Getting Out of Your Own Way – Part 2 of 6

In order to fully pursue the purpose God has placed on our lives, we are looking at how to avoid self-defeating behaviors.  Each week for six weeks we’re looking at one of the following:

To get out of you own way, you need to remember…

1. …your identity
2. …what you are doing
3. …your purpose
4. …the people
5. …to be strategic
6. …the outcome

This week:

REMEMBER WHAT YOU ARE DOING

While your identity is not wrapped up in the things you do, your purpose is wrapped up in the things you do. It’s where (to use a very old cliché) the rubber meets the road. Every action you take is either moving you towards your purpose or away from it. Not allowing self-defeating behaviors to sidetrack you takes very hard work.

I have previous entries regarding this topic.  The two most noteworthy are at the following links:  It Does Take Work and It Ain’t Easy  and A Change in Perspective or What I Learned from the Evil Baroness and Shirley Valentine

It’s important to establish who you are as separate from what you do.   But realize it is what you are doing (not your personality, good intentions, or strategic planning )that propels you forward into your purpose.

“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”
(C.G. Jung)

Next week:  REMEMBERING YOUR PURPOSE

Getting Out of Your Own Way – Part 1

In order to fully pursue the purpose God has placed on our lives, we are looking at how to avoid self-defeating behaviors.  Each week for six weeks we’re looking at one of the following:

To get out of you own way, you need to remember…
1. …your identity
2. …what you are doing
3. …your purpose
4. …the people
5. …to be strategic
6. …the outcome

This week:

REMEMBER YOUR IDENTITY

Your identity, your value, is neither dependent on the things you do nor on the opinions of other people.  The list of titles you hold or the roles you play do not validate who you are.  Being CEO, or manager, or movie star, or salesperson, or writer, or parent, or spouse is not the measure of your life.   Your finished “To Do” list does not give you meaning.  If you receive position, power, wealth, security, etc. from a person, then a person can take it away.  If you receive it from an event or activity, it will last only as long as that event or activity is deemed important or remembered by others.

Ecclesiastes 2:11

Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.

You are significant because God loves you. He called and you responded.  You cannot earn it by what you do, so you cannot lose it by what you do (or don’t do).  God gives it freely to you and will not take it away.  Mistakes, delays, failures, successes, accomplishments, advances – they do not affect His view of you or His heart for you.  Nothing can change God’s passion for you.

 Romans 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

As you pursue your purpose, you will face many challenges and roadblocks.  Don’t allow them to undermine who you think you are or who you think God is.  It is important to remember that these difficulties have nothing to do with who you are but are about what you are trying to do… which is next week’s topic.

Next week:  REMEMBER WHAT YOU ARE DOING

Getting Out of Your Own Way – Introduction

On Burn Bright’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, I recently asked readers to complete the following sentence: “The biggest obstacle keeping me from truly pursuing my purpose is __________.”

The overwhelming response boiled down to just one word: MYSELF. Whether exhibited as procrastination, lack of focus, perfectionism, or fear (of change, of failure, etc.), this self-defeating behavior is a challenge everyone faces. We undermine ourselves and become paralyzed, unable to move forward.

Can we get unstuck? Yes, we can. And we must. How do we get unstuck? In order to break past our block, we have to change the way we think. Easy to say, hard to do? Yes, but as writer/speaker Denise Vaughan says,

“Moving forward, even if I’m scared, is a better feeling than being stuck – or regressing.”

From my own experiences of self-sabotage (and there have been a few), I have discovered that there are six things to consider, specifically related to pursuing your purpose, that will help you get out of your own way.

It’s a big subject, so over the next six weeks I’ll focus on one step per week, digging into detail about what each one means and how to correct the way we think about it. So bookmark this blog and come back and join the conversation.

To get out of you own way, you need to remember…
1. …your identity
2. …what you are doing
3. …your purpose
4. …the people
5. …to be strategic
6. …the outcome

Next week: REMEMBER YOUR IDENTITY

Self sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about making sure it doesn’t happen.

Alyce P Cornyn-Selby