Have you ever found yourself in a position where you thought you had a really great idea? I mean the kind of great idea that gets you so excited that you are so giddy you can hardly contain yourself? This is the kind of idea that wraps you up, the idea that consumes you and perhaps may not even let you sleep at night because it just keeps getting better and better?
Finally, you have all of your thoughts together enough that you can present your moment of brilliance to the "powers that be" or your friends/family. You walk into the room exuding the very face of confidence. Your plan is great and it is going to work out amazingly well. The next thing you know, you find yourself walking out of that same room feeling almost the opposite - kind of like you were just hit with a stun gun. Your brilliant idea suddenly wasn't so brilliant. The people you shared with saw areas for improvement or reasons why your idea wouldn't work.What a letdown! You've walked away discouraged and gave up on your idea.
Perhaps you are thinking that you haven't experienced anything like that. Let's take a look at that scenario without the hype. Scale it down to a household situation. As a parent it's our duty to raise our children to become responsible adults. We know that in order to accomplish that task, it is probably best to teach them to participate in housework of some sort - for example, keeping their bedroom clean. We creatively look for different ways to encourage participation. Eventually the concepts will stick, but the road to adulthood is long. Sometimes we can just say what we expect; other times, we may need to use a more creative approach. No matter what, even our children have the ability to destroy our "brilliance" without even realizing what they are doing!
I think it's safe to say that one level or another we can all relate. Somehow, we have all had a brilliant idea shot down. We've been disappointed. Fast forward... You see your brilliant idea implemented. You know, that one that "everyone" shot down before? Yeah, your idea has now paid off for someone else! You could have been that person! But let's look at why you weren't…
Throughout life, we are put in oodles and oodles of situations where another person has the opportunity to build us up or knock us down. (Receiving encouragement is not too often a problem…unless pride becomes an issue, that is!) It's the times that knock us down that tend to bother most of us. We long to be accepted and encouraged. We trust those that we surround ourselves by. So in presenting our great ideas to them, we give them an opportunity to "tell" us what to do. They may not specifically tell us to do or not to do a particular thing, but their encouragement or discouragement is enough to drive us one way or another.
What would happen in we believed in ourselves and allowed the feedback we got to fuel our motivation? That so called negative energy would turn into a positive driving force propelling us to go after our dreams. Take heart, dear reader, allow the things you hear to turn into a positive energy force. You have been created in God's image. Use the gifts He has blessed you with. And as you move forward in His name, you will find more and more reasons to be motivated and follow your dreams.
