The other day I was sharing with someone that we just released our first book. The response was, “It’s nice when that happens to you.” My internal thought was, “What? Releasing a book didn’t happen to us. We had to create it.” I think this type of thinking is common. We think that life happens to us. We take a reactionary approach to life, and we aren’t creating our future. Instead we are just accepting our future as it comes.
One of the hardest barriers to living our calling is to become proactive in life. Too often we just take things as they come. And we blame other people and our circumstances when we’re not happy with the way things are going. We just respond and react to external circumstances rather than setting a direction for our life.
First Stage of Leadership
To pursue our calling, we need to live differently. If we aren’t proactive in life, we will end up helping someone else live their calling – and miss out on our own. To pursue our calling, We need to become a leader rather than always following.
One of the attributes of a leader is that we create the future that we envision. Leaders have a road map or a compass heading on life. We know where we are going, and we don’t stop until we get there. This is the first stage of a leader, which is leading ourselves.
Lead Yourself
When I had my heart attack in 2005, it became crystal clear that to make my life matter, I need to initiate. I am the only one who can produce the results that I want for my Life. Living passively results in disappointment and regret.
What about you? Up until now, are you mostly creating your future, or are you letting others and circumstances create a future for you? If not, what would be the most fun, most heartfelt endeavor you could pursue that would give your life meaning?
