Stop Striving & Start Trusting
Last month I wrote about how to be in an abundant state vs a scarcity state. Then I caught myself a few weeks ago falling into that same trap of scarce thinking. There has been a lot of change this last year and in my life I feel like the change is becoming more amplified. I don’t know if you can relate, but I find myself getting stuck, overwhelmed and sometimes I can’t contain my thoughts. It feels as if my vision is so big I’m constantly trying to catch up to it in reality, on a constant hamster wheel. Then I heard some sound advice. I was listening to my favorite podcast on my way to work when I heard the following: “You’re not a tree. You’re not stuck, move!! Action cures fear.” Obviously I’m fully aware I’m not a tree, but to hear the words “you’re not stuck” absolutely shook me to my core. Dramatic I know. It sent me straight into reflection mode. Why is it that we feel stuck? Why is it that we don’t know the next step? It comes down to this, we’re constantly in strive mode instead of in trust mode.
As I’m writing this, I’m staring directly at a pillow on my couch that says “trust the next chapter because you know the author.”. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I wouldn’t call myself a workaholic because I definitely know how to shut it down and relax. But what I’ve learned about myself is that when I fall into the trap of scarcity thinking, I immediately begin working harder instead of working smarter. My communication starts to come off more frantic and short, verses heart centered. The selfish thoughts creep in and I’m driven by the sale and ego more so than what’s in it for them. I automatically start striving instead of trusting. I can feel myself wanting to control everything instead of going with the flow and I’m a pretty ‘go with the flow’ type of person. Anybody else?
See the crazy thing about fear, scarcity and constant striving mode is that we leave very little room to trust the knower of all knower’s . The more fear we have around money, not hitting our goals, or our next chapters, we create smaller margins of faith. Don’t get it twisted, doing the work still works, but our mindset is what breeds the most success. How many times have we heard of people reaching their goals only to lose it all because they lacked the faith and simple character building principles it took to get there? There has to be a point where we hit the reset button on all things “hustle and grind mode” so that we can increase our faith margin.
Desires are placed in our hearts long before we even realize they’re there. God won’t let us not live out a true desire He has placed there. So why do we try to burn ourselves out and work harder in hopes we will get there faster? Why is it that in seasons of uncertainty and change, we dive into our work headfirst instead of turning to Him for all things clarity, discernment and guidance? It’s time we stop striving in unhealthy ways to achieve goals maybe we aren’t ready to achieve yet. It’s time we stop striving for the next big pay raise without doing the inner work first. It’s also time we stop striving for success for our own selfish reasons when the real reward has been clearly laid out for us and that is how to serve other people.
Let me be clear, we have to do the work. Yes, action cures fear. But if we are constantly working from a place of lack; if we are hustling our way to the top without ever stopping to take a breath and be grateful for the journey, we will miss the point. We will miss why we’re even doing this in the first place. We will miss the true calling on our lives because we were so busy striving for external greatness. I say all of this as a woman with huge vision and impeccable work ethic. This isn’t a blog post to tell you to not reach for your goals. This is a blog post rather to help you reset when you’re working from a place of lack. Next time the fear creeps in and the negativity sends you into a working frenzy, ask yourself, “Am I trusting or am I just striving?”.
XO, Liv