism. Here’s what I mean. So if you’re sitting down to write a paragraph or do something else, I do believe that you should have as high standards as you can and work as hard as you can and be critical, etc., but what I mean by short-cycle perfectionism is that when that cycle is over, whatever you’ve got, you’ve got. You just tried really hard to write the best paragraph you can, but at the end of the day, you have to do something, as opposed to long-cycle perfectionism, which is you just expect it to be perfect over years, and so you’re just never going to be satisfied. I believe in having this perfectionistic mindset in the short term.

As I’m speaking to you, I’m speaking to myself, because this is the advice that I need to hear and to take, but I do believe if you’re doing an assignment, right, or you’re doing a problem set for a professor, or you’re sitting in a lecture, you should say, “Today, I’m going to be as best as I can be, I’m going to have high standards,” but the idea is that the timeframe is manageable, right? I’m going to do as as well as I can do this Thursday night, right, and then you’ll do however you do and Thursday night will be over and then we’ll do Friday, etc. I think for me, if I can keep in mind a short-cycle perfectionism, I can embrace the excellence that I really do care about but also keep going, have the stamina and be happy, which I also want to be. 

https://www.deseret.com/2023/3/10/23629499/advice-from-perfectionist-angela-duckworth-grit

This was a very interesting read because Tiffany is so honest and she shares her personal journey to combat perfectionism.  Here are a few excerpts:

I wasn’t aware at the time, but I was addicted to being busy and my worth was being measured by the amount of items on my checklist, including how well I did them.  There was no room for error, no room for flaw.  It didn’t matter how well I performed or how many activities I was involved in, there was always more to be done, something I could do better, or something I was lacking (pg. 13).

My thinking became skewed and my perspective distorted.  The only way I knew how to handle my failures and insecurities was to work harder and be harder on myself, because perfectionism doesn’t give room for growing.  It expects perfect results, every day, all the time (p. 13).

I had feared stillness my entire life.  I feared that if I stayed put, sat, or took time to rest, that I would fall behind.  As a perfectionist, my mind was never still.  Loud noises, voices, guilt, and stress constantly occupied my mind.  Moving kept me going.  When I was moving, I felt like I was progressing.  Constant movement was also costing me the companionship of the Spirit. Constant movement, physical and mental, was making it harder and harder to feel and hear the Holy Ghost (pg. 53).

The terrifying experience of forced stillness was the greatest blessing I never knew to ask for.  Forced stillness made me stop and listen.  All of a sudden I was teachable.  I was open and available to hear God’s voice. Maybe God allowed these stumbling blocks to happen, because it was the only way I would listen.  Maybe God truly had a better way (pgs. 54,55).

Perfectionism is all about glorifying oneself rather than glorifying God.  When we stay grounded in our worth, when we choose to please God and glorify Him, we no longer need the world to approve of what we do.  We no longer need acceptance from everyone around us. When we focus solely on praising God and glorifying Him, we begin to hear His voice, and that voice overcomes fear (pg. 136).