Character Makeover - Introduction

I bought a book this weekend that I would like to discuss here. It is Character Makeover by Katie Brazelton and Shelley Leith.

This book is a 40 day study with a life coach to "create the best you."

Katie Brazelton has been a "Life Purpose Coach" for several years and has written many books. She helps women to discover their purpose in life and create a plan for their life so they leave a legacy. Katie considers herself our "Character Coach" in this book.

"Here are some important things we know up front: God cares more about the character we bring to our life mission than he does about our ministry's strategic plan. He cares more about our Christlike integrity than our kingdom-building productivity. He wants our honesty in all areas of our lives more than our accomplishments for him. In his Holy Book, learning to be holy is the bottom line (1 Peter 1:15-16)." pg.11

Katie has selected eight character traits to discuss in this book: humility, confidence, courage, self-control, patience, contentment, generosity, and perseverance. She chose these traits because they are the exact opposite of what 2 Corinthians 10:4 refers to as strongholds.

"The term strongholds refers to areas where our enemy, Satan, has set up camp and dug in, creating for himself a fortress from which he launches attacks and tries to destroy us. These are the places where we repeatedly experience discouragement, distress, defeat, and damage. These are the monsters that keep us from our God-given dreams." pg. 12

These eight character traits that are discussed in the book are what Katie sees as the "most prevalent strongholds" she sees in women today. Half of the traits are exhibited inwardly and half are exhibited outwardly. They can also fall into five different categories of relationships which effect our life purpose.

Relationship to God

• Humility deals with the inner strongholds of pride, self-centerdness, judgementalism, and worthlessness.

Relationship to Ourselves

• Confidence deals with the inner strongholds of insecurity, poor self-esteem, and perfectionism.
• Courage deals with the outward strongholds of fear, anxiety, and untruthfulness.

Relationship to Others

• Self-control deals with the inner strongholds of impulsiveness, addiction, being undisciplined, being over emotional, and being stress prone.
• Patience deals with the outward strongholds of being intolerant and demanding.

Relationship to Things

• Contentment deals with the inner strongholds of envy, dissatisfaction, and perpetual restlessness.
• Generosity deals with the outward strongholds of greed and an entitlement mentality.

Relationship to the Future

• Perseverance deals with the outward strongholds of quitting, hesitating, avoiding a decision, and not following through.

This book will be quite an adventure for me and I hope for you too.

Tomorrow I will begin out first day of the 40 day study. This week's character quality is humility. Please feel free to join me and read along!