No Envy Allowed – Embrace What Makes You Special

If you’ve read any of my previous posts, I’m sure you know that I believe EVERYONE was born with God given dreams. We are each created with a unique combination of giftings, talents, passion and personality. When properly cultivated we can live a life that honors God, blesses others and gives us personal satisfaction. I’ve encountered many people who believe that following God means the abandonment of all their dreams. And if that dream included being the biggest drug dealer in the United States or a stripper then I would agree because I can assure you God has better dreams than a life of crime or a career that demoralizes women. However, if your dream has the ability to help people live a better life then it’s probably from God. It’s important to recognize that dreams of becoming a doctor, lawyer, musician, rapper, entrepreneur, dancer or teacher can be inspired by the heart of God. God is interested in touching people in every arena and to do that He needs people who love Him and love their jobs to make that happen. For this reason, God puts different dreams in the hearts of different people, but each dream will help fulfill God’s desire to touch humanity. Don’t allow anyone to tell you that your dream isn’t from God, but God.

In Rick Warren’s book, “The Purpose Driven Life” he talks about gift envy and gift projection. Gift envy is when we are jealous of the gifts of another. We wish that we could be like someone else, the same voice, or knack for decorating, but that my friend, is an insult to the creativity of God. According to Psalm 139 we are each fearfully and wonderfully made and God took great care in forming each of us. To prefer another’s giftings over our own is to minimize what God has placed in you. We must remember that there are many gifts, but one Spirit. Each gift matters and has the ability to impact the world in a life changing way. Each person matters to God. Don’t waste time comparing yourself to others. Celebrate who God has made you! Don’t waste your time being envious instead identify and cultivate what God has placed in you to be used to honor Him and impact the world.

Gift projection is the tendency to expect or demand that others are passionate about whatever we are passionate about. I must admit that I’ve been guilty of this on a few occasions especially where my husband is concerned. Have you ever done that? I love to read and to write and I’ve held him hostage quite a few times making him listen to me read something that I considered “life changing.” I’ve FINALLY learned that God wired us differently. We have different interests, passions and abilities. When we use those differences to complement each other then we are left without weaknesses. I don’t have the right to make him passionate about what I’m passionate about. God made us different. The same is true for the Body of Christ and the world at large.  Imagine the world if everyone wanted to be a firefighter, we’d have an abundance of firefighters, but we’d lack in every other area. Who would teach our kids, run our government and feed the hungry? We need to learn to value our gifts and to value the gifts of those around us. We should resist both the urge to be like others and the urge to make others be like us.

I once read a quote that said, “Whenever we choose to live out our full potential, we give those around use permission to do the same.” Can you imagine the problems we could solve if everyone walked in their purpose? Would education be different if every teacher LOVED to teach and taught at the level the best suited his/her personality? If you’ve ever encountered a teacher who loves to teach, you know there’s a big difference in the quality of work he/she does. I’ve had teacher who literally changed my life because of their passion. What if people selected careers based off passion and purpose instead of just for a paycheck? Would there be an increase in productivity and solutions? I believe so because there is great satisfaction in doing what you were born to do.

Here are a few questions to help you gain clarity:

1. What are your gifts and talents?
2. What are you passionate about?
3. Do you believe this passion is from God?
4. How are you using them to impact your world?
5. What steps could you take to make your passion profitable?
6. Who has done what you want to do? Who could serve as a mentor?

Answering these questions is a great place to start, but now you have to act. Where can you start using your gifts immediately? Someone, somewhere is waiting on you! 

Progress or Excuses: The difference between winners & losers

Progress is defined as “onward movement” to a destination. Have you ever noticed that we expect progress from others? If you have kids, you expect to see the way they clean their room or the kitchen improve. We don’t expect to tell them the same things at 16 that we had to tell them at 6. Who wants to wake a 14 year old up to go to be bathroom to avoid an accident? Not one of us. We also demand progress from those around us. We expect our spouses, friends and co-workers to improve. We don’t want to keep talking about the same issue. We expect our places of employment to make progress. Please don’t pay us the same wages as when we started. When people and situations don’t make progress we get frustrated. Have you ever talked to your spouse about telling your kids the same thing repeatedly? Or talked to your “good” girlfriend about how tired you are of dealing with the same situation with your hubby? I bet you have! It’s easy to see when others need to make progress, but do you require progress from yourself?

I attended four parent teacher conferences this week and I noticed that all of the teachers talked about growth and progress. Each teacher explained where my child had started, where he or she was currently and what they were expected to do to make “satisfactory” progress. Throughout our childhood, our parents, teachers and coaches set benchmarks for us. They tell us what’s expected and how to measure if we’re improving, but once we’re out of school and organized sports, how do we continue to measure our progress? Do we even care? Are we content to live year in and year out dealing with the same problems? How do you tell whether you are growing? What is your measuring stick? Are you making "satisfactory" progress?

There’s an old saying, “If you plan to fail, you fail to plan.” I must admit it took me a little time to accept this as a truth for my life. By nature, I’m kind of a fly by the seat of my pants girl…if you know what I mean! So the thought of actually writing down a plan seemed a little restrictive to me. But after being self reflective, I noticed I wasn’t making any substantial progress in certain areas of my life. The more I read about planning and goal setting, the more clearly I could see that my failure to plan was the reason I was stagnant in those areas.

These questions are examples that will help you locate where you are and clarify where you want to go.

1. What do I want my life to look like in 1 year, including health, wealth, relationships and spiritual walk?

 

2. Where am I now in these areas?

3. What will it take for me to get from where I am currently to where I want to be?

 

4. What will I gain if I accomplish these goals?

 

5. What will I lose if I don’t accomplish these goals?

It’s not enough to want progress; we need strategic steps to get there because nothing just happens! Change doesn’t have to take forever, but it must be purposeful. It must be a conscious decision to consistently make quality choices that agree with our goals. Developing a written plan that I revisit often helps me remember why I’m not eating chocolate cake or why I’m not going to the mall with my girlfriends because a compelling why, helps me stay focused and progressing.

If you are ready to move forward then , don’t just think about it…INK it! Put it in writing! 

Without a written vision to guide your daily decision making you’ll struggle to make progress and

Take a Risk Called Faith

About three years ago, I felt a sense of frustration with my life. Even though I had a good life, I couldn’t shake the sense that there was something more that I was called to contribute. It’s not like being a wife, mom and pastor left me with a lot of free time, but in my heart I knew that I wasn’t maximizing my full capacity. The journey wasn’t easy. The first step was admitting that as good as things were, I knew I could be better. The second was leaving the comfort zone of good, to pursue great. I spent two and a half years prayerfully completing personal development exercises. I learned that a lot of times I played it safe, no limit pushing or testing just doing what I thought was expected of me. While safe playing it safe was easy and didn’t create any waves, it was also boring and predictable.

The question that changed my life was “What do people come to you for?” As I reflected over my life, I realized that people had always come to me for encouragement and empowerment. If you thought you couldn’t, I made you believe you could. That’s a gift I got from my grandmother who raised me. She never told me once that I couldn’t accomplish something. She was my biggest cheerleader. She told me every day of my life that I was smart and pretty and I believed her. I was 27 when my grandmother passed and I felt like the air had been taken from my sails, who would tell me that I could do it now? Who would cheer me on? I didn’t realize the impact that her passing had on my ability to live fearlessly. After her death, I learned to play life safe which meant only doing what you knew you could do. Nothing changed until I decided to push myself out of the box.

The journey led to pursuing a master’s degree in sports psychology. Almost every time someone who knew me heard that I was going back to school, they said, “Don’t you have enough to do?” I learned that just because our days are filled with things, doesn’t mean it’s all we should do or are capable of doing. Taking those classes only confirmed by belief that people need more than inspiration to change, they needed "know how." The next step of the journey was life coaching. It happened by accident (I thought). I started posting encouragement on Facebook and my inbox got flooded with questions. I answered them to the best of my ability. Then a lady said, “I’ll pay you to coach me.” WOW! What a minute! There are people who pay for what I do for free. I had heard of life coaches, but didn’t really know what they did. I soon discovered, they did what I had been doing my WHOLE life for free because it never occurred to me that it could be a job. The story on how I learned to get comfortable accepting pay for what came naturally is one I’ll save for another day. After this lady, there were others some paid, some not, but each one I used an opportunity to perfect this gift God gave me.

The ability to work with someone over a period of time to recreate their lives gave me a satisfaction beyond what I could have imagined in a very different sense than being a pastor. As of today I have about 8 clients that I meet weekly with. I’m learning how to build the business, using every opportunity to learn and be more effective. The frustration I felt a few years ago is gone.

I don’t know where you are in your journey…maybe you don’t have clue what you want to do  but you know you’re ready for change or maybe you know exactly what you want to do, but you’ve allowed fear to hold you back. Well allow me to encourage you to take the risk called faith. If you move forward, God has a way of directing you where you need to go.

Oh yea, remember earlier when I said, I wondered who would be my cheerleader after my grandmother passed? I learned how to be my own cheerleader. I had the power the whole time and so do you!