Hi guys! Welcome to episode 144 of the wildly successful Lifestyle podcast! If you’re loving the episodes, and you have the thought that someone else would love them too, this is your cue that they would, so copy the link and share it, it’s super easy to do, and they can take it from there!
I was having coffee with a friend this last week and she told me something that had been shared with her, she said “God gives us trees not tables and chairs”. I love this thought so much because it applies to everything in our life. We are all given opportunities but we have to turn it into something that is unique to us. We have to take that tree and make a table, one that we like you to take that tree and make a chair. What we do with our opportunity determines our life.
And it is going to be different for each of us. Some people take the tree and make paper. Some take the tree and make a guitar. Is a guitar better than paper we write books on? Is a chair better than a table? No. They’re just different and used in different beautiful ways.
We each have our own unique talents and don’t say you don’t have a unique talent. You do. Maybe you just haven’t found it yet. You have one. It took me a while to discover my unique talent for interior design. And even longer yet to discover my love of writing which turned into my love of podcasting and speaking. Such different paths, I know, but they called and I answered.
We have to start somewhere.
A society we love instant gratification. If things don’t happen instantly..we get discouraged and then we say well it’s not working. But maybe you just haven’t found what does work yet. When I started my podcast it took me literally 3-4 hours a time to get the episode recorded and published, that didn’t include the time it took for me to develop the episode itself. That wasn’t sustainable, but because I didn’t quit and I kept the momentum moving forward, I found a better way which took several times and a friend that is in producing to give me a few tips and off I went. Now it literally takes me about 10 minutes to publish it once I have done the work of writing and recording. When you first start new of course it will be hard because you haven’t done it before. Stay the course. Just keep the momentum moving forward. Your confidence is going to grow.
I have a young friend who is a jewelry maker. She makes jewelry really well. She loves it. She wants to move into finer jewelry and that’s not easy. It’s hard. But it’s her passion and one step at a time and not giving up will see her unique path to whatever form this jewelry passion takes. And it’s not ever going to end. She will have new desires and new opportunities that open up as she gets the momentum of her life headed where she wants it. She has come so far from when she first started, and as long as she keeps that momentum As long as she doesn’t quit, she’ll succeed.
Sometimes we think we are supposed to go through life always happy and never struggling. But, It’s the contrast that makes the good times so good. It’s the struggle that makes us strong. Without it we’d be soft. If everything was easy our whole life, the minute something became hard we would quit because we haven’t conditioned ourselves to do hard things. Doing hard things is where the growth happens, eventually that hard thing will be second nature and you’ll be on to the next hard thing. That’s growth. That’s life. It’s going to be hard then it will be easy then it will be hard but then it will be easy again. The contrast makes life exciting and fun and a little scary sometimes.
It reminds me of a story I’ve heard of A man who found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to squeeze its body through the tiny hole. Then it stopped, as if it couldn’t go further.
So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bits of cocoon. The butterfly emerged easily but it had a swollen body and shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch it, expecting that any minute the wings would enlarge and expand enough to support the body, Neither happened! In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around. It was never able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand: The restricting cocoon and the struggle required by the butterfly to get through the opening was a way of forcing the fluid from the body into the wings so that it would be ready for flight once that was achieved.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. Going through life with no obstacles would make us soft. We wouldn’t be as strong as we could have been and we might not ever fly the way we were meant to.
My friend who is on her jewelry path, if she found instant success and sold 10,000 pieces overnight it would be the end of her business because she doesn’t yet have the systems in place to even build that many. Eventually she will, if that’s where she wants it to go but the struggle she’s having right now is forming her wings, she doesn’t need someone to swoop in and make it easy. She needs the struggle because It’s preparing her to be able to fly and so are your struggles. They’re making you stronger.
Whatever you’re dealing with right now, it’s building character and strength. It’s your journey. This is the path you’re supposed to be on. And if you hear that and you think uh uh that’s not true that you were meant for something else, you were meant for something more than hallelujah yes you are. That’s your inner guidance system showing you how worthy you are and calling you towards the life you’re meant to live. Follow that calling wherever it takes you.
Mark Twain said “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do then by the things you did do so throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sail, explore, dream and discover. “
My challenge to you this week is to sit down and write out with no limits whatsoever what your perfect life would look like. Who would you be? What would you be doing? And who would you be doing it with? You were given this precious life, this wonderful tree of opportunity to carve something beautiful. It’s never too late to start creating the life you know you were meant to live. Be bold and the confidence will follow. I love you guys and I’ll talk to you in a few days.
