How much am I willing to give AND to give up to get what I want and am feeling called to?
Most people are okay with ONLY being comfortable. They want a comfortable job, with a comfortable family… a comfortable paycheck with a comfortable retirement.
Oh, the idea of being rich is wonderful to everyone but is not worth the discomfort involved for most. The idea for more is too scary. We want to do the same things that we do every day and hope that fortune comes to us in a miraculous way. We want to hit the lotto the 1 or hundreds of times that we play. We want our blogs or YouTube channels to build followers and magically turn into money makers. We are willing to do the same things every day and hope that someone notices us. Sometimes though, we are willing to put in a few uncomfortable steps into the process. We pay money for an at-home business that we will put some time and effort into until it takes too much out of our lives or hasn’t become as easy a money maker as it claimed. We pay for our blogs or YouTube channels in order to build our market, consistently create for a while until the followers diminish, or we don’t have as many clicks as we once had and lose motivation.
Every once in a while I ask a new class, “Who do you think is the most successful celebrity?” Many of them say the newest rap or hip hop star that I’ve never heard of so I wouldn’t even begin to try to quote them. Then I offer up one and pause, “Rob Dyrdek.” They sit, shocked a while, before I explain.
Rob Dyrdek may not be the richest celebrity. He looks and acts like a total goofball on TV, but he has used his resources to do many things he loves and is one of the hardest workers out there. The first thing he did was become a professional skater, and how did he do that? He worked harder and longer than everyone to become good and the best at what he loved to do. He started at a young age and determined that he would practice so that he would become the best. It wasn’t an accident. He didn’t rely only on his talent. He didn’t wait around for someone to notice him. He sought recognition and received it because he PROVED that he was good enough over and over again.
The next thing he did was use his money and success to move forward. He didn’t decide that he would be immortal (like Tony Hawk) and skate or compete forever. *pause for a laugh* He didn’t stop what he loved, but he used what he loved to do more. Most athletes and competitors get sponsors and do ads, but most athletes and competitors don’t get their own TV show and especially not multiple shows like Rob has. It is obvious that he has dipped his hands into multiple pieces of the entertainment world and followed through with the doors that opened. Things aren’t easy for anyone. It may seem to the viewers that everything fell into place perfectly because that is what we see on screen. But we don’t see the long hours of planning, preparing, and reacting to constant challenges behind those scenes.
**I would love to interview him one day and find out the truth behind his success-the struggles and the hard work involved.
HOW MUCH AM I WILLING TO GIVE
I find myself at the end of the day EVERY DAY wondering what I did. I woke up with all these plans to read this, write that, do this, and finally complete that which has been on my to-do list for months. But I realize each day that I did a mere percent of what I could have done. Writing this blog once a week is a challenge, but I do feel good when I get it done and know that I can do more. Yes, that is a success but I want to succeed at doing more of what I want to do that will produce something, and less of the things I do that are time-wasters.
- Am I willing to read when I want to take a nap?
- Am I willing to write when the thought pops into my head rather than telling myself “I will later”?
- Am I willing to finish what I have started rather than feeling overwhelmed by how much I have left to do?
- Am I willing to stop making excuses to be as successful as I know I can be?
- Am I willing to give up the mundane to have the opportunity to be a success?
- Am I willing to change my idea of success from comfortable to extreme risk taker?
- Am I willing to stop being afraid of what I may fail at and have courage to face my fears so that I can be who I know I am called to be?
HOW MUCH AM I WILLING TO GIVE UP?
I am a believer, so I know that God has a purpose for my life. He is guiding me and is leading me out of my comfort zone. I am a single mom, so I’m pretty certain that I am not called to be a missionary (at least any time soon, not that it can’t happen to other single moms). I know that God has given me the task to raise up my children in the way that they will go. I also know that He has provided for me more than I could ever imagine or expect. But lately, I feel an urge from Him to do more, to BE more. In the past few months things have happened that point directly to something bigger than I could imagine. I’ve mentioned it in a few other posts, but the stage is being set before me… and it SCARES the crap out of me. I want mundane sometimes. I want comfortable, and what He is calling me to do isn’t mundane or comfortable. It isn’t me getting remarried and having a comfortable life where I depend on my husband for emotional and financial support (which is an awesome gig if you have that). God is calling me further into letting HIM be my emotional and financial support while I walk into a life that will further my education and my perceived abilities.
I’ve asked Him if He wants me in ministry and I hear a pretty clear no, not in the classic way anyways. The need which I see needs to be filled is that the conservative base needs to have a stronger presence in academia, not to necessarily take over, but to rebuild the balance that has been lost.
The nation has become so divided that credibility is lost from both the liberal and conservative sides when we interact or are educated by the other side. We must regain the respect from the ground up. For the popular culture, people who are educated in Christian colleges or schools like it are just doing what they are taught and haven’t experienced the “real world.” For Christians who go to mainstream universities, we are so inundated and ostracized that it is almost impossible to get out alive, so to speak. Simply speaking, my goal is to get through the graduate system “alive” and come out with credibility to create a positive change in the K-12 educational system.
So how much am I going to give up?
- Am I going to give up thinking too far into the future unknown since it scares me from doing what I need to do presently?
- Am I going to give up time-wasting activities to use my time wisely so that I don’t feel like I’ve wasted “yet another day”?
- Am I going to give up making excuses or thinking I can’t because it’s too much?
- Am I going to give up my negative self-talk and trust that I have way more capability than I see in myself?
QUESTIONS
- What do you need to give up to spend more time building your future success?
- What do you need to start doing daily and hourly NOW that you would love to be an expert at in 5-20 years?
- What would you change in the world if you could? What can you do about it?
- What credibility do you need to be perceived as an expert in what you want? How can you achieve that credibility?