Strategizing For Your Next Move. What Exactly Are You Looking At?

Last Thanksgiving I had an opportunity to hang out with a phenomenal friend of mine. I remembered just chilling in bed one morning when suddenly it hit me! Her room. It had a number of shelves neatly stacked with books, but there was something quite odd about the arrangements of those books that immediately caught my attention. On one side of the bed, the side facing the wall and the side to which I would automatically move away from when climbing out of bed, were volumes of books and binders on algebra, geometry, calculus, and teaching mathematics. Not an unusual affair since she is a teacher after-all. Interestingly enough, directly on the other side of the bed, the side I was forced to look at everyday while climbing out of bed, were stacks of books on leadership and business development, books on New York City foods and cooks, Indian and Mediterranean foods and Mexican feasts. There were books on baking and making great desserts, baking at home, building a bed and breakfast, events planning, among a host of other books of the same genre.

I met this great friend of mine in college 14 years ago and at the time she was majoring in hospitality management. From as long as we’ve been friends, I have known her to live, breathe and dream food. Her passion is cooking and baking and to one day own and operate a business specializing in cakes and teas and specialty dishes. How did she get into teaching you might ask? As she explained to me, it’s been kind of by default. I suppose the gift of disseminating information runs pretty well in her family, as her sisters are educators as well, but there has never ever been a time in all the years I’ve known her that the dream of operating her own restaurant has wavered. Now, I cannot tell if she strategically placed those books in her room in the order in which she has them, or if it was just a random act, but one thing is certain, there is a powerful dynamic at work in that space where she occupies. Everyday she gets up out of that bed, she stands face to face with one thing; her passion!! It then begs to ask the question, what exactly are you looking at?

Though I never asked her I have wondered, would the zeal and passion I hear in her voice and have heard in her voice since meeting her 13 years ago, still be present if those shelves were stationed the other way around? What if her back was towards what she was designed to do and everyday she was faced only with what she currently does, would she have taken the steps necessary to name her business and have it incorporated? Would she have invested money into pots and pans and all the tools of the trade that are currently stacked in her basement, waiting for that moment to arrive? Would she have started looking for a place to set up shop and would she have continued holding out hope for that one location, watching and patiently waiting after years of being turned down by the seller? If my friend was only looking at the plethora of books on algebra and calculus and geometry, I personally believe the tenacity to hold out this long for her dream, her vision to fully manifest, would have long faded. She would have settled, though miserably, into her default mode. She would have quit when the realtors and seller told her no, and though she enjoys teaching and helping the young minds that have past through her classroom over the last 10 years, her passion, what she was designed to become, would have withered. But because of what she has placed before her eyes everyday, the vision, the preferred future for her life, her position has remained resolute.

Are you faced only with your here and now, things as they have always been? Do you only come face to face with mediocrity or life as you have always known it? Are you constantly facing the shame and the guilt of your past? Are you only face to face with hopelessness and frustration? This experience brought to mind a passages detailed in our Manual for Living, found in Genesis 3:1-6. Here we find a life altering conversation taking place between the first woman created, Eve, and the enemy of our souls, Satan. This moment would mark the fall of humanity and the onset of the chaos and darkness we now live in; far from the original plan of of the Master Designer. God had made Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden with some very clear and specific instructions. They had been given access to everything but were forbidden to eat from this one tree in the midst of the Garden. I can only imagine Adam and Eve walking by that tree everyday, never giving a second thought to it, then one day things changed. Entered Satan who started a conversation with Eve, questioning her and challenging the validity of the instructions given to her by her Master Manufacturer, and going as far as to suggest that God had lied to her and her husband and that He was holding out on them. Suddenly the forbidden thing became so appealing that it altered her vision, subsequently impacted her actions and consequently and forever, changed the course of humanity.

Now I’ve always maintained that the tree and it’s fruits were there all along. Before this moment it was never appealing to the eye, it never seemed good for food, and it certainly wasn’t desired. So what exactly changed? Eve’s focus. At the prompting of the enemy, Eve shifted position and as it were, saw the forbidden tree for the very first time. What she was looking at caused her perspective to shift completely. It drove her to take action, despite the cost. Satan understood the power of vision and focus and the importance of being strategic and intentional. He capitalized on this truth. Here’s a new flash; so do we! Inbuilt in the human spirit is this enormous capacity to envision a thing and pull it out of the realm of the invisible. We have been given the authority to call those things that are not as though they were and see them begin to manifest and come alive. We can only give birth to what we see. God, your Master Designer, saw you in His mind and what exactly it is He wanted you to accomplish, hence your reason for being here. He took what He saw and strategically designed you accordingly, with the gifts and talents and passions and propensities to make His vision for your life a reality. Now you need to do the same as He did and as Eve would have done, had she not been disobedient.

You are where you are right now because of what you have been training your eyes (both externally and internally) to focus on. If you are at a temporary stop, keep it that way!! Do not get comfortable, do not settle for mediocrity, neither give up up nor throw in the towel. Get the vision for your life in order and put it before your face everyday. Write it down, draw it out, record it and listen to it over and over again if you have to, but keep it central!! Always remember this one truth, you will always move in the direction of your most dominant thought. Eve demonstrated that for us so well. Take a cue from her life, but use it instead to build your life and launch yourself into the direction that your Master Manufacturer has designed for you to move. If you’ve got some things you want to see manifested this year, next year, or even 5 years from now, start strategizing for that move and place before you only those things that will pull you and drive you into your expected end, your destiny. And remember, it’s not too late.

Visit the Podcast Series tab or the Podbean Podcast page to access the associate podcast segment entitled: “Strategizing For Your Next Move. What Exactly Are You Looking At?”