Let’s Jump Together
After days and days of giving yourself a bit of time away from screens, you’ve finally heard your authentic voice. Yay! But what you heard just isn’t going to work for you. I mean, it’s a cool idea, but it’s nothing you would ACTUALLY do. Right?
The voice suggested you open a store, write a book, share and sell some of the paintings you’ve been secretly working on, make moves to bring your invention into reality, go back to school, or start a food truck. By the way, my authentic voice would never suggest I start a food truck because she’s seen me in the kitchen. She knows we eat to survive around here. No frills involved.
What the voice is suggesting is absolutely ridiculous. There’s no way you could ever do that, right?
I will tell you that listening to that voice and following the voice’s advice are two incredibly different things. Once you start listening (you should quit teaching), it leads to doing (now let’s start writing for a living), and pretty soon you’ll find yourself pushed out of your comfort zone on a regular basis (now let’s start a blog for the world to see and what the heck, maybe create a couple TikTok videos while we’re at it).
The voice is probably suggesting something that scares the crap out of you. You’re right, there’s a chance that people will laugh or make fun of you. That used to bother me, until I realized those are the people who are absolutely never, ever, ever going to step out of their comfort zone. They’re judging others so loudly that their authentic voice never has a chance to be heard. And that’s okay for them, but not for us.
Your authentic voice is going to keep poking and prodding you until you start to imagine what life might be like if you follow the advice. One day, you’ll wake up and the idea doesn’t seem so crazy anymore. You’ll also become aware that your fear of being made fun of isn’t as great as your desire to follow the thought of what if.
You really gonna ignore that?
I want to caution you, though, about what happens if you decide NOT to follow your authentic voice. I believe my authentic voice is directly connected to God. That voice is simply a push from Him, encouraging me to do what he actually put me on this planet to do. But I’ve often wondered what happens to those ideas you decide to pass on.
Reading my Simple Abundance book this week has confirmed what I suspected. An excerpt:
“Sorry, find someone else.”
And Spirit will.
To be fair, sometimes we don’t literally use those words. Sometimes we say, “Sorry, I just can’t get my act together right now. Come back later.”
So the Great Creator moves on until a willing artist with an open heart offers to become the creative conduit.
What???
If you’re not willing to take on the crazy idea, God may move on to the next person and offer the idea to them. How sad to see your idea out in the world, knowing you had a chance to run with it and decided an evening on the couch scrolling was exactly what you needed instead.
I know I’ve had some nudges that I’ve done nothing about. I’m fairly certain God dropped a couple of ideas for inventions in my lap, but I’ve never acted on them. I like to tell myself it’s because I don’t know how to go about creating them. But I know that’s a copout.
When you decide to follow through on something you’ve been gently pushed to do, it’s amazing how things start to fall into place to help you. You may randomly overhear a conversation while waiting for your morning coffee, or you might see a book title pop up on a commercial that could hold the answers you need.
One last push
I haven’t convinced you yet? Here’s a bit more encouragement from my very well-worn Simple Abundance book. This is a quote from William Hutchinson Murray, the deputy leader of the Scottish Himalayan expedition team that scaled Mount Everest in 1951:
“Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”
I guess if I’m pushing you to follow your authentic voice, then I have to follow mine too. Looks like I have a book to write.