Welcome to the Mom On Purpose podcast. I'm Lara Johnson and I'm here to teach you how to get out of your funk, be in a better mood, play more with your kids, manage your home better, get your to-do list done and live your life on purpose. With my proven method, this is possible for you, and I'll show you how.
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Hello, welcome to the Mom On Purpose podcast. I am Lara Johnson, and today I'm coming to you from my closet because it's summer and the kids are out of school, and it gets very chaotic at all times of the day. So today I decided to bring you into my closet, one of my most favorite places in my entire house, because it is typically the most quiet at all times, which I love.
So, I've been thinking about decisions and thinking about how decisions play into our purpose, and it's something we talk a lot about in my coaching. I talk about it on this podcast.
The things that I see a lot is that a lot of time, women have this desire to pray which is a fantastic thing and ask God which path to take, and I've seen this in my own life and now I'm seeing it all around me because that is something you know. My brain is always looking for those patterns, and while I believe it's a good thing to ask God, what I have found is a very common thing that happens is that when we're praying about something and we're asking which path to take, we are waiting to take any kind of path until we receive some kind of answer. This oftentimes means a lot of women will stall out in fulfilling their purpose because they're waiting for that answer first. What I believe is that oftentimes, the real growth that we are being asked of is to make a decision first and then go and pray and ask for God's blessing. And if there's something else, you know, that needs to be tweaked in that, or if we need to shift paths at all, then that can happen. But being able to, like, make that decision ahead of time requires us to take full ownership over our lives, and that's scary.
In my mind, it's so much easier to sit back and wait for that answer and maybe easier is not the right word, I think, at least for me, in those times when I've sat back, it was my way of making sure I didn't mess my life up, because if God blessed it then it would work right. And it didn't always work, and oftentimes I just ended up stalling out on things that I actually wanted to do because I wasn't sure if it was quote unquote the right thing to do. So, when I finally, you know, had that shift in my own mind and I, and then I started, you know, had that shift in my own mind and I, and then I started, you know, teaching that shift to my clients. What I saw was that when they took full ownership of their lives, it required them to start like living on a higher playing field, having a greater amount of faith, but it also meant that they had to develop a deeper level of compassion and understanding of themselves, regardless of the outcome, and being able to trust that, if it didn't work out exactly how their mind had decided it would, that they could still believe they were on a good path, moving them forward. And there was some lesson that they were to learn on that, instead of thinking like they were a failure in some way, and they chose the wrong thing.
So, I want to spend just a few minutes talking about, like, how do we make that decision, then ask for God's blessing, how do we take that full ownership over our lives, when it comes to our decisions? So, I have five steps for you that we're going to talk about. I'm going to outline them first and then we'll go back and talk about each of them. The first thing is deciding what you want. The second is deciding how you want to get there. The third is to ask for God's blessing. The fourth is to take failure as a sign of growth and not of a wrong decision. And the fifth is to commit to compassion and kindness towards yourself. So, let's start with the first one deciding what you want.
I think that deciding what we want is significantly easier said than done, and I have found. Also, when a lot of people are praying and asking you know which path they should take, there's usually two things that happen at this point. One there's so many things they want they don't know where to start. Or the second is they're not actually clear what they want and they're hoping that God will just tell them. And when we get to this spot, this takes a lot of, like, self-discovery. We can get to the surface things Like, of course we want, and I don't mean to say surface meaning like to downplay them at all, but we want our kids to be taken care of, we want their needs to be met, we want our family to be happy, we want to have strong relationships. All of those things are very important. You can find those wants very easily, but what about the wants for you and your personal growth and your purpose? Like, diving down just a little bit deeper into what your wants are regarding yourself requires a lot more self-discovery and really taking time to figure that out is where you're going to find significant amounts of growth.
It was important for me to get really clear on what I wanted, and I took years to do this. This isn’t what I mean. For some people it might be an overnight thing. For me I was fine taking as long as I needed because I was okay, like I loved my life and I could still feel that calling and that stirring, and so I was still working towards it. But I never put a timeline on it. So, I want to be clear that you know sometimes I put these in, you know specific steps, but they're not always like do this check, do this check, you know, and you're like moving on like a specific timeline. Sometimes this timeline is really up to you, and it can take years if you want it to, and for me I was okay taking years.
But at one point I remember I had what I called my hobby job. I absolutely loved it. I loved the people I worked with, I loved what I was doing, and sometimes I wondered if I lost money at times because I think I paid more in sitters than I did, than I actually made, even though I mean I it all worked out like I made, more obviously because I was working from home for most of it, so I didn't have child care for the significant part of what I was working, but for me it was a job. And I remember at one point deciding, or I was talking to my boss over me, and he was kind of asking me like what are your plans? And he knew you know my situation and I absolutely love it here. I know this isn't my career, though, and he's like what is your career. What do you want that? And I was like I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. And he's like I get that he was amazing, he was an amazing person and I look back on that and I always knew for me that was something that I wanted. I wanted a career, not just a job. So that was something. You know it took me some time to really figure that out, but then it helped guide me into figuring out what else I wanted.
I also spent a lot of time doing service and volunteer work in the community nonprofits in my church, community and I remember at one point thinking and feeling kind of bad, but I knew I wanted to make money. I knew that making money to me was very important, not just to my personal self-esteem like being able to see something tangible come in based on what I am putting out in the world, but it was also really important to me because of our family circumstances. It required that I did have some childcare as I got busier and the demands of my children became harder, with their specific needs and I knew I would need extra hands and I was paying all of that out of my pocket in order to do service and so it didn't really like financially make sense. So, for me, that was something that was also really important. So, a couple other things you know, as you're thinking about what you want, being able to even think about, like, what is the most important thing. Is it fulfillment? Is it having something flexible? Like? For a long time, which was the thing I wanted was just something that I could do, that was flexible around my family and nap schedules. That was the most important thing. As I moved more into a career, that's where I found I wanted more fulfillment, and I was able to work out the other details. I still do have flexibility, but that wasn't the main thing on my mind.
For some people, it's really deciding if they want to be in an atmosphere where there's co-workers or colleagues or if it's something that they prefer to do solo. Maybe they're more introverted. So, all of these things can add up to really helping you decide what is it that you want. As far as it comes to your purpose and remember, you choose your purpose as much as it chooses you can decide the things that you want and then ask for God's blessing and we'll continue that in just a second. So, the second is deciding how you want to get there. Again, the key word here is what you want. Hey, there are many, many paths to discovering your purpose, to fulfilling that purpose by being able to look at how you want to get there.
I knew for me that the phase that I was at with my children, as much as I want to do formal education, I knew my family couldn't sustain that. The unique situation and challenges that we're faced with between you know, neurodivergencies and my husband's job. At this point in my life, I knew I would not be able to do formal education, even though that is something that I wanted. But I knew that I wanted more education and so that's when I started pursuing more certificate type things that were more condensed and I could do those while working around my family. So that's just an example of getting to where you want. I also knew that I did want a business and I wanted to have colleagues more than I wanted to have coworkers, because I needed to be able to stop and drop whatever. I wanted to have colleagues more than I wanted to have co-workers, because I needed to be able to stop and drop whatever I needed to address the needs of my children when the time came to it. So those were some of the things that like deciding how I was going to get there was. I knew it was going to be a business.
Now I see this for a lot of people. You know when I'm looking like when I'm coaching clients, sometimes it's just getting back into the workforce and deciding how they want to get there is like putting their resume out and then going the traditional route for other people. They decide they want to get somewhere by networking and reaching out to people that they know if that's something they want to do. So really take some time to decide what that path would look like for you, and it's okay if you don't know all the details, but you can kind of get an idea on how you want to pursue something Now. Again, sometimes God tweaks that as we go, but there's still some of that aspect that you know that you want when you really sit down and ask yourself. So that would be the second one.
The third is, once you get those two things clarified, is to go and ask for God's blessing. It's such a cliche phrase but I love it. God can't steer a vehicle. So, the second you put yourself in motion and then ask for God's blessing on it when you're praying for help. Not just is this the right decision, it's more this is what I've chosen. I would love your blessing on this, or this is a piece that I need your help on. Can you help guide me through this? Suddenly, you've put yourself into motion and God will continue to steer you in the direction that that he needs you to go. But it requires you to put yourself in motion first, and that's why you know we have those first two points.
I also want to be really clear that when we get to this spot, yes, god does come and give us those big grand scheme type answers, but so often the day-to-day things that we're working on and you know, like that big decision that you've made, but then you need help on picking up the phone and calling someone for something or reaching out to someone or, you know, writing a post on social media or doing a resume for the first time in years. Those are the little, tiny things that you will see God's hand in more than anything, and I just want to remind you of the scripture ask and ye shall receive. Knock and it shall be open to you. When you ask for God's blessing on whatever it is that you've decided, you've wanted, and you're praying for pieces of help along the way, you will see his hand more. You will see the doors that will be open to you. You will receive so many incredible promptings and I think sometimes when we just sit back and ask for, like, what is the path I should take, sometimes it feels like God isn't answering our prayer. But when you're asking like can you please help me with the wording on this sentence on my resume, suddenly something clicks and it's amazing what is opened up to you. So just be thinking about that as you're moving forward is as you're praying, like pray for specific pieces of help in whatever decisions you've already made as you're working towards your purpose.
The fourth thing is taking failure as a sign of growth and not of a wrong decision. I was under the impression when I was growing up that if things didn't work out, then clearly you made the wrong choice, because if it was the right choice, everything would work in your favor. And you can probably guess how that went for me, because no matter how hard we try, things won't always work out perfectly Right. And for me that was like the hardest thing to understand was that every single time I was failing, it wasn't that I had made the wrong decision or taken the wrong path. It was that there was some lesson, something that I needed to know and to develop in myself first so that I could continue on that path.
Now, when I started my business, this was six years ago, now it was so challenging. You know, you kind of like read the stuff online. You're like okay, so I launched my business and I make money Fantastic. I very drastically oversimplified that and my ability to do that, and it wasn't that I lacked confidence. It's that I lacked knowledge of technology. I lacked comfortability in putting what's in my mind out into the world and I've lacked, you know, some of those things that I didn't think that I would need to go through that process, you know, really trial by fire and I'll tell you like it was really hard.
But I am a completely different person now than I was, you know, five, six years ago, and that is because of those failures. That was God teaching me and strengthening me along the way. It was never that I had made the wrong decision. So anytime you hit those roadblocks, please, please, please, remember that it's not that you've made a wrong decision 95% of the time. It's almost always that there's some area of growth that God sees as a chance or there's some opportunity for growth that God sees for you.
So, the fifth one is committing to compassion and kindness. I think this can be very challenging for every one of us. You know it goes back to like that wrong decision, that failure. It's very easy to beat ourselves up over this, but I want you to and I'm sure you've heard this as if you wouldn't say that to a friend. You can't say it to yourself. I've probably even said it on this podcast, but sometimes that even still feels a little flowery. So, I want to just propose it a little bit different. If God wouldn't talk to you that way, then you don't get to talk to yourself that way. Now that hits home a little bit more, because I know how much love you feel from our father in heaven. I know that when you stop and you look at yourself through his eyes, you feel so much more empowered, you feel a gentleness, you feel much more trust. That's what I want you to tap into.
So, even though you may get sad or disappointed or frustrated or even discouraged, as you're working towards your purpose, the only time you start moving backwards like not towards your purpose, but away from your purpose is when you turn, and you start attacking yourself and shaming yourself.
That is the only time, in my opinion, that you actually move away from your purpose. If you are tapping into the way that God sees you and you are imagining the same words that he would say to you if you were right there in person with him and you use those same words towards yourself, that's where a lot of power comes from. That's where a lot of growth can happen. That's where you accelerate the process of working towards your purpose, the process of working towards your purpose, all the things that you want and desire. That's where, like, the greatest amount of God's blessing you through that process, it requires you to have that compassion and kindness, and that's what will open up your eyes to see that, all along the way, God is in full support of the decisions that you are making. Have a wonderful rest of your day. I will talk to you next week.
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