Quitting your job to pursue purpose: Detach yourself from "WHEN"
Step 4: Detach yourself from "WHEN"
When you start pursuing purpose and going after something meaningful in your life, you will think that you will receive success instantly (I know I did!). You will think that people will bow down to you, buy your product and listen to what you have to say but then you will find out that that this will not be the case.
We are led to believe by our current systems that everything must happen at a particular time - I must finish my studies in four years, my working hours are 7AM to 4PM, at 30 years old I must be married etc. Using this equivalence and interpolating the worlds systems with pursuing something meaningful will probably not work. Following things that are meaningful has no time scale. You will quickly find out that you can control your work ethic and your mindset (your delusion from article 12) but you cannot control the time of your eventual inflection point where you crossover to your eventual success.
Purpose will make you arrive to a point where time doesn’t matter anymore (this is if you are really engaged). Time is an obstacle you put in your own way which is largely caused by the people surrounding you who may ask questions such as “when is this thing of yours going to make money?”. Would you rather be at war with yourself and at peace with the world, or be at peace with yourself and at war with the world? I definitely know that following your purpose will provide you with the latter, especially if it is drilled in your mind that you cannot control your subsequent success. The work that you produce with a free attitude (that is not bound by time) will be TRUE work that does not exude desperation because you are not chasing a “hit”. Human beings have a funny way of sensing if you are desperate – we will stay far away from you if you do this!
Goals
Having goals is good for your purpose. Without goals you have nothing to aim for. Goals provide us with the following:
provides a guide for action.
improves resource utilization.
provide motivation and commitment.
set performance standards
allows flexibility
Goals are vital if you are a person of purpose. In fact, you cannot do and maintain anything of significance without setting goals.
God advocates for us making plans and having goals. It is natural for us to do so. But as for the time and the steps taken to achieve them – YOU HAVE NO CONTROL. Here is a verse that explicitly and precisely proves this:
Proverbs 16 v 9: In their heart’s humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps
This verse evidently and undoubtedly reveals that plans and goals actually belong to us while navigating to the goal is dependant upon God because He knows the right way for you and He knows what characteristics and traits you need to have in order to be able to stand for what your purpose will bring. This “navigation” will build you up to be able to withstand and resist the pressures that come with your unique level of gifting. Maybe you aren’t as prepared as you think. God wants you to develop your foundation before He gives you what you want because He is more interested in what you become more than what you will get. Maybe being delayed will mean that the market is more open or the economics will have shifted in your favour. This is why we should not be bothered so much as to WHEN it will happen.
Detach from the “when” or you will give up! When you are too obsessed about “when” and things are not going fast enough you will have the urge to abort your mission.
What I like about God is that He will give you enough wins to keep you going – just enough!
You are being refined to withstand what comes with your level of purpose
The biggest mistake that many of us make is to underestimate life. We think that it is easier to do something than it really is and that it will take a shorter time to accomplish it than it really will. If we look at influential people, we don’t always comprehend what they went through in order for their gift to shine. Look at Mnet idols for example; all the people auditioning think they can sing just because they saw a finished product of their favourite singer. What makes us want to hasten, rush and dash through processes that shape and make us become who we were born to be? I have come to realize that there is an evocative and desperate feeling that exists in every one of us that just wants to hurry up and prove who we are. Sometimes the desperate need to “get it now” makes us snatch something that is rightfully ours too soon. This results in abortion of necessary processes which would have contributed to our growth.
Why do they age the wine? Wine is aged so that it ferments, which results in the variation of colour and texture. They do not crush the grapes one day and then drink it the following day. It is made to age for years. You can tell that wine is good by how long it was aged. Knowing that you have a purpose will allow you to wait patiently. While you wait, you will understand that you are becoming of good worth and high quality – similar to wine.
Just get lost in it – be in delusion
“…But I loved the work so much that it wasn’t work, and I lost track of time. I didn’t have a routine; I didn’t know whether it was Monday or Wednesday. Was the sun up or down? That was how I tracked the movement of time. Get so lost in your passion that the numbers on a clock aren’t relevant. Time isn’t real, just clocks…” – RUSS
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is rated by many as the best classical music composer. Watching his older sister practice, he began to pick up the basics of the piano when he was just three years old and at the age of five, he composed his first simple piece of music. It was not until his teenage years after years of travelling with his father and sister on a tour of the courts of some of Europe's largest cities including Munich, Paris, London and Zurich that he started being recognized throughout Europe for his music. What does this indicate? It indicates that even the greatest music child prodigy himself, as talented as he was, couldn’t control the timing of the booming of his purpose. It was only after ten years that he was saluted and appreciated.
Sooner or later you will to have the guts to say enough is enough and start heading towards areas of your natural talent. The money keeps us going in our jobs but that is not all that it should be.
10 years ago it was a big achievement to work at big companies such as Eskom, Transnet or in Banks such as Absa. But more and more people don’t find it fashionable anymore because people’s minds have been opened to the fact that although education allowed them to sustain themselves, it has made them UNDER EMPLOYED because their natural talents are not of use in their daily jobs. Parallel to this, jobs are now also getting automated. Dr Daniel Le Roux of Stellenbosch University says that a job that is high in routine, involves simple actions, does not involve complex decision making, does not involve social intelligence are very easy to automatable. These are jobs like tellers, bookkeepers, accountants, machine operators. In South Africa that is a large percentage of the workforce. I think we should be worried!