The need to regularly re-sell yourself on your vision and purpose is a real thing. When there is discouragement, confusion, fear and doubt these are signs that it’s time to remember. These things will distract you from faith, hope, courage and action as long as you let them. The more you cultivate them the more they grow. Nobody needs excess amounts of discouragement, confusion, fear and doubt.
We need to marinate in the “why,” in the reason we are doing what we are doing. Why we are working to get where we are going. Think about the things that initiated your vision. Where did the idea come from? What happened to you that caused you to take that idea and commit to seeing it be realized? What were the disciplines of growth and action that you were employing that maybe you slacked on exercising?
What is your vision statement? What is your purpose statement? What’s your mission? These things are the foundation and source of your action, focus and discipline. These statements are powerful, they give you direction and meaning. Without them, you don’t know where you are going or what you are doing, and that is the road map to discouragement, confusion, fear and doubt.
One time on a boat trip the disciples had an experience where they took their focus off of their purpose and put it on their circumstances. Jesus and the disciples were on a boat crossing a lake and there was a big storm that come upon them. Jesus was sleeping and the disciples were freaking out. The wind was blowing, the waves were crashing and water was filling the boat. The disciples in a panic woke Jesus up and said, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” Jesus gets up calms the storm and then looks at the disciples and said, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
The things that create discouragement, confusion, fear and doubt are like the waves and wind of the storm. The more you focus on them the more you want to freak out. The disciples focus was on the storm and because of that, the only outcome they could see was death. But the lesson here is that the current circumstances don’t reflect the future outcome, your purpose and vision do. The disciples forgot who they were with, what they were doing and where they were going. Those factors hold infinitely more weight than the current circumstances. Which is why Jesus’ response was, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
Remember what you are doing and where you are going and who called you to it. And then go do it!