I am sure you are wondering what the correlation is between success and forgiveness. That’s the same way I felt until I personally got it as well. First let’s try to understand what unforgiveness truly is.
When someone wrongs you, it affects you in 2 ways. First you are bitter against that individual and second you hurt because of what they did. Depending on the value you have placed on what they took away from you, you might find it harder to move away from the wrong.
For example a friend that took your hard earned money and ran away with it. There is a huge chance that you will begin to resent the fellow for eloping with the money you suffered to earn. You are bitter in your heart towards them. You may even feel like hurting them back.
The truth is that resentments and bitterness are high maintenance emotions. It takes a huge portion of your mind to resent another person. This reason is why someone you hate can ruin a special day for you by just showing up. Merriam Webster dictionary defines resentments this way:
- Painful emotions: felt or experienced in a strong and unpleasant way
- Angry and unhappy because of unfair treatment
You may still be wondering the correlation between achieving more and forgiveness. Do you agree with me that it’s torture for you when you have hateful thoughts about someone? The pain is felt deep in the heart. This kind of pain takes a toll even on your productivity capacity. Reducing the impact you can ever make with the limited resources you have.
Someone described unforgiveness as ‘drinking poison and expecting the other person to die’. It’s true that when someone wrongs you it really hurts but when you choose not to let go, you are the one drinking poison. The bitterness and resentments control you.
Successful people are competent people in the area of building and managing relationship well. They are not willing to allow a relationship ruin their day. They are quick to forgive, make excuses for other’s wrong behaviours, they are quick to apologize and move on. Don’t get me wrong here, the point is not to allow people walk over you repeatedly but choosing to be in charge of your own life, not allowing other people’s action tie you down in the sea of unforgiveness.
How do you forgive? Choosing to forgive first of all is choosing to release the person that wronged you. You let go of every feeling of bitterness against such persons. As we approach the end of the first quarter in 2016, I want to remind you that achieving greatness this year will hang on the competence you display in relationship and capacity management. Do you have people that have wronged you? Letting go will do you good. Your health and your life in general will be richer if only you stop drinking the poison of hatred, resentments, bitterness and unforgiveness.
Many people are living lesser than their optimal level because they are using part of their mind to manage the people that offended them in the past. It’s also easier for others to hurt you further when you are hurting-you get easily offended. It takes a lot from you daily to do a mental analysis of those that you will never talk to, the people that are making life difficult for you.
In order to live like an achiever, you must be willing to forgive. Of course based on the magnanimity of some wrongs, you may need help to forgive and I will explain more about the help you can get to forgive.
However, note that when you are rich in love, you are able to forgive easily. When you enjoy real love, from others – your spouse, friends and family. Their love for you will nullify the desire to get back at others for what they do. You must consciously remove people from your enemy list one by one until you are left with only Satan. Removing people from your enemy list is not necessarily turning them into friends. You simply release any bitterness you have against them and move on in close relationship with them or not. In order words, you stop drinking poison hoping they will die.
Help to forgive. If you seem not to be able to forgive easily it’s because you are lacking in love yourself. The greatest love a person can enjoy is that of Christ’s. When you realized that the King of kings died for you, it’s a feeling that cannot be compared with another. He took your place, became everything bad you have ever been and can ever be and He gave you His clean life. Now you are at peace with God for what Christ did.
Wow! You feel really rich when you understand what He did for you. You are rich in love, not lacking at all. In this case you can easily forgive others. You can easily assume they didn’t know what they were doing. You can release the bitterness you have against them and ask God for help so as to heal from the hurt they have inflicted on you. So that each time you think about the situation you don’t feel like hurting them back or getting back at them.
When you are able to forgive you free up your mind to think clearly. You become more productive. You are able to achieve a lot more with your time. You are also able to get the most of every person and opportunity. Start depopulating your enemy list today and start achieving greatness inside and out. Go for success, you were made to thrive!