Capable of More Than This
Mar 26, 2019
This is the second installment of the “Don’t Unsettle For Less” series.
WHAT KIND OF GROWN-UP DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU WERE A KID?
For me, Plan A was to be a Pop Star, become famous and show all the mean kids that they were the losers, not me. But I digress.
If that didn’t pan out, I would go into advertising and writing books. That was plan B.
Somehow, over time, I ended up in plan K or some such bizarre letter.
If you’ve read any of my posts before then, it won’t surprise you to know that the reason I fell down the plan-ladder was that I was a gigantic people-pleaser and more than one person told me advertising and writing was dumb. One person added “starve to death” to the narrative which was enough to convince me that my dream was worthless.
*sigh*
I wandered around college in a few different majors, hating every single one, before secretly applying for the advertising program and being accepted. Still, that whole “dumb, starve to death,” thing hung over me, and I ended up in banking, like my Dad. I was miserable in banking and always had this nagging feeling that I should be doing something else.
IN FACT, I’VE FELT UNSETTLED FOR MOST OF MY ADULT LIFE.
Maybe you can relate. It’s like running on a treadmill. You have energy, and you’re ready to run, but you never get anywhere. You’d like to get off, but you don’t know how, and even if you did, where would you go? So you stay on the treadmill, restless. Bored. And fearing that somehow you’ve missed your call in life.
You know there has got to be more than this. You know you are capable of more than this. If only you knew what you were supposed to do. If only God would hit you over the head with a baseball bat and just tell you for crying out loud!
YOU DON’T WANT TO DIE HAVING LIVED A POINTLESS LIFE.
Me, too.
You aren’t alone.
I am excited to share with you, though, that what I didn’t think was possible happened and it can happen for you, too. By the grace of God and a little hard work, I was able to lose the unsettled feeling and replace it with feeling fully confident in my own skin.
ONE THING I KNOW ABOUT YOU AND I, AND OUR VOCATIONAL WANDERLUST IS THAT WE AREN’T QUITTERS. WE KEEP GOING AND TRYING AND EXPERIMENTING BECAUSE WE ARE DETERMINED TO FIND THE THING. THE PURPOSE. THE PASSION.
I know it’s true because you’re still reading this, aren’t you? The great news is that over the last several years I’ve been through some tough stuff and learn some big lessons that helped me go from unsettled to crazy confident (in a non-arrogant sort of way, I hope.)
I CAN TELL YOU WITH CERTAINTY THAT YOU WERE MADE ON PURPOSE, FOR A PURPOSE. GOD IS CLEAR ABOUT THAT. (SEE: BIBLE.)
It’s not that you don’t have a purpose, you just haven’t found it yet. You will.
Friend, your dreams are not dumb. That thing you wanted to be when you were a kid? That’s a clue. You’ve had some sad and broken messages in your life, but I’m going to tell you a secret.
There are a million reasons someone would try to tear you down, but every last one of them is about them. Not you.
NOT. YOU.
I love the line in the movie Batman Begins when Bruce Wayne’s father asks young Bruce, “Why do we fall, son?”
“So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.”
NOTHING YOU’VE BEEN THROUGH, NOTHING YOU’VE DONE, NOTHING YOU’VE EXPERIENCED, AND NOTHING YOU BELIEVED HAS EVER STOPPED YOU FROM GETTING BACK UP. YOU ARE DETERMINED. YOU ARE HOPEFUL. YOU ARE READY.
You may be unsettled, but you aren’t stuck.
In the next post, I’m going to tell you all about why taking the wrong job was the right thing. Surprisingly.
