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About Dawn
Fields
How to Develop Faith
Audio's
on Faith |
Never Give Up
Has this ever happened to you?
You are finally ready. You are all supped up and excited. Today is the
day! You have decided that you are finally going to do it. You are
EXTREMELY motivated.
What are you motivated about?
It doesn’t matter. It could be anything.
You’ve made up your mind that you are going to get healthy, watch what
you eat and exercise. You can do it. You know you can. You are motivated
and excited. So, you get up early and exercise to start your day off
right. You eat a healthy breakfast and you are off to work.
OK, maybe it’s not a plan to get healthy. Perhaps you’ve decided to
start that business you’ve been thinking about. You are motivated today
to do some research—start on that business plan. You are excited about
the prospect of owning your own business. You’re hyped. You can do this.
Or, perhaps you have decided that you are going to live your life’s
purpose. You already know what you are passionate about. You know your
purpose. Now you are going to make a living, living out your passions.
So, you contact someone who is already doing what you want to do. You
make an appointment to talk to them to get pointers. You are excited.
You’re supped!
But something unexpected happens.
After your healthy lunch, you learn that it’s Bob’s birthday today, and
at 3:00 they are having cake for Bob in the cafeteria. It’s chocolate
cake--your favorite. Well, you say to yourself, one small slice can’t
hurt. I’ll start my diet again tomorrow. But it takes you 4 months
before you start again.
Or maybe you decide to confide all of your hopes and dreams to a friend.
But instead of your friend being excited and happy for you, s/he shoots
down all of your dreams and makes you start doubting yourself. “You
can’t do that!” “How are you going to do that by yourself?” “Who do you
think you are?” “What about your family? Who’s going to take care of
them while you’re off trying to live out some ridiculous dream?” “I
think you’d better give this more thought. Just don’t quit your day
job.”
Sounds familiar?
So, you give up. You quit. You let all the doubts come into your mind
and take over. You start making up excuses as to why you can’t do this
or can’t do that. All of the excuses seem legitimate to you. So, you go
back to living the life you are use to living--the life that makes you
unhappy; the life that keeps you unfulfilled; the life where you never
have enough.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
I heard someone say on the television last night, “People hate living in
Hell. But they stay because they know where all the streets are.”
That pretty much explains it all.
You tell yourself that there is no way you can do it. You would rather
stay on your job, even though you hate it and it stresses you out,
because the economy is bad and you just ought to be thanking God that
you HAVE a job.
You tell yourself that you might as well face it. You are overweight and
will probably be overweight for the rest of your life. It doesn’t matter
because you’re married anyway. Your spouse knows what you look like and
s/he isn’t really complaining.
Or you tell yourself that P. Diddy is ridiculous to have all that money.
He can’t take it with him when he dies. What’s the point? You start
Playa Hatin’ on everyone who is living their life’s purpose and making
money doing it.
You tell yourself all types of reasons and excuses as to why you don’t
or can’t live the life that you’ve always dreamed of living. But the
true reason you won’t make that change is because you’re comfortable
where you are. You already know all the streets. Why move somewhere
where you won’t know who your neighbors may be?
Have you ever gotten lost while driving?
When you first notice that you are lost, don’t you get this really
uncomfortable feeling? You start turning down the radio and telling
everybody in the car to be quiet as if silence will lead you in the
right direction. The longer you are lost, the more uncomfortable you
start to feel. You start noticing that you are sweating. I don’t care
how cold it is outside, once you are completely lost, you WILL start to
sweat.
But, hey, wait a minute…I know that building.
Now you are starting to feel a little more at ease. You start searching
your mind and trying to feel your way back to your comfort zone.
Now the streets are starting to look familiar and you start to relax
again. You turn the radio back on and once again start conversing with
your friends who are in the car with you.
That’s the same feeling you get whenever you are in unfamiliar
surroundings.
I remember last year when my son, Eli, started head start. On the second
day of school, Eli started screaming to the top of his lungs. He had
both of his legs and his arms wrapped around my leg. He wouldn’t let go
of me. The teacher had to come out of the class and pry him off my leg.
She whispered to me, “Go.” As I walked away, without looking back, I
felt like the worse mother in the world. Eli simply wasn’t having it. He
didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be home with Mommy. That is what
he is use to doing. He was familiar with me.
That was in September.
By December when I took him to school, he ran in front of me, excited,
couldn’t wait to get to class. Now it was my turn to be in uncharted
territory. It will be me standing at the door of his classroom, calling
him back because he forgot to give me a kiss. He would quickly run back
and give me a quick kiss and just as quickly run back to his friends—no
trace of the little boy I saw that day, screaming because he didn’t know
the streets that surrounded his classroom. Now, he gets upset when he
can’t go to school.
See, that’s the way it happens. You keep at it. You don’t quit.
Eli didn’t have a choice. I made him go to school. However, it took
about two months before he started feeling familiar with his
surrounding—before he started feeling comfortable with his situation.
Most of us don’t have someone who forces us to live our dreams; stay on
that diet; start that business. So, we quit before it becomes familiar,
before it becomes the norm.
Don’t get it twisted. Things will ALWAYS pop up that can become our
excuse as to why we quit. Somebody on the job will always be celebrating
their birthday with a piece of cake. Somebody close to us will always
try to throw water on our fire. But we will always have choices. You can
chose to let a situation or a person stop you from living your dreams,
or you can make up your mind to NEVER give up.
Never giving up is the secret to success.
When you find yourself at the point where you are going to quit, remind
yourself “with God all things are possible.”
If you start to feel that you don’t have what it takes to do what you
want to do:
STOP!
Squash that thought in its tracks and say to yourself, “with God all
things are possible.”
Believe it.
Feel it.
Live it.
ACTION POINT: Get in your car and drive as far away from Hell as you
possibly can. Drive so far that you no longer know the name of the
streets. Yeah, it will feel a bit uncomfortable and you might even sweat
a little. But, I guarantee you, if you keep the car moving forward and
never head backwards or return to Hell, eventually, you will become as
comfortable in your new situation as you did in your old. You were born
for greatness. Why waste your life?
Dawn Fields is a
motivational speaker, author and coach. She has an amazing way of reaching you
with her down-to-earth style and her ability to make the impossible seem
possible. Sign up for her FREE weekly newsletter by sending a blank email to
mailto:yourlifespurpose-subscribe@topica.com.
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