Skip to main content

Voices



You will always have critics. There will always be people who are watching and waiting for you to fail. There are others who will undermine and criticize your accomplishments. This is especially true if you are pushing beyond the norm and striving for excellence. The higher you climb, the louder the judgement. You will not be able to please everyone.

It’s this fear of the opinions of others (and even just what we think the opinions of others may be) that cause many to never start that journey towards their calling. They are too concerned with what others might think or say if and when they trip and fall. The potential failure seems magnified by the audience sitting on the sidelines. The possible embarrassment becomes amplified in our minds. What will people say if I fail? What will they think of me?

But there is another voice you must be mindful of: your conscience. Your conscience is monitoring your actions and will hold you accountable, not only for what you have done, but also for what you were supposed to do and didn’t. There are people in your life who you will never be able to please. There are others who will accept you at times but ignore you when you need them most. People will come and go, but your conscience will always call out and demand an account. There will be times when you must choose between pleasing the passing critiques or following your conscience. To which voice will you answer?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Toxic Humility

We have all seen false humility: the guy who tries to hide his arrogance with feigned modesty. It’s usually pretty obvious and always obnoxious. But there is also another variation of false humility out there: toxic humility. This is often displayed in self-deprecating talk and a lack of self-confidence, belittling or undermining one’s own talents and abilities. The danger in this kind of behavior is twofold: it is too often accepted as true humility and like a virus, it spreads doubt and disbelief. To clarify, it is not that the bearer of this toxic humility isn’t honest about his view of himself. That is the very issue: he absolutely believes he has little value or utility. He thinks downplaying his own worth is humility but I disagree. CS Lewis said it best when he wrote, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking about yourself less.” His point being, true humility is not an ever-present raincloud of self-doubt that follows you around. It’s a focus on...

The Art of Intentionality

  “Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others’ choices make you.” – Richie Norton   I am not even sure who Richie Norton is, but I love that quote! I imagine a ship drifting out to sea, pushed around by the wind and the waves. No course of direction, yet the captain is frustrated when the ship ends up dashed against the rocks, trapped on a sandbar or marooned on an inhospitable island. It is easy to complain when life takes us where we do not want to go. But who is really to blame if we have never set our sails to align us along an appropriate course? Do we blame the waves, wind and the weather? Or should we blame the captain of the ship? It is our life and our ship. We must set our sails with intentionality and determined choices. Otherwise, we are doomed to aimlessly drift along according to the choices and decisions of others. 

The Hungry Lion

  Early in my career, as I was struggling to both build up my clientele and provide food for my family, someone tried to encourage me by saying, “remember, the hungry lion hunts best.” At the time, that made sense to me. And it probably even provided some much-needed reassurance. But I have since come to think differently. I was a starving lion, and I learned a few things from the experience. Hungry lions get fatigued. They become desperate. They cut corners. They make unforced errors. But fed lions have their own issues. Their satiety can turn into selfishness. They get comfortable and then complacent. These lions do not hunt well either. I believe the lion who hunts best is not the hungry lion nor the satisfied lion, but rather the lion who hunts not for himself and his own hunger, but for the pride of lions around him. His drive is not his own need for nourishment; it is the hunger of those around him that motivates him. Our world is a hurting and hungry place. Not just ...