Why Your Ambition May Be Lying Dormant and What You Can Do About It

Are you struggling to get started on something you really want to do?

What is that for you? For me, it is writing.

Why Your Ambition May be Lying Dormant

Life is full

There’s a host of reasons we put off doing our ambitions. There are familial obligations, self-care necessities, extended family, friends, work, church, or civic organizations that vie for our time. Lastly, as a believer we have a very real need to spend time with God, hearing from the Holy Spirit.

Midlife realities

There are seasons in life. When there are little ones running around the house, they need you and sometimes require more of your time and emotional energy than you feel you have to give. There is the season of building a career. You may feel your employer expects you to be available much more than you’d like. These are very real obligations and commitments that are on your plate and need the best you can give.

Running on empty?

If you are feeling overwhelmed, let’s first acknowledge your need for self-care. We all have a limited supply of output we can give toward others. When we go beyond our means of giving out we run the risk of getting burnt out. Then, we don’t have anything to give, and not only are we depleted but those who depend on us will not have their needs met either.

Here are a few suggestions to maintain your equilibrium:

• Recognize when your tank is running low.
• Give yourself a time out (and your children if need be) to regroup.
• Communicate your needs to someone you trust.
• Ask for help. You may not have to do this alone. Tag-team with a friend or colleague.
• Establish margins around your life, whether they be at home or work. Think of the margins around a written document. Things are much more clear and easier to read when there is margin.
• Learn to say no to that new request. Prioritize your time. If it doesn’t fit with your top priorities, let someone else have the benefit of learning and growing by taking on the responsibility.
• Schedule time to be alone.
• Seek professional help if you are stuck, running on fumes, allowing yourself to be emotionally overloaded, or seem unable to say no.

Retirement opportunities

What about the season of retirement? Now that the house is empty and we do have time on our hands, it is easy to say yes to projects. But all these take up time. For me, writing has been relegated to when there isn’t a pressing obligation and when other things have been done.

What You Can Do About It

If you’d like to find some way to carve out time to accomplish your ambition, here are some things to try:

• Give yourself permission to not be perfect. Like any skill, you’ve got to start in order to improve. As the saying goes, you can’t steer a ship while it is docked.
• Create a regular time or block of time that will build on itself and become easier as a habit forms.
• Short sessions are better than longer intended sessions you never get around to. Plan 10 minutes each day to start. Add ten minutes after each week of consistency. Once you are up to 30 minutes, you are on a roll. Add what you need depending on your project and deadlines.
• Find a place that fits with how you operate. If a noisy coffee shop background works for you and you are able to concentrate, go for it. But if you work better hidden away with minimal distractions, then find a spot you can work distraction free.
• These last few are specifically for writing, but feel free to use the concepts as a base for what you want to do.
  • Don’t write the finished product, write a draft. Edit later. Just get out of your head what is in there. If you are working from an outline, focus on that section. Just don’t give a lot of thought to syntax, grammar, etc. Not at this stage.
  • Leave off writing before you are ending a section. This way you know where you will begin when you come back to it. If you end before you are done with a section, when you sit down to write again, there is no confusion on what you will work on.
  • Find an accountability partner, whether it be a friend, relative, colleague, or mentor. Perhaps taking a class or writing workshop will get you off dead center.
  • If you are working on multiple projects, choose the project that is either most pressing or that will promote your career the best. Allow projects that you once thought a good idea to sit idle or die a natural death.

I hope you found these suggestions helpful. And I hope you see more writing done on this website. Some suggestions came from the following:

I know this post is way too wordy and much longer than what is recommended, but, hey, I’m just getting started, so it isn’t going to be perfect. Besides, I’m really just getting started if I’m supposed to be authentic. Well, here goes.

The real reasons I don’t write:

1. My Website

I had a site that was super easy to use but I changed to a WordPress.org site so I could have more agency on how the site operated, especially in personal identity protection. However, I have found it to be a steep learning curve. It was easy to install the actual theme. It is not as easy to learn how to utilize its features, decide on which plugins are needed, to add widgets, etc. I’ve spent hours trying to learn how to utilize my new WordPress site, and I have to say I have hours left to learn. And that is one huge reason I haven’t written. Not only do I have a lot of learning to do for the site, but I am discouraged before I even sit down. This is not motivating.

2. Inspiration

When I have an idea for a blog or a light-bulb moment about a memoir I’d like to work on, the inspiration has evaporated before I have a chance to write about it. It doesn’t matter if I’ve sketched out the basic ideas. When I finally do sit down to write, my mind is blank.

3. Self-talk

I am naturally self-conscious and negative. You may be able to relate. What do I have to say anyway? Why would anyone want to read my writing? Others could do such a better job than me. I don’t really know how to write. I’ll use the wrong words or syntax or punctuation.

It’s true that everyone has their own version of what they know. How I speak on a subject will be different from how someone else will speak about it, and someone may hear my version more easily than someone else’s. But my subconscious has much more power over my actions than I care to admit. So my insecurities are a huge reason I don’t write.

4. Fear

And then there’s authenticity. “Be your real self.” Well, as a real, authentically insecure person, who has hidden behind a very strongly built defensive shield, how in the world does a person go from hiding from the world to being authentic on the internet where every word you write is etched in forever availableness?

So, what to do about all of this?

Let’s think through each of these and find solutions.

1. The Website

There’s no faster way to get something done then to just do it. Procrastination only pushes the job into the future. The trouble is the future has jobs of its own, so when we procrastinate, we are creating more work for ourselves in the long run. Therefore, the only way to overcome this website hurdle is to buckle down and learn all I can. There’s a host of tutorials available through the WordPress.org site. Stay tuned as this site will only get better.

2. Inspiration

Find out when you are most inspired, then arrange your schedule so you are writing during this opportune time.

3. Self-talk

This one is probably the most challenging. Self-talk comes from our belief system. To change our beliefs is the only way to change our self-talk. But how to change beliefs? As a child, we learn through observation and by believing someone who knows, i.e. a parent, an older sibling, an adult who holds a position of authority in our eyes.

As an adult, we cannot change what we believe simply by telling ourselves something different. Informing our intellect or making ourselves change our actions will only go so far. Soon, we will find the same beliefs popping back up. If, as a child, we came to believe what we believe through observation or listening to someone we looked up to, then, as an adult, we also change what we believe in the same way. But who do we look up to? How do we gain experiences that reshape our beliefs?

This is where the Holy Spirit transforms our thoughts to be more in line with what God says. We do change our inner beliefs when we hear God speak to us. Therefore, it is necessary to have personal quiet time with God, to be gut honest with him, and to be still and listen to his voice speak his truth to us. For some of us, we will benefit from a therapist who can help us uncover what it is we believe and who will encourage us to take time to hear from the Holy Spirit.

4. Fear

We cannot be ourselves when we are hiding behind a defensive shield. But to be able to come out of this stronghold we’ve built up means we have to feel safe. The defenses were built for self protection. If writing causes fear of exposure, we will not do it. But where is this fear coming from?

Here again, there are beliefs held that hold the defenses in place. Only when our beliefs are changed will we feel safe enough to come out of hiding.

We all have some walls built, for some situations. Some of these walls are healthy boundaries and need to be maintained. When there is a real threat to one’s privacy or safety, either mentally, emotionally, physically, or even spiritually, there needs to be a boundary.

What isn’t healthy is when the walls we’ve built keeps us from otherwise healthy relationships. I’d be the blind leading the blind if I told you how to take these walls down. What I do know is that they have been erected for a reason. Eliminating that reason seems to be a key.

Conclusion

We’ve got to start somewhere and there’s no time like the present. So I’m going to publish this, even though it’s way too long, not broken up enough, not enough pictures, can’t be read at a glance, and not completely focused on my audience. I’m also aware that the article conjoins three different ideas that should be dealt with separately — Writing hinderances, Ambition hinderances, and personal care management. But this is a start. What I should do, and maybe will do in the future, is fine-tune this article to make it a genuinely good article. Stay tuned — more to come.