The Myth of Finding Your Purpose
Most of us realize that change is never linear. There are many ups and downs on the ride to experience so as long as we are heading in the right direction, we know we are on the right path. But still, at times we can feel like failures. If we are trying to lose weight or quit a bad habit and we have a weak moment and fall off our plan, we can suddenly feel defeated and want to quit. We are hard on ourselves during this process when in reality, change is difficult, even when it is good.
But have you ever thought about this for your purpose? How often have we known what we are meant to do or what desires are in our hearts, but we face a setback of life that yet again puts it on the backburner? Or we suddenly have to take a mundane job (even though it is a gift) to feed our family? Or we take a giant risk and try with all of our heart but miserably fail and thus feel that maybe we were wrong about the whole thing and we should never dream again? Sounds drastic, but it's often the reality we tell ourselves.
We tend to expect our calling to just go our way all the time (and swiftly might I add). When God closes a door, maybe he is just asking for a pause because He knows something better is coming. But we take it as we were wrong and should just give up.
Anytime we progress towards a goal and have setbacks we must realize that change (and our purpose) aren’t linear because life isn’t linear (only time is). All of those twists and turns, ups and downs, failures, setbacks, lucky breaks...well, they are all part of what pushes us forward on the right path in the right way and right time.
Ever stop to think that the end wouldn’t be as cherished if it were easy? It’d be more likely we would take it for granted and lose it. None of these notions mean we are failures. They are just lessons and not lessons of punishment because we are naive and undeserving. They are lessons to make us wiser for the next giant step, and the next, and so on.
Much of learning to live with the rises and falls of change is not to tie our worth to outcome (as many of us recovering perfectionists believe). Isn’t it just cruel to put our worth in the things that are mostly out of our control like the outcome? Our real worth is in our character, morale, belief, and actions we take while we live EACH day, not just towards goals or temporary challenges. We are already more than enough. We do not have to prove or move along a perfect path of easy and success to start believing that. See how silly that even sounds to say? So why do we spend time assuming we are not progressing if we experience challenges?
Please start today by giving yourself grace with the ebb and flow of change. Be kind to yourself as you are pursuing your purpose, going through a major life change, or even just living one day prioritizing treating yourself kindly. Know that time is going to continue on its steady path and we only get to choose what we will do with it, in the moment, as we go.
So…
Track a transition in your life that you feel you went through very well. Physically map it out with all the highs and lows on a sheet of paper like a timeline or a graph. Color it if you want, put pictures of you on it if that resonates with you.
Note the feelings on this journey map that arise. How did you feel then? How do you feel now? You will see that this all helped you make it where you are today. You may even see the connection of why a strand of events happened in a particular way.
If you are currently going through an up and downtime, or afraid to start fully living your purpose, look back at this map and how you made it through just fine. Then give yourself grace and enjoy the ride!
