Allison Vesterfelt's Blog, page 21

Your Fear is Talking to You (Here’s What It’s Saying)

I used to think my husband was fearless, until he found a spider in the bathroom.

Photo Credit: Theodore Black, Creative Commons

It was early one morning, last year sometime. We were staying with my parents for the holidays, and my husband got out of bed to take a shower. Suddenly, I heard him call from the other room. I jumped out of bed and rushed to where he was.

That’s when I saw it—a big, hairy, long-legged monster of a spider.

Both of us sort of stood there, looking up it intently, unwilling to take our eyes off of it because, of course, that meant we would lose it forever. And in that moment, while we stared at the big hairy spider, I realized a few important things about fear.

First, we’re all scared of something.

For so long, I thought my husband was fearless. He’s so constant and stoic—rarely showing too much emotion in any situation. And something about seeing him experience fear that day helped me realize something important:

Fear is a normal, human emotion.

I know that sounds so elementary, it’s a wonder I ever doubted it, and a wonder I have to spell it out here. But how often do we feel isolated by our fears because we assume we’re the only ones who experience them?

It was actually really helpful for me to see my husband experience fear that day. It made me realize I’m not the only one.

Second, most of the time, our fears are irrational.

This is the other thing I realized about fear as I watched my big, burly, bearded husband stand back and let the spider prevent him from taking a shower. It’s not that I would have done anything differently if I were in his shoes, but it was as if suddenly I realized how ludicrous it was for a giant human to be scared of a tiny spider.

I kept saying, “just smash him with a towel,” and he kept responding, “you just smash him with a towel!”

Both of us refused, and it made me realize how easy it is to justify our own fears while recognizing just how ridiculous the fears of others actually are.

Third, our fears are telling us something.

I’m guessing our fear of spiders has something to do with evolution. I don’t know this for sure, and I’ve done exactly zero research, but I’m guessing that since many spiders are poisonous, humans have learned to be afraid of them over time.

Isn’t that crazy—that fear can be a learned trait?

It makes sense, if you think about it. Many of the things we’re afraid of we’ve never actually experienced before. Broken bones. Plane crashes. Robbery. The house burning down. A few of our fears are learned in our personal lives (heartbreak, for example) but most of our fears are learned fears.

They’re stories passed that have been passed down over time.

Who is teaching you to be afraid? Your parents? The news? Old stories from a former version of yourself?

Why are you listening?

Most often, I would argue, our fears are pointing us in the right direction.

We assume it’s the other way around—that when there is something scary in front of us, we should turn around and walk the other direction. But I think, most often, our fears are saying: this is the right way to go.

I’ll never forget the image of my husband, on mission to take a shower, with the spider standing in his way. To me, this is a powerful image of fear in our lives. So often we feel afraid of something, simply because it’s standing in the path of what we already know we’re supposed to do. If my husband didn’t want or need to take a shower that morning, the spider wouldn’t have been an issue.

If it didn’t matter, he would just turn around and walk the other way.

So the next time you’re afraid of something, cut yourself a break. Consider how fear is a basic human emotion, and how everybody feels fear at one time or another. Remind yourself your fear is probably irrational, and ask yourself what story has taught you to be afraid of this situation.

Then, give thanks for the valuable piece of information: You’re pointed in the right direction.

The post Your Fear is Talking to You (Here’s What It’s Saying) appeared first on Allison Vesterfelt.

Everything Can Change In Just One Year

Have you ever thought about how much can change in just one year? It’s truly amazing to me, when I stop and think about it.

You can have a baby, lose a loved one, write a book, train for a marathon, lose 20 pounds, gain 20 pounds, get married, get divorced, move to a new location, watch the entire Harry Potter series (actually, that probably wouldn’t take the whole year), read the entire Harry Potter series, move across the country… I could go on and on.

By this time next year, you could be a whole new person.

Photo Credit: Daniel Robinson

In one sense, it’s kind of awesome, don’t you think? It makes me consider how the possibilities are endless, the opportunities are unfolding right in front of me, the world is at my fingertips and all the things I dream about are all still possible. It’s not too late. It’s never too late.

On the other hand, it’s a little daunting, you know?

Maybe it’s just me, but the thought that the future is still unfolding right in front of me, that everything I love about my current circumstances could slip right through my fingertips at a moment’s notice, without my permission—that’s terrifying.

But all in all, there is incredible awe and balance and beauty in knowing I don’t have control over everything, but I have control over quite a bit.

As long as I have a plan.

Having a life plan doesn’t mean you control everything that is going to happen to you (this is what I thought for a long time and it prevented me from starting my own life plan). Having a life plan simply means choosing a lens through which to look at your ever-changing circumstances.

It means determining priorities and sticking with them.

Your lens doesn’t change, even when your circumstances do. Your priorities stay the same, even when everything else changes.

And, in this sense, a life plan can be extremely helpful. It can help you combat depression, stave off anxiety, overcome addiction, achieve something incredible, stay strong in circumstances that are outside of your control, and find meaning in pain or suffering.

If you don’t have a lens like this, you need one.

This February, I’m speaking at an event called Storyline, which is a gathering dedicated to helping people create this kind of plan for their life. I’ve been to this event twice before, and each time I’ve walked away feeling re-energized, with new passion and understanding for where I’m headed.

If you are looking for a change in 2014, I can’t recommend this conference enough.

Photo Credit: Daniel Robinson

Here are the reasons I think you come to SanDiego for Storyline.

Because it’s February and San Diego. Duh.
Because I’m going to be there! I would love if you would come hear me speak, and say hello.
Because it’s pay-what-you-want. You choose the price of your ticket, depending on what you can afford.
Because if you’re looking to discover a meaningful life, there’s no better time than now.

I don’t get anything for inviting you to this conference, other than the satisfaction of knowing your life can be shifted and changed by the content in the same way mine has. I really hope you’ll consider it.

After all, so much can change in a year. Everything can change, in fact.

Who will you be in 2014?

The post Everything Can Change In Just One Year appeared first on Allison Vesterfelt.

Setting Yourself Up for an Amazing New Year

You never know how much stuff you have until you put it all in a box.

I say this (and write it) all the time, but it’s true. Most of us feel we’re packing pretty lightly, that our life doesn’t include a ton of excess, that we don’t own too much or buy too much or eat too much or socialize too much or criticize ourselves too much — until we see our life from an objective perspective.

Once we start pulling things out of the closet, once we begin organizing the drawers, once we try to pack it all into a cardboard box — that’s when we realize just how cluttered our life really is.

What we really need to do is take an inventory.

Photo Credit: Amodiovalerio Verde , Creative Commons

If you’re like most people, this is the time of year when you start thinking about what you want next year to look like. You may have considered some New Year’s Resolutions, or you may be boycotting resolutions. Either way, I’m guessing you’ve spent at least a little time thinking about how you want 2014 to look differently from 2013.

The problem is, most of us spend a good portion of time thinking about what we want to add to our lives without first considered what already exists in them.

I thought about this recently while I was reflecting on the last year of my life.

The thought came to me accidentally, to tell you the truth. I was scrolling through my phone, looking at pictures, when all of a sudden I realized: the last 12 months of my life has been so full.

So much had happened, I realized. So much has changed.

I’ve published a book, moved to Nashville, been to Europe on vacation with my husband. I’ve made new friends, traveled through a dozen states (at least), turned 30 years old, raised $30,000 (with your help) to build a classroom in Uganda, spent time with family, visited Guatemala with Food for the Hungry, run a 10k, and watched people I love have babies and get married.

It’s been a full year; and I don’t say that to brag.

I say that because, my guess is, your year has been really full, too.

Something incredible happens when you just spend a little time taking inventory. You realize how much you had in the first place.

You never realize how much you have until you put it in a box.

There are a few reasons taking inventory is so valuable as we try to move forward into our next year.

First, we realize how “rich” we really are.

When I go through my closet to clear out old clothes, I realize the complaint that I have “nothing to wear” is really unfounded. I have so much to wear, I forget I have most of it.

The same is true for events and achievements in life. Next time you catch yourself thinking the last year of your life has been a waste, go through your Instagram profile. In the place we tend to record our most proud moments, chances are you’ll find memories of the most lovely, wonderful things that have happened to you in the past 12 months.

We are all more blessed than we realize. Our lives are really full.

Second, an honest inventory points to our priorities.

When I spend time to determine where I’ve invested my time, money and energy, I discover what matters to me most. Not what I say matters, but what really matters. I might not like what I find there, but if I’m willing to be honest about it, the information can be incredibly valuable.

Am I spending my time, energy or money on things that really matter?

Is there a disconnect between what I say matters to me; and what really does?

When we take an honest inventory of our lives, we’re able to see how we want to move ahead differently in the future. For example, in my own honest inventory, I realize I spent way too much time, energy and stress over my e-mail inbox. What a waste. I’m not going to do that again next year.

What would it look like for you to take an honest inventory of your last 12 months?

The post Setting Yourself Up for an Amazing New Year appeared first on Allison Vesterfelt.

Weekend Reading

photo: Vinoth Chandar, Creative Commons

Each weekend I love to leave you with a list of the best things I have read on the Internet because, well, sometimes, you just need something great to read. I’m so excited to share these articles with you, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

If you read something great this week, leave me a note in the comments. And mostly, enjoy your weekend. Do something awesome!

An Interview About Justice & Healing | Becca Stevens (via Ken Wytsma)

I’m over-the-moon for Becca Stevens and the work she’s done with Thistle Farms in Nashville. My favorite part of this interview is this: “I learned awhile back to quit trying to differentiate between success and failure.” Take a look at what she has to say about justice and healing; and get ready to feel loads of respect and admiration.

Our Dangerous Obsession With External Recognition | Daniel Gulati

This conversation is nuanced, but I like that someone from my generation is talking about the dangerous consequences of narcissism. I don’t think this problem is unique to millennials, or to those who use social media, but I think it’s important to consider how an obsession with our “image” is impacting our lives.

The Single Most Powerful Question You Can Ask | Donald Miller

If you’re feeling bored or stuck in your life, this is a question that can get you jump-started. In fact, I’m starting to see how this is a question I should learn to ask continually, no matter what phase of life I’m in. This is the question that keeps us moving forward.

7 Stressful things to Start Ignoring | Marc and Angel

I spent so much of my life plagued by stress, but in all the time, I don’t think I realized these seven things were the culprit of the stress. If you have too much stress in your life, consider the source of stress might be different than you think. Is it one of these seven things?

Dear Writers, This is Not A Blog Post | Nasreen Fynewever

In the past few weeks I’ve been going through old blog archives and, as I’ve read words I wrote years ago, I can’t help but wonder why I posted some of the things I posted. That’s why I like Nasreen’s reminder: not everything is blog-worthy. If you’re a writer or storyteller of any kind, I hope this doesn’t defeat you. I hope it helps you think about how and why you tell stories in the first place.

The post Weekend Reading appeared first on Allison Vesterfelt.

Why You Shouldn’t Wait to Chase Your Dream

I don’t know what it is you dream of doing — quitting your full-time job, serving overseas, starting your own business, working for a particular non-profit, having a family, getting married, or something else entirely.

Photo Credit: Alejandro Mallea, Creative Commons

Dreams vary from person to person, but as I’ve talked to hundreds of people about their live and their dreams, I’ve found one thing doesn’t change.

We all have the same excuses.

It’s true. No matter the age, life stage, circumstances or practical realities of each individual I talk to, the reasons they’re waiting to go after what they really want are all the same—time, money and people. “I’m really busy, and don’t know where I would find the time to do something like that,” “I don’t have $10,000 laying around,” and “My wife/parents/sister/friends/kids would kill me!”

Time, money and people. These are the three basic obstacles getting in the way of our dreams.

The most interesting part about this to me — aside from the fact that I completely identify with these obstacles and wrestle with them everyday — is that, no matter how much time, money or freedom we gain in our lives, going after the life we dream about never seems to get any easier.

By that I mean, a sixteen year old who is accountable to her parents, who’s only responsibility is school, and who’s only source of income is the $10 she receives in allowance each week; and a 40-year-old high-powered executive who gets paid six figures a year and can’t remember the last time he had to ask his parents for permission — both have the same reason for waiting to chase their dream.

Time.

Money.

People.

Isn’t that strange to you?

Their circumstances are dramatically different, but the obstacles are still the same.

To me, this says a few things.

First, there will never be a better time to chase your dream.

If you’re in college, now is the best time in the whole world to chase your dream. You’ll never have more personal autonomy, more freedom, more opportunity at your fingertips.

Don’t wait. Please, don’t wait. You’ll regret it.

If you’re out of college, and married, now is the perfect time to chase your dream. Think about it. Before, you were alone. Now, you have someone to support you and give you feedback and be your biggest cheerleader. You have someone on your team.

Your spouse will be a tremendous asset to you as you chase your dreams.

If you have kids, there is no better time than now to chase your dreams. If they’re young, awesome. They’re still teachable. In fact, you might just bring them along for the ride. Think of what they’ll learn and experience watching mom and dad abandon everything to create a life of meaning.

So what if you can’t buy them fancy Christmas presents? Create experiences for them instead.

Second, this observation makes me realize how insignificant these obstacles actually are.

I’m not trying to trivialize our frustrations, so don’t hear that. But hear this: If a 16-year-old, with $10 a week as an allowance; and a 40 year old, with $200,000/year both complain of having no money; is there a chance it’s not the money that’s the problem?

Is there a chance it’s our perspective of money that is stopping us?

Here are two vastly different circumstances, both with the same perceived problem. Is it possible the “problem” isn’t as much of a problem as we thought it was?

Could it be in our heads?

The point is this: Don’t wait. Don’t wait to chase your dreams.

Don’t wait for obstacles to go away which don’t actually exist.

Don’t wait for it to get easier, or to make more sense. It won’t get easier. It will never make sense.

And don’t keep waiting for more money, more time, or more approval for others. Ask yourself where your money and time are going— if they’re spent on things that are valuable—and consider why you care so much about what others think in the first place.

The post Why You Shouldn’t Wait to Chase Your Dream appeared first on Allison Vesterfelt.

Should I Quit My 9 to 5 Job?

It’s no secret that, three years ago, I quit my regular, full-time, 9-5 job to chase my dream of becoming a writer. I was feeling restless and chaotic at the time, a little trapped and bored, and wondered if there was something better “out there”. Besides, I had wanted to be a writer my whole life.

So I pulled the plug.

Photo Credit: Naim Naim, Creative Commons

It was going to be great, I decided. I had visions of myself tucked away in a coffee shop somewhere, gripping a steaming cup of something, committing words to paper as they spontaneously burst into my head. In the movie that played in my head, I was always smiling and sort of looking up toward heaven. It was so nice.

But that dream never came true.

Instead, what I experienced when I quit working for someone else, and began working for myself, was mostly the same stuff: Stress, confusion, chaos, apathy, frustration, even boredom at times.

Except now I was broke. Like really, really broke.

I blew through my savings in the first year, and was living paycheck-to-paycheck after that. There were moments when I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay rent or buy groceries.

After the second year, I had liquidated nearly everything valuable I owned (except my computer, which I needed to keep writing) and, as if that wasn’t enough, I was working double the hours I had been working when I had a normal job. There were a ton of reasons for this, most of which involved my own naivete and error.

But the point is this: Quitting my job didn’t solve my problems.

Lately, things are going much better for me — financially and otherwise. Again, there are a million reasons for this, none of which I have space to explain here.

But it occurred to me the other day that, although I am now successfully self-employed, I have a 9-5.

I wake up early in the morning, make coffee, and get started working about the same time as everyone else. I take a break for lunch, right around noon. Sometimes work into the evenings, or on Saturdays (because I like the work I do) but I usually lay pretty low on the weekends. I even “pay” myself a salary from a savings account at the beginning of each month.

I don’t expect you to care about how often I work, or how I pay myself, but the point is this:

There’s nothing wrong with a 9-5.

There’s so much talk of quitting your job these days, people who know my story often ask me this question: “Should I quit my 9-5?” Up until recently, I’ve had a hard time answering them. I say things like, “Well, it’s not for the faint of heart,” or “It’s not as glamorous as it seems,” or “it won’t solve your problems.”

And those things are all true.

But more recently I realized something I hadn’t thought of before. The problem isn’t our jobs. The problem is the lack of purpose and meaning we feel in our lives.

This is an important realization, because this means two things.

First, it means you might not need to quit your job. You might find your 9-5 to be extremely meaningful and purposeful. You might be wake up everyday excited to go to work and be a part of a team of people who are making an impact on the world.

If that’s the case, count your blessings. You’re among the few.

But, if you hate your job, consider that it might not be about the job itself. By that I mean, perhaps you’ve been showing up for your job everyday for the past weeks, months or years, simply because it pays the rent or buys the groceries. Maybe you are being dutiful and obedient to take care of your family (which is a purpose unto itself).

Or maybe you just want a new car. I don’t know.

What I do know is that, if you haven’t considered the greater impact your work has on you and your community, your job will feel miserable.

If that’s you, ask yourself this question: Why does my job matter? If I stopped doing it, what would happen?

I believe it is possible to find purpose and meaning, no matter what you do. Sometimes we need a change of circumstance, but often what we need is simply a change of perspective.

Meaning takes work to find. But finding it could make all the difference in the world.

The post Should I Quit My 9 to 5 Job? appeared first on Allison Vesterfelt.

The Friend You’ll Have to Ditch to Chase Your Dreams

During the past few weeks it has occurred to me: I have a friend I have to ditch if I’m ever going to truly enjoy my life and become who I was made to be.

Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks, Creative Commons

It’s hard, because I’m not a big fan of ditching friends. I’m a loyal person by nature, and try to do everything I can to build bridges and keep relationships, even when they’re hard. If anything, I lean too far in the direction of sacrificing my personal boundaries in order to maintain connections.

But I can’t do that with this friend.

This friend is preventing me from living in my strengths, talking me out of doing things I want to do, blowing my weaknesses out of proportion, pushing shame on me for past mistakes, using scare tactics to prevent me from future mistakes, and just generally ruining my life. She’s a real jerk. And you know what?

You have this friend, too.

And you need to ditch him or her.

This friend has been in my life for longer than any other friend I’ve had. She goes with me just about everywhere I go. She’s clingy, needy and won’t leave me alone. Sometimes I tell her to go away, but she just keeps showing up. She’s there in the morning right when I wake up, and there in the evening when I’m falling asleep.

And she has an opinion about everything.

I’m not joking. Everything.

Right now, while I’m writing this blog post, she’s whispering in my ear: “This is stupid. Nobody is going to read it. You might as well just trash it and start over.”

In fact, pretty much anytime I try to do anything constructive or thoughtful or important, she comes up with a reason why it won’t work, or why no one will care. She tries to get me to focus on poor motives, or past failures or tries to convince me I should be pointing my efforts elsewhere.

She’s impossible to please.

You’ve probably guessed by now who I’m talking about: It’s me.

It was just this week, as I was driving down the highway (I missed my exit, and my inner-critic began to talk to me in that tone of hers) that I realized: If I had a friend who treated me the way I treat myself, I would ditch her. Seriously. She would be out the door so fast. She’s awful.

So why do I stay friends with that person inside my head? Why haven’t I un-friended my inner-critic?

I have the ability to turn it off, don’t I?

Start paying attention to this friend in your life.

I’m certain you have one. He or she probably hangs around all the time, but gets particularly vocal when you’re tired or out-of-your-element. Pay attention when a well-meaning real-life friend gives you constructive criticism because your inner-critic will likely twist it and distort it until it feels like an insult.

When you step out to do something new or exciting, tune in: your inner critic is up to bat, ready to talk you out of it.

“This will never work,” he or she will tell you.

“This always happens to you.”

“See, you’re here again. Figures. What else did you expect?


“I told you so.”

This friendship has to end. Now.

I wonder how much happier and more peaceful our lives would be if we told this awful friend to take a hike. I wonder what would happen if we took the Golden Rule and applied it to ourselves (treated ourselves as we would want to be treated, rather than how we believe we deserve to be treated).

I wonder if there might be more growth, more productivity, more of us come to life…

The post The Friend You’ll Have to Ditch to Chase Your Dreams appeared first on Allison Vesterfelt.

Weekend Reading

Each weekend I love to leave you with a list of the best things I have read on the Internet because, well, sometimes, you just need something great to read. I’m so excited to share these articles with you, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

If you read something great this week, leave me a note in the comments. And mostly, enjoy your weekend. Do something awesome!

1. Millennial Searchers | Emily Esfahani Smith & Jennifer L. Aaaker (via The New York Times)

The age old debate about Millennials being selfish and narcissistic continues, but I like this spin this article takes. If we seek meaning over happiness, regardless of what year we were born, we’ll all find much more satisfaction in life. Not surprisingly, times of economic recession like we’re experiencing now can actually inspire such a shift. Fascinating.

2. The Case Against Buying Christmas Presents | Leo Babuta (via Zen Habits)

I’m not anti-Christmas presents, I promise. But neither is Leo Babuta, the author of this article. And as someone who has never exchanged Christmas presents with her husband, I resonated with the sentiment of this article. If you’re interested in the concept of a lighter, simpler Christmas, this post is packed with helpful information and answers to common questions.

3. How to Create (and Let Go Of) Meaningful Christmas Traditions | Addie Zierman

Not only do I love Addie’s warm, personal style, this post also hit home for me. I, too, am in a period of transition where I’m trying to determine what Christmas is going to look like moving forward; and I, too, have a tendency to lean toward perfectionism and guilt (which ruins the fun). What if, like Addie Christmas doesn’t depend on me?

4. Comfort Doesn’t Create Champions | Jon Acuff

When we lean into comfort, we become complacent and stagnant. When we lean into fear and pain, we grow. This is true no matter our age or stage of life. Comfort doesn’t create champions.

5. This is How Ordinary People Change The World | Justin Zoradi (via Storyline Blog)

Do you feel like you are a tiny, irrelevant blip on the map of your life? Do you feel like it is impossible for you to make a difference — let alone change the world? What if the key to changing the world is right at your fingertips, right under your nose? Justin suggests it is. Check out what he says.

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One Reason You Feel Discouraged or Depressed

For me, discouragement comes in seasons. I’ll be doing great for awhile, waking up every morning excited to do what I do, feeling energized and alive. Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere (or so it seems) a cloud of discouragement seeps in.

Suddenly, I’m dragging myself out of bed. Everything feels harder than it needs to be. I try to talk myself out of it, or just “get over it,” but nothing seems to work.

The other day I had an epiphany about one reason this may happen.

I was on the treadmill at the time, which is somewhat normal for me. I’ve been a runner for a few years now, and for as long as I’ve been doing it I’ve loved the sense of freedom and energy running brings. I know it isn’t like this for everyone, but stick with me. You don’t have to be a runner for this to make sense.

Running on a treadmill is the worst kind of running.

Like I said, you don’t have to be a seasoned runner, or even have a vivid imagination to see how this could be the case. Just use basic common sense. When you’re running outside, you get to explore new locations, see new sights, and cover incredible ground. There’s a sense of wonder and accomplishment that comes along with that.

When you’re running on a treadmill, on the other hand, you stare at the same thing the entire time (usually the controls, wishing time would pass faster). Although you do run a certain distance, when you finish, you end up in the exact same place you started.

You literally feel like you went nowhere.

Of course, a treadmill fulfills a certain purpose (exercise) but the sense that you aren’t making any progress is a mental obstacle so huge it’s no wonder it’s difficult to overcome.

I wonder if this is why life get’s discouraging — we feel like we’re going nowhere.

Sometimes life feels a little like a treadmill, don’t you think? If we aren’t careful to consider where we’re going, and why we’re going there, it can just feel like we’re putting one foot in front of the other in this irritating, repetitive motion (make money, pay bills, make food, do dishes) just to end up the exact same place we started.

It can seem like we’re struggling just to keep up with this conveyor-belt called life. It can feel like the only reason we keep moving is because, if we stop, we’ll fall flat on our face.

No wonder we feel discouraged.

What if we just reminded ourselves of where we’re going?

This happened to me the other day in real life (not on a treadmill). I was feeling a little discouraged in my marriage, honestly. Nothing terrible had happened. But I was just feeling a little bit down. I was feeling like we were working hard, but going nowhere.

So I asked, “What are we doing with our marriage?”

It was a weird question to ask, truthfully, and at first, he looked at me a little funny. He asked me what I meant, and I so I clarified: “What is our marriage for? Besides being happy. What do you hope our marriage does?”

What followed was one of the best conversations we’ve ever had, and one of the richest, happiest, more fulfilling few weeks of our marriage.

It made me wonder if this is one way to cure discouragement and depression in other areas of our lives.

Obviously, discouragement and depression are complicated animals, and don’t only have one root cause. I’m not trying to oversimplify them. But I wonder what would happen if we started asking questions of purpose and direction about our marriages, our parenting, our careers, our spending habits, our faith, and our friendships.

What if we asked:

Why am I going to school? What do I hope comes from this?
Who am I investing in? Why? What do I hope comes from it?
Where are we headed with raising our kids? What do we hope we accomplish?
What is my job for? Why do I go everyday?
What is our marriage about? What do I hope it does?

I wonder how these simple questions could help refocus our energy, and even lift the fog of discouragement and depression.

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Everybody Has to Quit Something

All of us are chasing something. The problem is, most of us just don’t know what it is.

This was me for the first twenty-five years of my life, working hard, following the “rules” of adult life I thought I was supposed to follow — go to school, get a job, buy a house, get married — but never stopping to think about what I was after. I was chasing money, stability and success without even realizing I was chasing them.

When I brought the decision into my conscious mind, I realized why I was so frustrated and burnt out all the time. I didn’t want to chase those things. They weren’t worth it to me. They weren’t what I actually wanted.

I wanted to chase something different.

It wasn’t until someone asked me the question, point-blank, “What would you do with your life if you could do anything you wanted?” that I started to realize how off-track I had gotten. It wasn’t until I shed the distractions of money, expectations of friends and family, and unfair expectations I had placed on myself, that I was able to pinpoint what I really wanted to chase.

It just took me a long time.

I wonder if that is you, too. I wonder if you’ve ever lain awake in bed at night, like I did, asking yourself, what am I chasing? What really matters to me? I wonder if you, like me, are accidentally chasing things you don‘t care much about.

I wonder if you’ve laid your whole life down for these things, almost by accident, because you didn’t realize what was motivating your decisions. And I wonder if you feel, like I did when I finally realized what I really wanted, when I finally answer the question my friend asked, that it might not be worth it.

I wonder if you feel less than satisfied.

As for me, I finished graduate school, got a full-time job and started looking to buy a house before I finally made the decision something had to change. For me, that meant quitting my job, moving out of my apartment, and going on a year-long, 50-state road trip to chase my dream of writing a book. Since then I’ve gotten (and quit) two other part-time jobs to chase that same vision.

But that was just my dream, and my journey. Not yours.

Your chase will look different than mine. After all, you’re chasing something different. The path you take to get there will inevitably be different. But there is one thing your journey and mine will have in common.

We will have to give up some things.

There’s so much talk about quitting jobs these days, after awhile you start to think there’s no way you can go after a dream unless you give up your 9-5. But if I’ve learned one thing from talking to friends, and from my own experience chasing my dream, it is that quitting your full time job is not always right for every person, in every season. In fact, for some people it would be downright wrong.

Still, everyone will have to give up something to chase their dream. It might be a job, it might be something different. We can’t be sure what it is until we know what we’re chasing, and what is getting in our way.

This is not an ooey-gooey, hyper-inspirational “you can be anything you want to be” approach to living. In fact, just the opposite. I believe that knowing what you really want, and being willing to give up everything else in order to get it, is the most realistic, down-to-earth approach we can take to creating a life full of meaning and joy.

It starts with the belief that everyone is chasing something, moves to the assumption that your chase will require sacrifice, and ends with a decision that ultimately you must make for yourself:

What will you have to give up to chase what you ultimately want?

Not everyone can or should quit their job to chase their dreams, but everyone will have to quit something.

Maybe for you it’s a bad habit, or excessive worry, or procrastination. Or, maybe, for you, it is about quitting your job. But quitting any of that won’t mean anything until you know what you’re chasing, and why.

So, what are you chasing?

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