3 - Finding Your Way
Rick Osborn | March 19, 2008
If you’ve been following my train of thought throughout my last couple of posts, you should now have a clear image of yourself standing at the helm of your ship, holding that wheel with both hands, ready to steer yourself in the right direction. You are the captain of your ship.
Now, if we’re completely honest with ourselves and use careful introspection (looking deep within), we will all admit that we know, somehow, the difference between right and wrong. I think in our heart of hearts and in the deep recesses of our minds, there is a small voice, whispering the truth to us. The problem is that many of us, on a fairly regular basis, tend to listen to that ever so small voice only when it’s convenient. And some of us don’t even listen to it at all. Unfortunately, this can lead to trouble - you know when we make up our own rules and don’t have any clear, preplanned design for what we should do or where we should be. If you have mounting problems over which you feel like you have no control - this may be exactly what’s been happening to you. Keep reading!
A lack of vision or focus keeps our ship (life) in the fog (confusion), seizes any control that we have over our ship (life) and keeps us meandering through rough seas with no land (solution) in sight.
In other words, if you have no focus or vision, chances are you’re not going to find a way out of your situation. If this is you and you’re ready to move forward, change course and redirect your ship (life), then what you need now is a map - and not just any old map, but the right one.
Before I go any further, I’m going to suggest a couple of things for you to do that will help you focus and find your way:
- Meditate in the morning. Spend some time alone, inside or outside, but in a quiet place, and ask God to give you guidance. I don’t care whether or not you are religious or know how to pray - just trust me on this one. Now is where you need Divine guidance, so ask for it. Meditate on it. Confess your issues, problems, sins, frustrations or whatever you want to call them - to God and ask for guidance. Admitting our weakness and accepting His forgiveness, strength and wisdom is a good thing. It will empower and encourage you to do what needs to be done. And as the saying goes, “if God is for us, then who can be against us.”
- Write every day. I don’t care if you’re a bad speller or if you hate writing or whatever your lame excuse may be, again, this is your life we’re talking about. If you want to get it right, then start writing. You don’t have to write a book or anything - just jot down some things that you’d like to accomplish over the next few weeks. In fact, break it down if you like. Again, this can be a visualization type of exercise. Make a time line if you want. Write down positive things (things that will get your ship moving in the right direction) that you want to achieve today, this week, in a month, by the end of the year, etc. It’s not an exhaustive list, but you need to start seeing yourself as moving out of your current bad circumstance(s) and into the place where you want to be. Furthermore, you need to figure out exactly what it is that you want. A lot of us never move out of our current misery because we don’t know where we want to actually go. This exercise will help you figure that out.
- Rinse and Repeat. Practice the above two things and you’ll start to see some interesting and exciting things start to take place in your life. You’re going to be surprised what you’re going to learn about yourself.
