Before the spies were down for the night, the woman came up to them on the roof and said, "I know that God has given you the land. We're all afraid. Everyone in the country feels hopeless. We heard how God dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you left Egypt, and what he did to the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you put under a holy curse and destroyed. We heard it and our hearts sank. We all had the wind knocked out of us. And all because of you, you and God, your God, God of the heavens above and God of the earth below. (Joshua 2:8-11 MSG)
There is a phenomenon in biology known as the winner effect. It describes how an animal such as a bull that has won a few fights against some weak opponents suddenly gets on a roll and becomes more likely to win future fights against stronger opponents. Scientists have found out that when the animal wins a fight, some hormonal changes (increase in testosterone levels) takes place within the animal making it more likely to win again and again. The reverse happens when an animal loses, it can get on a losing streak. Since human's are part biological animals, the same effect is present. Success changes the chemistry of the brain, increasing focus, smartness, confidence and aggressiveness, making it likely that the individual will succeed in successions.
The major takeaway from this biological phenomenon is that little successes breed greater ones. You are more likely to succeed again if you've succeeded before. You can become programmed for success or even get addicted to it. This is the reason why it is usually recommended that you confront your smallest obstacles first and win before taking on the bigger and most intimidating ones. It is also the reason why you should celebrate little successes everyday because they program you for more successes. On the other hand, your previous successes send jitters into upcoming challengers, getting them scared and thus programming them for failure. Fear is failure programming.
We see this effect in our text. Jericho, having heard of the previous successes of Joshua's army had become jittery. They were expecting to lose. Israel on the other hand was on a winning streak. They had confidence. They were sending spies out to infiltrate the enemy's camp while the enemy locked themselves within their walls in fear.
Here's today's lesson. Confront the obstacles on your path from the least to the greatest. For example, if you have several debts, start paying of the smaller ones first. As you eliminate one, you get a psychological boost and if you continue, you will get the snowball effect. When you have a task with several parts very intimidating, start where you can. If you need to write several chapters of a 300-page book, begin with one sentence, the sentence will become a page, one page will become a chapter and one chapter will become several. Bite little chunks and soon you would have bitten a big chunk. Win onetime over a habit, and focus on successive individual victories over it and soon it would lose its power over you. Successive victory starts with one victory and with every victory you become more conditioned for victory and cause jitters in upcoming challenges. Choose to activate the winner effect in your life today. Your destiny demands it.
Decision of the Day
I choose to activate the winner effect in my life today. To use little successes to snowball into greater ones.
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