Be Who You Were Created to Be. Part 3: How to Manage Multiple Ambitions

Welcome to Part 3 of the Be Who You Were Created to Be Series! 🙌🏻

In the first week, we discussed going back to our childhood to discover the things that spoke to us and the things we’ve maybe put on the back-burner over the years.

The second part was all about learning how to embrace who we truly are, instead of listening to the world and the lies that have a way of creeping in.

Now we’re on to Part 3: What to do when you have numerous ambitions and how they fit into your day job. (Hint: Day jobs and ambitions are two very different things!) Let’s dive in.

I’ll never forget the months leading up to college and the enormous pressure I felt to pick a major.

Here I was at 18, trying to decide what career choice I wanted for the rest of my life, and to be honest, I had no freaking clue. Not even a little.

And I don’t remember anyone specifically telling me as a kid that I could only pick ONE career and then stick with it the rest of my life, but I do remember feeling that way. Like if I made the wrong choice, I’d be stuck in this awful career the rest of my life.

I ended up taking my freshman year with an “undecided” major because (let’s be honest), I just didn’t want to choose. By my sophomore year, I knew I needed to buck up and just PICK SOMETHING so I chose Marketing. It seemed like the logical choice.

Now here I am at 34, writing and working at a bank, not doing a single dang thing with that Marketing degree.

And I just smile and shake my head. All that pressure I put on myself to pick a major and I’m not even using it. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?😉 I’m living proof that He’ll steer you where you need to go regardless of what a piece of paper says about you.

My point is: Sometimes it seems so overwhelming to pick just one thing and give it our all. Maybe we have more than one passion! Maybe we have a lot of things we feel called to do and none of them have anything to do with a day job. What then?

In a younger life, I fell into this lie that what you do for work is the most important thing and it’s what you’ll do for the rest of your life so you better make a good choice.

This is definitely not true!

I’m here to tell you that you can have more than one dream or goal or idea and it’s ok. It’s also ok if you don’t have to have it all figured out today. If you’re struggling to focus or feel like you have a bunch of ideas and you’re not sure which direction to go next, I hope this post helps. Here’s a few things I’ve learned about having multiple ambitions:

Thesis statement idea!

I’m on my 3^rd (or possibly 4^th) round of reading Annie F. Down’s devotional 100 Days to Brave. (FAVE Devotional, hands down. Go get it for yourself. It’ll be worth your time. Not an affiliate or anything, just sayin’.)

Anyway, in the book, she takes a moment to talk about our calling, or our “thesis statement.” If you remember from English class, a thesis statement is the main point of the paper, and our calling is very much the same – it’s our main point.

She explains this so much better in the book. I feel like I’m butchering it. But I digress. The point is, once we’ve figured out our “thesis statement,” we realize we may have different expressions of our calling. Meaning we have one calling, but many different ways of living it out and exercising it.

I love this idea because it summarizes two main points that I didn’t figure out until my 30’s:

Your calling is not the same as what you do for a living. Your job can simply be an expression of your calling, which means you probably have other things worth striving for that are also expressions of our calling.
YOU ARE NOT YOUR CAREER CHOICE. You are more than a daycare provider, insurance agent, engineer, nurse, doctor, bank teller, teacher, etc. You are the sum of your attributes and actions, not what you do for a living.

This means you can definitely have more than one ambition to chase after. You can have more than one thing worth doing in your life. There’s no pressure to figure out your ONE thing and then only do that the rest of your life. For example, I love being a mom. But I’m also more than a Mom. I’m a wife, a writer, and I work full-time at a bank among other things. All of these are expressions of my calling and all of them are worth my time and energy to cultivate.

So take some time today to think about what ambitions you have. What expressions of your calling can you find in day to day life? What thesis statement fits you?

Try some stuff.

If you’re unsure of the answers to the questions above, I’d like to offer you a tip to help you sort some things out and figure out what lights you up verses what feels exhausting and like a lot of work.

Here’s my advice: Be brave and try some stuff. All the stuff!

If it interests you at all and you’re thinking there’s something to it, just try it. Get a taste for it. Intern. Get coffee with someone in a profession you’re interested in. Volunteer one Saturday to see if it’s a right fit for you. Do whatever you have to do to decide if what you’re thinking about is worth pursuing.

You have nothing to lose by dipping your toe in the pond of something that remotely interests you. You’ll learn one of two things: That what you’re interested in is a good fit and falls neatly in line with your calling. OR, that what you thought would be a cool idea is actually not for you. Either way you win! You can check it off and move on if it’s not for you, and if it is, look at the knowledge you’ve just gained. You have something worth striving for.

So ask yourself: What’s something new you can try today?

Don’t be afraid of baby steps and making small changes.

Once you tap into a big dream, it’s easy to think that you can just wake up tomorrow and go full throttle toward it and reach your dream overnight. After all, a new direction is exciting! So I hate to be a Debbie Downer here (wah, wah), but the honest truth is that it’s going to be a slow process to get where you want to go.

Your best bet is to focus on teeny tiny baby steps along the way. Trying to do too much for me in the past has always led to frustration. I get frustrated that I’m not where I want to be yet, so I begin to pressure myself into doing more and being more and you know what that leads to? Loss of joy in the present. (I feel like this topic alone could be a blog post in the future, so stay tuned on that!)

My point is, don’t underestimate the small things! Don’t look around and get overwhelmed. Just do the small step you were called to do. Life is not about the big and grand, it’s about the baby steps of obedience we took along the way. Sometimes those baby steps are all God’s asking of us.

So, is there a baby step you can take today?

Wrapping Up.

There are so many things that go into the person you were created to be. There’s career things, and personal things, things you want to do for others, and things you were called to. And more often then not, all of these things won’t fit neatly under the same umbrella. But that doesn’t make them any less important, or any less worthy of chasing after.

Find some different ways to express your calling.

Try some stuff.

Take baby steps or crawl if you have to.

Don’t believe the lie that you were only meant to do one thing with your life. Be brave and embrace ALL the things that make you, you! This world needs you just as you are, just as you were created to be.

**OVER TO YOU: Ever felt like you have more than one ambition in life? How did you know which one to work on first and what are you working on right now? Feel free to share in the comments below!