Are you at a crossroads in life, feeling like your peers are leaping ahead in their lives and careers and businesses, while you seem to be stuck?
Whatever indicator you use to compare yourself with them, you look like the loser — and it hurts.
Your bank balance. The kind of home you live in. The car you drive. The school your child goes to.
What makes it so hard to swallow is that you started off on the same footing.
You went to the same schools. Had access to the same opportunities. You might even have had a bigger head start at school, and appeared to be on track for success.
But somewhere along the way, things changed. They started to make progress, getting promotions, changing jobs, upgrading their homes and cars, elevating their job titles and expanding their influence within their organizations and networks.
You started going backwards.
It was like you had lost your magic touch – if you ever had one.
What do you do when you feel like a failure later in life, at a time when you should be at your peak?
How do you deal with your feelings of shame and humiliation and failure?
Here are three tips for you:
- Get back in touch with your Divine Source.
To me, that is God. To you, it may be something else. Often when we lose our way, it’s because we have become disconnected from the source of our creativity, talent, gifts and strengths. We have lost our purpose, and forgotten who we are – a unique, amazing, imperfect, lovable, worthy creature of infinite potential, with the power to make a real difference in the world. It’s time to focus on what we are called to do and who we are called to be, and to stop being distracted and deceived by the ways of this world. You are so much more than what you have accomplished (or not accomplished). We know this and say this to others; it’s time to apply our advice to ourselves.
Make it your daily practice to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and grace, humbly seek His wisdom and guidance, give thanks in all circumstances, and invite Him to show you the way forward. God is on your side – you are not alone. Ponder with awe on that wonderful truth, and allow yourself to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
- Journal 20 things you can start doing today to create more opportunity for yourself.
Whether it’s money or quality relationships or great health or vitality you want more of, journal ways to invite and attract more of it into your life. What can you do more or less of? What do you need to let go of? Who can you partner with?
The act of writing down what you desire sends a strong wake-up call to your subconscious – “This is important! Pay attention!” and puts you on the path to making it happen. I have often been astonished that goals and intentions I wrote down months ago seemingly fulfilled themselves without my conscious awareness; there were times I had even forgotten that I had written them down.
- Take inspired action towards your written goals.
It doesn’t matter if the action is partial or imperfect, or that you are lacking some information and resources. You can refine as you go. Start where you are right now, even if you feel uncertain and afraid and doubt yourself. Make up your mind that you will do what is necessary to change your life and your results. My experience has been that the moment you make up your mind to press forward No Matter What, that is when your subconscious gets the message that you mean business, and begins to release resources and create connections and attract opportunities that would not otherwise have presented themselves.
But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14