Blog for Self Improvement

Success is more than economic gains, titles, and degrees. Planning for success is about mapping out all the aspects of your life. Similar to a map, you need to define the following details: origin, destination, vehicle, backpack, landmarks, and route.

Origin:  Who you are

A map has a starting point. Your origin is who you are right now. Most people when asked to introduce themselves would say, “Hi, I’m Jean and I am a 17-year old, senior highschool student.” It does not tell you about who Jean is; it only tells you her present preoccupation. To gain insights about yourself, you need to look closely at your beliefs, values, and principles aside from your economic, professional, cultural, and civil status. Moreover, you can also reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your good and not-so-good traits, skills, knowledge, strengths, and weaknesses. Upon introspection, Jean realized that she was highly motivated, generous, service-oriented, but impatient. Her inclination was in the biological-medical field. Furthermore, she believed that life must serve a purpose, and that wars were destructive to human dignity.

Destination: A vision of who you want to be

“Who do want to be?” this is your vision. Now it is important that you know yourself so that you would have a clearer idea of who you want to be; and the things you want to change whether they are attitudes, habits, or points of view. If you hardly know yourself, then your vision and targets for the future would also be unclear. Your destination should cover all the aspects of your being: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Continuing Jean’s story, after she defined her beliefs, values, and principles in life, she decided that she wanted to have a life dedicated in serving her fellowmen.

Vehicle: Your Mission

A vehicle is the means by which you can reach your destination. It can be analogized to your mission or vocation in life. To a great extent, your mission would depend on what you know about yourself. Bases on Jean’s self-assessment, she decided that she was suited to become a doctor, and that she wanted to become one. Her chosen vocation was a medical doctor. Describing her vision-mission fully: it was to live a life dedicated to serving her fellowmen as a doctor in conflict-areas.

Travel Bag: Your knowledge, skills, and attitude

Food, drinks, medicines, and other travelling necessities are contained in a bag. Applying this concept to your life map, you also bring with you certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These determine your competence and help you in attaining your vision. Given such, there is a need for you to assess what knowledge, skills, and attitudes you have at present and what you need to gain along the way. This two-fold assessment will give you insights on your landmarks or measures of success. Jean realized that she needed to gain professional knowledge and skills on medicine so that she could become a doctor. She knew that she was a bit impatient with people so she realized that this was something she wanted to change.

Landmarks and Route: S.M.A.R.T. objectives

Landmarks confirm if you are on the right track while the route determines the travel time. Thus, in planning out your life, you also need to have landmarks and a route. These landmarks are your measures of success. These measures must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. Thus you cannot set two major landmarks such as earning a master’s degree and a doctorate degree within a period of three years, since the minimum number of years to complete a master’s degree is two years. Going back to Jean as an example, she identified the following landmarks in her life map: completing a bachelor’s degree in biology by the age of 21; completing medicine by the age of 27; earning her specialization in infectious diseases by the age of 30; getting deployed in local public hospitals of their town by the age of 32; and serving as doctor in war-torn areas by the age of 35.

Anticipate Turns, Detours, and Potholes

The purpose of your life map is to minimize hasty and spur-of-the-moment decisions that can make you lose your way. But oftentimes our plans are modified along the way due to some inconveniences, delays, and other situations beyond our control. Like in any path, there are turns, detours, and potholes thus; we must anticipate them and adjust accordingly.

The traditional beliefs about attaining success have left us coveting what others have, measuring our success by material accumulation and possessions, and unclear about the full process of bringing forth our destiny. I suspect that due to the pursuit of success, more believers have ended up depressed, oppressed, and doubting themselves. And what’s even more disturbing is that when the secular world looks into the lives of believers, we are often not experiencing the life and life more abundantly that God promises us.

It is time to break up the myths of motivation and the damage it has done to believers in our process of living out the fullness of God’s vision and calling for your life. If we could sort out the weeds among the truth we have been taught, we can learn to flourish in the life that God created you to live.

Don’t get me wrong, dreaming and motivation have had their place. As a matter of fact, motivation and dreaming are the first step to shifting your reality. It’s just time to evolve to the next level of human achievement – visionary attainment. I actually boldly say that is time to stop dreaming and time to align your life with God’s vision for your life.

The humble beginnings of the age of motivation began in the mid-1800’s with Henry David Thoreau’s radical philosophies of the time and evolved into the genre of personal success literature Charles F. Haanel ushered in in 1912. Napolean Hill then based most of his early works on Haanel’s work The Law of Success. Hill then captured a new level of personal success writing in 1937 with Think and Grow Rich, one of the best-selling books of all time. These philosophers and business men shaped what became known as The Philosophy of Achievement and helped an entire generation begin to create firm and deliberate beliefs out of the loose, haphazard thinking of the time.

Even with this philosophical literature opening up minds to what is possible the energy it needed to make the transition from an intellectual experience to real-life was mission. It needed human energy and passion to ignite. This is where motivation came in. Motivation was the missing key that linked the understanding of achievement to the energy it took to get in motion to move toward achievement. Motivation is having the desire and willingness to do something.

Fifty-eight years later, humankind made the shift from motivation philosophy to motivation. It took Hilary Hinton (Zig Ziglar) to come along and pave the way to an entire new industry of motivational speaking in 1970. Ziglar began the era of people keeping themselves energized and create the positive mindset it took to nurture their dreams. Motivation was a critical component in this evolution and it got us dreaming, which opens the doors to new possibility. Since the onset of the motivation movement, it has become evident that motivation is fleeting. Even the Father of motivation, Zig Ziglar, says, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”

It has taken 37 years to come to a new crossroads. Now that you are all motivated and know how to tap into your positive thinking, the next evolutionary step is to master the process of attainment – actually living the life that you have been taught to dream about. There is something greater than dreaming and even your individual vision and it’s time to usher it in – God’s vision.

But first, we have to uproot the myths that have gotten in the way. The concepts and teachings of the motivation movement have thwarted believer’s ability to bring forth God’s vision for their lives. There are some fundamental spiritual truths that have been omitted from the equation of success that have left believers frustrated and unable to tap into the wealth we so often see being exuded from the pulpits of churches. Our addiction to motivation has led more believers than ever to experience depression, oppression and darkness in their lives.

Let’s take a look at a few of the top myths of success that do not fully align with The Word and uncover some beliefs that you, as a believer may have all learned.

Myth #1: You can do anything you set your mind to. Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
The Truth: You can do anything through Christ who strengthens you and only a shadow of what you can do with Christ on your own. Even when you set your mind to it and adjust your attitude, God has pre-destined and called you for a specific purpose. And once He has allowed you to go through the fire to burn off your impurities and at the right season and time according to your measure of faith, the fullness of His vision for your life will manifest. It is when you apply your renewed, Christ-like mind to your calling that you can achieve all things that God created you to achieve.

Myth #2: Whatever you can conceive and believe, you can achieve. All things are possible for those who believe.
The Truth: While you conceive with you mind, this is only 1/3 of the picture. Not only must you be able to conceive what you desire, your spirit must align with what you deeply desire and your body or actions must fully support it. Even greater than all of these, it must be part of your calling or God’s predestined plan for you. It is God who plants your desire within you and therefore your challenge is to align your will with his will for your life through your thoughts, faith, works or action, calling and most of all, obedience.

Myth #3: If you persist and work hard, you can have anything you want.

The Truth: How many times has this been said from the stage? It is usually accompanied by pictures of large homes, yachts, and exotic cars owned by the speaker and the old adage, “Do what I’ve done and you’ll get what I’ve got.”

It is not by your works, education level or know-how alone that you achieve, God gives you the power to obtain wealth. Scripture reminds us that seeking The Lord first and foremost in your life, you should not want, but walk in the dominion and authority He has bestowed upon you. You are not to covet the material gain of others, but know that your blessings have your name and only your name on them.

Myth #4: Follow your dreams. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, live the life you imagined.

The Truth: If you seek the Kingdom of God first, all things will be added to you. Allowing your dreams to lead you can leave you down the road of someone else’s calling and purpose. Get clear about what God has created you to do, commit to it, and then, and only then, will you have access to all that God has set aside and promised you.

The part the no one talks about is the test phase that is an integral part of the process of attaining God’s vision. You will undergo a major, life-questioning test to prove your worthiness, seriousness, and commitment to step into the things of God. There is a the part of the teachings of the motivational movement that will always live on – keep persisting and don’t quit because there are great rewards in fully giving yourself over to God’s promise of life and life more abundantly.

With All My Heart,

Ericka

By: Ericka Jackson

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Ericka D. Jackson provides individuals, organizations, and churches with the tools to achieve God’s vision for their lives. Visit www.erickajackson.com for insights, techniques and resources to fulfill your calling.