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Your Best Is Yet To Come
Bouncing Back in the Spirit – Why Your Best Is Yet to Come
Alexa Schrim
Plan,
plan, plan, goal-set and make resolutions.
We're told everywhere we turn
to plan, create goals and set resolutions. All of which will help you reach
your final destination, from weight loss to career goals and even
relationships.
Plan to get your life back.
But what if this fails? What if nothing goes as planned?
Planning is an essential part of life. It helps center our mind
and create focus so our actions are intentional and not off-the-cuff.
Yet, all in the same breath, planning also creates expectations.
Expectations that determine
our emotion and our joy. Expectations that can leave us in full celebration or
complete brokenness.
More commonly, unmet expectations leave
us with a sense of brokenness inside that is almost uncontainable.
Hurt, fear, worry, anger and
resentment when our expectations don't go as planned. When life doesn't go our
way and everything seems to crumble beneath us.
Ending
Expectations But Not Dreams
If we're honest with ourselves, goal-setting, resolution-making
and planning are often just great thoughts.
In my own life, I've
experienced this on too many occasions. Spending hours planning, but never following
through with the plan.
Or better yet, setting unrealistic expectations (aka goals) that
never have a possibility of getting met. Last year was a great example.
I was going to conquer the
world. OK, maybe not the world, but I had set some pretty high goals that
weren't necessarily unrealistic. I set an expectation that this was going to be
my year.
I even bought a shirt that said those exact words, "This Is
My Year" (because that makes it official). Yet not two weeks into the new
year, my life began to crumble around me.
It happened slowly at first,
but quickly compounded until I found myself nearly breathless and hopeless, in
a heap on my bathroom floor, sobbing.
From there, I spent too many months in this heap of
hopelessness, questioning my purpose, wondering how and if I would ever move
beyond this point, and seeking but never managing to find joy.
I was broken, shaken and
beaten-down.
My plans were crushed, my to-do list growing but getting me
nowhere. Ultimately, my unmet expectations had ruined my life and what
seemed like my dreams.
Yet there was still light.
The
Answer to Achieving Success
I know I'm not alone in this battle. The battle of fearing unmet
expectations.
Of disappointment when life
doesn't go the way you had planned. When you seem to be getting absolutely
nowhere, drowning in a sea of things gone wrong.
The good news is there is a way. A new direction. An answer to
this madness. A way to finally get your life back.
It starts with self-awareness, which creates belief. With
knowing yourself, knowing the God-given vision for your life and attaching
your true emotion to these things. It means developing belief.
Wait. Hold up. What?
I know this sounds all woo-woo, and you're sure it won't happen,
but this is good stuff. It's called growth and stretching.
Sure, it can be a scary
place. Allowing ourselves to be true, honest and feel emotion can be scary.
Walking into brokenness is
not necessarily a fun place, but it is a healing one. Ultimately, it is the
route to success and abundance.
So stick with me.
This is the best way to
achieve success, whether that be:
o
Reaching your health goals
o
Losing those last 10 pounds
o
Deepening your relationship with your spouse
o
Being present with your kids
o
Balancing your work plus life
o
Saying "no" more
Whatever you've set out to do, the only way you'll achieve
success is by knowing where you want to go.
Not where you think you
should go or where others are telling you to go, but deep down in the pit of
your heart, in your soul, through the Spirit knowing where you're going. Then
you can find success.
It's not found in wishy-washy ideas, thoughts, plans or
resolutions.
Success is found in the
knowing, believing and running through the action created behind the plan.
The action comes through the emotion, and the emotion is
formed through the vision.
Sometimes that means feeling
the emotions of brokenness so you can feel the success of abundance.
To fight through the
insecurities at the gym. To drive a crappy car so you can get out of debt.
To forgive your spouse 100
times over and choose love over being right. To eat well and live well, not for
a number or for happiness but to ultimately restore your health.
This is the emotion, the passion and the belief that creates the
action.
You
must fight to believe the best this year. to live in hope and faith for
what's to come and be expectant that opportunities and change is at your
doorstep.
There
may be fear lurking in your mind, doubt pouring out your soul, and even anxiety
creeping up. But there are changes ahead and they are coming for you. It all
begins in your mind. — Mikaela Kate
The
Beginning Steps
How do we create the emotion that creates the action that
creates the success? By knowing yourself.
Opening your eyes, seeing
beyond what you've thought to get to what you believe.
I've recorded a podcast (along with my friend and mentor Mikaela
Kate) to help you walk through this journey. To get your life back even
when nothing seems to go as planned.
It starts with emotion, with
knowing and feeling where you've come from and creating a vision and an emotion
for where you want to go. This is how you meet your dreams. This is how you
find success.
It's not through good intentions. It's through purposely living.
Doing everything with a purpose.
Listen to the podcast and get my own story, my redemption story,
and the initial steps you can also take to get your life back.
This
guest blog post by Alexa
Schirm was originally posted on Mikaela
Kate's blog. Read the original post
at mikaelakate.com.
Mikaela Kate is a speaker, writer and coach. A graduate of Iowa State
University with a degree in marketing, she discovered her love for strategic
thinking, big pictures ideas, and meeting people where they are at. Get
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It is good to have a course of action and know where we are
going - if we have nothing to aim for, we will miss the mark every time. Careful
planning is thinking ahead about goals and putting into place a course of
action to reach those goals. Life happens in the midst of plans, and that it is
best to hold things lightly and trust God to work everything out for good, even
when events take a different turn to what was had expected - God’s ability to
direct our lives is way beyond our own 
