Be Intentional About Finding Your True Path

A common thread in many conversations I am having these days is the desire for professional freedom and the lack of knowledge of how to get there. I shouldn’t even say professional freedom because the people I’m talking to desire to be free from any profession at all that requires them to be an employee, and to use their gifts and abilities to earn a living and create a life that they can live on their own terms. With so many wanting the same thing, the question is HOW DO WE MAKE IT HAPPEN??? The answer is by being intentional about who you are, or more specifically who you want to be, and also what you want.

Find Your Way OUT of Safety

If you are a part of the “older” generations (like me), you weren’t encouraged to pursue creative freedom and expression. I’m in my 50s and learned growing up that going to college was the path to “success” (if you could) and then finding a good (or at least steady) job that would provide a reliable income. Being intentional applied more to having a job than to having a purposeful job. Our generation stressed security over satisfaction so we did a lot of setting our own dreams aside for the sake of a biweekly salary. The difference with the current generation is the abundance of paths of creative expression that now exists. Tapping into that abundance, however, almost requires a complete rewiring of what you believe is available to you. You have been buried for so long under a limited way of thinking that you have no idea how to find your way back to the part of you that was created for great impact. Like a hiker that gets lost in the wilderness, you’ve found yourself so far off your path that you are spinning in circles lost in the midst of what’s unfamiliar. You have no idea where to start to get back on course. I want to assure you that it’s not too late for you. Every day that you live is an opportunity to find some way to tap into the part of your heart that longs for fulfillment. You were meant to be something special and do something of value that will fill you up and then spill over to whomever is meant to drink from your cup.

To get back to our theme, finding your way to your true path is going to require what? You got it — INTENTION. You have two choices if you were to find yourself lost in the middle of a forest: 1. stay there, perhaps hoping someone will find you, or 2. do the work to get yourself back on the path that will lead you to your original destination. Imagine the fear and sense of panic that would threaten to consume you in that situation. Maybe you start to feel your breathing getting heavier and thoughts of “what if” start to settle in… That fight, flight or freeze instinct is hard to combat but a made-up mind is the first step to overcome what would otherwise swallow you up. So where do you start? By being intentional.

Intentional Steps

First, you must replace the catastrophic thoughts with thoughts of calm and truth. You may feel like your options are limited but let me assure you that we ALL have the ability within us to do, to BE, something great. Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” God created us to do GOOD things! He doesn’t usually give us a step-by-step plan for our entire life but that’s where our work comes in. It’s where the INTENTION comes in to figure it out! What God DID do was to imprint in all of our DNA specific clues that are meant to help us uncover/discover what we were put here to do. Your personality, your interests your natural skills and abilities – your STRENGTHS all point to who you are at your core. Like putting together pieces of a puzzle to create a whole picture, your job is to gather all of the clues that ultimately will create the picture of your life and put them together, shifting and adjusting them along the way, until they fit.

Second, once you have gathered enough clues to get you started, it’s time to take action. I know. That’s a whole different ballgame. It’s one thing to know what to do in a particular situation or scenario. It’s something altogether different to DO it. For me, for example, losing weight means watching what I put into my body and also exercising my body. I’m good with the eating part. I can put together some healthy meals and actually enjoy eating that way. That exercise part, though??? I have countless workout plans and options saved but I’m still working to overcome the utter dislike I have for putting my body through the stress and discomfort of working out. Yeah, I feel great once I’ve done it. It’s the actual working out part of working out that does me in. LOL But I know it’s necessary so it has to be done. And consistently or I’ll never reach my goals. To promote consistency, I have to put things in place that will encourage it. I must fit working out into my schedule, for example, and find exercises that I enjoy enough to do them repeatedly. Maybe I need to find someone to hold me accountable… you get the point. If you are truly trying to become or accomplish or achieve something beyond your current state, you must figure out the plan that will work for you to make it happen.

I want to talk about contingency planning as a final step in your process. After you have determined your intended path, and then put a plan in place to get you from point A to point B, it’s time to put guardrails in place to keep you from going off-track. What happens if something in the plan doesn’t work out the way you hoped or expected? How will you keep yourself motivated if your process (or progress) is slower than anticipated? Intention, to go back to our theme, is going to provide the fuel you need to keep you moving forward. Your commitment to overcome any obstacles or potential unexpected setbacks will get you to your destination regardless of what tries to get in your way.

Intentional Self-Exploration

I talked in the first post in this series about the power of an intentional mindset (click to read). As you’re embarking on your process of self-discovery, you will find your power in every effort that you put forth to find your way back to you. Consider it a snowball effect. You may start out with just a hint of a clue or an idea but with every step you take to develop that idea, it gathers steam and the snowball of your dream grows and grows until it’s a fully developed possibility. That’s what intention does. It gives you momentum and keeps you moving and growing toward the thing that, once you identify it, pulls you forward. To help you get started on your intentional path, I want you to consider the following questions…

1. What as a child could keep your interest for an extended time? I’m not talking about daydreams about dragons; focus on the realistic. Did you like to draw? Were you good at it? Were you good at telling stories? Often the things that you did or were interested are clues into the purest version of you, before life, reality and other expectations got in the way.
2. What do people come to you for? What skills, talents or abilities do others compliment you on or ask you to do for them?
3. What do you enjoy doing most? What’s something that you could get lost doing for hours because you enjoy it so much?

The Intentional Press

The questions above are fairly simple ones but sadly many people can’t answer them. They’ve lived the “had to” life for so long that it’s hard to even imagine an “I get to” life. I’m here to push you toward intention. To remind you that greater things are possible but you have to want them enough to do what it takes to get them. Give yourself the gift of time and opportunity to explore these questions. Like really give them some thought. It’s step number one in your process but it’s what’s going to move you toward your intended path. I want your goal to be to finish the year intentionally. To close with another Scripture, in Philippians 3:14 the Apostle Paul says, “I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” To press means to endure and to persist. I have a visual in my mind of a person facing a wall of resistance. Think of yourself as that person. To push back against the resistance, maybe you need to dig your feet in and lean into whatever is resisting you. Let your intention activate the strength in you that it’s going to take to push back against the attempts to keep you stuck where you are. Because you’ve got places to go and greatness to become.