You must have a direction in which you choose to go. – Oprah
I heard this quote today and was reminded of a very humbling experience. I hired a career coach a couple of years ago, and in our first session, after asking me a number of questions, she told me that I was all over the place and she could see that I wasn’t moving forward because I demanded certainty. After some reflection, I realized she was right.
I have either started or talked about so many different things and swore it was what I wanted to do. As of today, I haven’t done any of them. And it was because I wanted to know that I would succeed in moving forward. Sometimes I had several directions I could choose, but I didn’t choose any of them. I remained in the same place and kept dreaming about them instead while also being frustrated that I hadn’t accomplished any of the things I wanted. What I know today that I didn’t know before encountering my coach is that the desire for certainty is a disease. It spreads and destroys you from the inside if you don’t catch it because it kills your dreams. You’ll never move. I never moved.
What I thought was an almost burdensome abundance of ideas that I didn’t have enough time to develop or enough money to fund turned out to be fear and arrogance. There I was going through life thinking that while everyone else that’s achieved any level of success was required to go through the fire of trying, failing, and getting back up and trying again, I should face no failure. Since that time, I’ve had to tell the truth. I’ve been fearful, arrogant, undisciplined, uncommitted, unfocused, unserious, and downright lazy at times. For the last two months, I’ve been working to develop my mind and strengthen my character and internal resolve. I’m moving now.
I’m no longer embarrassed to say that I still have a lot of work to do. I’m in this season of trying to purge the parts of me that don’t serve me and have actively held me back. I want more for myself, and I’m finally out of my delusions, and I can see much clearer, and I thank The All for that.