Rule No. 26: THE 24-HOUR RULE
Some moments are meant to be left where they happened. The 24-hour rule invites us to honor the day—and then step out of it.
Hello Dear Reader,
Welcome back to another week in The Playbook—Rules for Life. I pray this week has been gentle with you—or, at the very least, that God has been louder than the noise around you. We didn’t meet last week due to the Thanksgiving holiday, and I pray yours was one of rest and rejuvenation—one where you were surrounded by the people whose love fills the open spaces in your heart.
Admittedly, I never quite know how to feel around Thanksgiving. In my mind, the holiday is framed around family—especially the ones connected to you by blood. And as you know, it’s been almost nine years since I’ve had that immediate family around me. Yet I chuckled when I realized I had written Rule 25 about home-court supporters—the family we choose—just a week earlier. God’s timing never misses.
The reminder was timely because I spent Thanksgiving with some of the oldest members of my community. Huge shoutout to Joshua and Matthew for hosting me in their home, and to Jazzy, Ky, and Jeneé for being part of that circle. We spent the day enjoying good food, playing Guitar Hero, and then diving into card games that fanned the flames of competition. And, of course, we had the obligatory family phone call to their parents back in Trinidad, where Mr. Raymond commented on the length of my beard (typical Caribbean parent behavior).
How has your week been so far? If the past few days have stretched you thin or pulled at places already tender, I pray that what’s ahead brings clarity, rest, and a renewed sense of direction as we count down to Christmas and the end of the year.
The sense of community I mentioned earlier carried into this week as well, and once again, I’m overwhelmed by the ways friends show up for me. There’s an exciting announcement coming from Turning Words Into Windows® next week, and I’m grateful for everyone who has played a part in this new adventure. Still, the past few days have brought a strange mix of momentum and interruption—progress in some areas, delays in others. Moments where I felt like I was running with God’s wind at my back, and others where I sat wondering how I kept missing His mark. A week where one small victory lifted me—and an unexpected setback tried to pull me right back down.
With today’s entry, we’re officially four pieces away from the end of The Playbook. It has been a year of lessons, learning, and living. A year of growth—wild, and now refined into something steadier. In all of it, today’s rule kept returning to me:
Move on from a win or a loss in 24 hours.
The Lesson
There’s a phrase I learned years ago from athletes and coaches: the 24-hour rule. It’s the discipline of absorbing the moment, learning from it, and then moving on.
Whether it’s a win you want to celebrate forever or a loss you want to crawl away from, you only get 24 hours. No more, no less. Because staying too long in either can be dangerous.
As an athlete, that rule served me well—especially because I had a habit of replaying everything from different angles:
What if I passed earlier?
What if I took the shot?
What if… what if… what if?
As I’ve grown, I’ve learned how important it is to contextualize that rule—to know when it applies off the court. But the truth remains: in any arena, a win can become a pedestal, and a loss can become a prison. Both can stop you from moving forward.
You might say, “Daniel, some things you need to sit in and feel deeply—especially losses.” And trust me, I hear you. I feel you. I get it. I’ve done that too for many moons. But here’s what I learned:
You can only replay a situation so many times before the feedback loop stops offering anything new.
After that, the mind simply recycles the same thoughts, intensifying the emotions and deepening the prison. And the opposite is just as true. You can get so caught up in celebrating a win that you turn it into a week-long internal victory parade. The momentum fades. The discipline slows—the fire flickers.
This year, I found myself on both ends of that spectrum. After hitting a milestone one day, I was tempted to stretch the celebration through the week. My work rate slowed, my intensity dimmed, and instead of multiplying the moment into further growth, I stalled. But when something went wrong, I found myself spiraling the other way—replaying the disappointment, questioning everything, and rehearsing the loss like a monologue from my theatre days. At times, I felt like a cat on a hot tin roof, restless and anxious.
We fight battles daily—internal ones and external ones. The internal battles are the most dangerous: self-doubt, anxiety, depression, pride. These are the moments where our thoughts act against us, our hearts betray us, and old habits try to reclaim us. External battles show up everywhere else: the workplace, relationships, and the unpredictable rhythm of life.
In the moments where I’ve sat too long in either victory or defeat, I’ve heard God say:
“You’re staying too long. Keep moving.”
It wasn’t rebuke—it was rescue. Because if you stare at a win too long, you become stagnant. If you stare at a loss too long, you become stuck. The beauty of the 24-hour rule is that it trains your spirit to remain steady; to learn, release, and move with God, not your emotions.
Before we move on, we sit with God in the glow of what was—learning to reflect without getting trapped in yesterday.
The Reflection
As the year winds down, many of us naturally enter spaces of reflection. We look back on how we showed up, what we carried, what we accomplished, and where we fell short. We inventory our wins and losses across every arena.
But remember:
Every win carries the temptation of complacency.
Every loss carries the temptation of self-pity.
Both temptations pull you away from the next step God is calling you toward.
This rule is not about emotional amnesia. It’s about emotional stewardship—holding our experiences without letting them hold us hostage. Most of us don’t struggle because we failed. We struggle because we froze—stuck in moments God has already moved past.
Why do we freeze? The answer is hidden in plain sight:
Wins affirm our worth.
Losses challenge it.
We cling to wins because they make us feel accomplished—like our ideas, our perspectives, we ourselves are validated. We cling to losses because they make us question all of the above. But the spiritual truth this rule reveals is simple and liberating:
Your worth is not in what you win or lose—it’s in Who holds you through both.
If God is writing—and has already written—your story, then neither your victories nor your failures are the final chapter. They are simply paragraphs along the way. And if that’s true, then both celebration and self-critique need limits.
The 24-hour rule isn’t about detachment; it’s about discipline. It’s humility after a win. It’s resilience after a loss. It’s emotional regulation that keeps you aligned with your calling, not your circumstances.
What the Word Says
Scripture teaches this rhythm more often than we realize.
Paul writes:
“Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead…” —Philippians 3:13. Not forgetting as in erasing—but forgetting as in refusing to be held hostage by yesterday.
David writes:
“This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” —Psalm 118:24. A discipline of today, not yesterday or tomorrow.
Jesus Himself warns:
“Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” —Matthew 6:34. If tomorrow carries its own trouble, yesterday carries its own trap. You cannot live in either too long.
In God’s economy, movement is often the miracle.
So when He says “Get up,” we rise.
When He says “Go,” we move.
When He says “Let it go,” we loosen our grip.
He knows best.
The Practice
At some point, reflection has to turn into movement. The 24-hour rule is that first step into the light again.
So, how do we actually live the 24-hour rule? Here are some practical steps.
After a win:
Celebrate it.
Thank God for it.
Write down what worked and what contributed to the success.
Then let the celebration end.
Don’t build houses where God only called you to pitch a tent.
After a loss:
Feel it honestly and completely.
Bring the disappointment to God.
Identify what you need to learn.
Write it down—losses often teach more than wins.
Then release the shame.
Don’t bury yourself under moments God already redeemed. “All things work together for good for them that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.” —Romans 8:28
This week, I challenge you to:
Name a win you’ve been stretching too long.
Honor it, then lay it down. Ask: What comes next?Name a loss you’ve been replaying.
Feel it, then let it go. You’ve held it long enough.Ask God to teach you the difference between reflection and rumination.
One builds you. The other breaks you.Practice the discipline of movement.
Even a small step counts.
You cannot move forward if you’re still kneeling at yesterday’s altar.
So here it is:
Rule No. 26: The 24-Hour Rule.
Move on from a win or loss in 24 hours.
Letting go is not weakness—it’s worship. We release yesterday’s outcomes and reach for the One who still holds tomorrow.
Because your identity is not in your outcomes—it’s in your obedience. And your calling requires a pace that yesterday cannot keep. My prayer is that God gives you the strength to celebrate without getting stuck, the courage to feel without staying frozen, and the wisdom to move with Him into what’s next.
Your story is still unfolding, and yesterday has no power to write a chapter it was never meant to hold.
