Called Out

Have you been feeling like you are being pulled in a different direction? Maybe in your career, where you live, or even a relationship.  Is what you once loved doing now feeling mundane? Then you my friend are being called out.  

We are about to enter 2022.  To say these last couple of years has been daunting would be a vast understatement.  During this season many have found themselves at a stand still.  Some have felt stuck, lost, and confused.  Many for the first time in their lives.  That can be a scary place to be.  

Personally I know I when covid hit (aka the world stopped)  I felt like I was in a state of limbo.  I knew what I was once doing (education) no longer felt right for me.  I use to love my work. I could not wait to get to see my  students everyday and I would be so excited of what the day would bring.  What new adventures would come and new things we could discover.  Then slowly ( or so it seemed) I started dreading the days I had to go in.  I fought back the feelings of uneasiness every morning. However, with each passing day it was becoming more difficult to hide the fact I did not want to be there. 

Please understand this had nothing to do with my students or the people I worked with.  Truthfully as I was going through it I had no idea why I felt the way I did.  I kept telling myself that this was a phase and that I would snap out of it.  I never did.  In fact, the feelings of dread only grew stronger. 

In hindsight, this was the process of being called out.  My spirit was telling me I was not longer meant to be teaching.  My purpose and gifts were pulling me in another direction.  At the time I could not grasp what was completely going on.  All I knew is something had to change because I was miserable. 

Once the shut down began I got the opportunity to reflect and refocus on my direction in life.  It was only then that I saw I was being called out in a new direction.  Covid gave me the time to figure out my next move.  Although I was far from knowing what was next for me, I did know there was no going back.  I knewI had to answer this call towards a new beginning.  

This might sound like a familiar story.  Many of you have had a similar  journey during these last couple of years. Some have taken heed to the call while others have not.  If you have not figured out what and why you are feeling the way you have been, then let me tell you. You are being called out!  Called in a new direction and purpose.  

You see we were brought up to work hard, save money, buy a house, and live happily ever after. The formula I grew up with didn’t seem all that great anymore. Was it broken? I mean, I worked at a good job but felt as though I was meant to do more.  This algorithm does not work 100% of the time.  Some of us are being called out for a different type of journey.

Until we  answer this call we will feel  stressed and have anxiety.  You may feel stuck, frozen, and paralyzed by the chaos of life and work I felt all around you.  In order for this toxic cycle to end we must learn, adapt, and grow to understand ourselves better.  To put it simply...we must answer the call. 

The road is not easy, but once you start your journey of self discovery you will feel alive again, traveling on a road despite the uncertainty existing around you. Through my journey of trying to figure out which path to follow, I learned a lot about those factors that led me to ultimately discover what I think I’m meant to do.

 Here are four lessons I learned on how to find the right direction in life:

1. Stop Overthinking 

So much of our stress and anxiety about the future stems from all the analysis and thinking we do as adults. We ask ourselves all sorts of questions.  But all the over analysis got me nowhere; it just burned more time.

The reality is that no matter how smart we may be, we cannot predict the future. Things are moving so fast and we’re so interconnected that it is impossible to predict where you’ll end up five years from now.

You just don’t know. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because you will not be basing your choice of direction on a forecast that’s likely to be wrong.

You’ll be making your choice on what’s really important to you, right here and right now, not tomorrow.

By recognizing and ultimately accepting the unpredictable nature of life, we can stop overthinking and overanalyzing, and start living more in the present moment. This helps to open the mind up to the possibilities of today.

2. Try anything. Do something.

When you take action and start doing things, you begin to feel better almost immediately. Instead of thinking about some far-off place in your head, full of uncertainty, you will be working on something that is really certain: your actions.

So many times, I got caught up in the chaos of life and was consumed by it, until I realized that, while I cannot control what will happen tomorrow, I can control the actions I take every single day.

That’s the real beauty of life—knowing that you have absolute control over each of your thoughts, words, and actions.

And by trying, moving, asking, engaging, experimenting, and walking forward, you are one step further than where you were yesterday. And you just never know where that one step will lead you.

3. Follow your inner voice

I used to feel that if only I knew more, I would be able to make a better decision about the direction I wanted to take in life. But as I dug deeper trying to get more information, the hole got so deep that I found myself buried.

Then, I just let go. I let go of all evidence and started following my gut.

I took chances; I took small steps walking forward in the dark. I stumbled, fell, but got back up and went in a different direction. Then again, and again, and again. As they say, the first step was the hardest, but I eventually found my way, not because some data point on a career chart showed me which way to go, but because I started to trust my inner voice.

Sure, it was often wrong, but it got better eventually because I was out there doing and learning—not sitting and waiting.

4. Believe in yourself.

When I first started exploring new opportunities to find the right direction in my life, I found myself overwhelmed by the competition.  With such seeds of self-doubt sown within me, it took me some time to recover my momentum. It was in the positive voices of so many others, that I found encouragement to keep at it. It felt like these voices were talking about me.

And in that positive lens, I found the light inside of me to bring forward the resiliency.  

No longer suppressed by someone else’s ideas of the way things “ought to be,” I continued on my newly discovered path. The more I focused on my own voice and the voices of encouraging friends, the more I grew to believe in myself.

Although for some, finding the right direction might require the journey of a lifetime, I do believe there is one direction in which we are all meant to go: forward.

By taking small steps each and every day, putting aside overthinking, and realizing that you have everything you need deep within, you can find the right direction in your life. And while it may not be the direction you expected, it will work out just fine.