I’ve moved!

Hey everyone,

I moved! I’m now on a self-hosted site. http://www.annepeterson.com

This took some work and I’m not all unpacked yet, but I’m getting there.

Why not come over and check out the new place. That is, if you don’t mind a few boxes here and there.

And why not subscribe so you make sure you hear about upcoming projects. I have two right now!

Thanks,

Anne

Whose Life Are you Living?

What will your biggest regret be as you near the end of your life?

Bonnie Ware wrote a book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. After spending time with those nearing death she found the number one regret:

I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expect of me.

Too often we live our lives quieting our own desires as we try to meet the expectations of others.

I wonder who wins? I mean, at the end of those people’s lives will it really matter if you did what they wanted?

It’s time to listen to your inner voice. The longing you have that burns within you, tired of being silenced. And you need to answer that one little question that shouts-“What if?”

What if you went after what you really felt called to do?
What if you spit in the face of fear and kept going?
What if __________?

As long as we’re breathing, there’s still time. The time is now.

Look at the things that have been stopping you.

Fear is an obstacle to face

Too often we let fear win. We believe the obstacle is too large, or that maybe it’s too late for us.

Well, it’s not too late. Time is going to go by either way. Isn’t it time to go for it?

In high school, when it was time for Driver’s Ed, my dad would not sign for me. Since I was afraid to drive anyway, I never learned how. Then when I was in my 30’s, as a married person whose husband was in the military, I started thinking about learning to drive. But I was still afraid.

And yet, my desire to take care of my child was bigger than my fears. Or at least enough for me to face them. So I learned how to drive in hilly Colorado with a stick shift. I did it.

What does responsible look like? 

We grow into adults following one set of rules religiously. But what if it’s the wrong set?

Too often we listen to the voices of others, silencing the ones within us. My friend Jeff Goins has written a book, The Art of Work, which really challenged me in the area of calling.

Each person is responsible to not only do what she is capable of, but also what she is meant to do.

Do obstacles stop you?

What do you do when you are met with an obstacle? Freeze? Retreat? Start questioning yourself?

Maybe you do all three. I know I’ve let obstacles block my path. And I’ve questioned if I was even right in the first place. In his book, Jeff says,

We may even be able to celebrate setbacks and trials, the things that once seemed so daunting, knowing they are all signs that we are on our way.

Pain used to stop me

My life is riddled with losses. One after the other they rendered me immobile.  At times I’d work them into my writings, into my talks. But I saw them as intrusions on my way to my calling.

In 2013, one week after I launched my first book, Real Love, my brother Steve had a heart attack and died.

I froze. How could I promote my book? I couldn’t even think about it.

For a while after his death, I just went through the motions of writing.

But in 2014,  I listened to the voice within me. I embraced my pain and wrote my memoir, Broken: A story of Abuse and Survival. It was one of the hardest things I did.

Finding your life’s work is not easy. It may, in fact, cause you more pain than comfort, but it will be worth the cost.

Jeff’s book validated my pain, and I saw it was a viable part of my journey. My experiences were intertwined with my calling. 

What I’ve learned 

Jeff’s book taught me to look at my life and recurring themes and patterns.

I am now looking for opportunities, and expecting doors to open. I view detours as necessary steps on my journey. Children’s books started bubbling out of me, after writing Broken.

Writing children’s books was a different direction, but still part of the whole picture. Something I would have missed, had I not been willing to walk into my pain.

I’m determined to fulfill my calling of writing and speaking. It doesn’t matter if others are doing similar things. My life experiences and how I respond to them makes what I have to offer unique.

It’s one shaky step at a time. But I’ll know when I take my last breath that I’ve been responsible in pursuing what I was called to do. I’m living my life.

If you need help on your way to your calling, or you have any questions at all, I highly recommend The Art of Work. You can order it here.

It will change the way you think, and maybe it’ll change your life too.

What if it’s Not too Late?

We’ve all seen them. People who knew what they wanted to be from the time they were little ones. A teacher inspired them to pick up a piece of chalk and make a difference.

Or maybe the lack of a good doctor when their family needed one, lit a fire in them to become a good doctor in someone else’s life.

We have greenly looked at those who knew, whose certainty dripped from their every movement. And we kept looking at our own lives, wondering what could have been.

It’s never too late to pursue your calling.

Because we weren’t made with cookie cutters, we think differently, act differently and accomplish goals differently. And that’s okay. Maybe more of us would pursue our callings if we better understood the process.

And then I read The Art of Work, by Jeff Goins. A book that not only acknowledges our differences, but also gives us the right to pursue our callings, no matter how our maps differ. This is not a marathon where only one winner is crowned. And the time it takes to get there doesn’t matter, just that we do finish.

For years, I was frustrated, watching others pursue their crystal clear calling and cross their individual finish lines.

While I outwardly congratulated them, inside these questions burned, “Will I ever reach mine? What is wrong with me? Why do I keep getting delayed?”

What about me?

At times, I wondered if I had misunderstood what my calling was. My uncertainty gave me more time to figure it out. The only problem with that was I could hear the clock ticking loudly.

The Art of Work has changed my thinking, even some of my cemented thoughts. Goins not only paints a clear picture of what a calling looked like, he shows us getting there looks different for each person. With each story I could feel myself relax. And that gave me hope.

A calling is not some carefully crafted plan. It’s what’s left when the plan goes horribly wrong,

It all matters

Maybe we all have the power to turn our lives into significant stories if we start to see our difficulties as opportunities.

He had my full attention. After all, I thought I had missed what others had achieved. Hadn’t I? Page after page, I let the words soak in, untangling misunderstood concepts which held me back.

All along, her life was teaching her something, even in the pain. And if she hadn’t paid attention, she just might have missed it.

He may as well have been talking to me. Pain had been a constant companion. One I thought was preventing me from pursuing my calling. One I tried to avoid, though unsuccessful. It had gotten to the point I was afraid of pain. Fear had slipped in again.

Fear needs to be recognized

Some people, though, let fear run their lives. They avoid risk, hoping to minimize the chances of failure, and in effect move in the opposite direction of a calling.

Fear used to stop me cold. I had recently heard Larry Crabb speak. “Sometimes we avoid the very things in our lives God wants to use to teach us something. We do this out of fear.”

Often my stubbornness requires repeat lessons. Two people saying basically the same thing. I needed to respond accordingly, instead of shrinking back.

And now I sit with confirmation of my calling. It doesn’t matter what the date is, or how long my journey has been. None of that matters. The only thing that matters is that I reach my destination.  Circumstances I mistook for intruders, were necessary steps. Part of the whole picture.

One step at a time

With renewed confidence I acknowledge my scrambled journey.  I will stop condemning the calendar, but instead celebrate every step which brings me closer.  One more statement that speaks volumes to me and causes me to face my fears.

Yes, you could fail, but we all know what happens when you don’t try—nothing.

And so I move forward. I will not be paralyzed any longer.

And now you have an opportunity to change your thinking. Maybe you’ll realize you’re not too late.  You may be right on time.

Click here to find out how you can get the Art of Work for only the price of postage. Reading this might be the one thing you need to get you started, or maybe like me, it will restart you. Isn’t it worth finding out?