What You Can Do

Confession: There are days life overwhelms me.

If I were to take this confession a litter further, I would also admit I have more overwhelming days than I’d like. I have mornings where I feel the weight of writing something that will matter. Days when our world’s brokenness feels beyond repair. Afternoons where the changes I’ve been praying for and working toward, feel like they will never happen. And nights where I just feel too tired to do it all again tomorrow.

Life is hard.

At times it feels a little too impossible. And I’m sensing, you can relate. Because, as I write these words, there is no doubt in my mind that you too are feeling the weight—of your life, and the world. That our existence in 2018 feels cumbersome. Only don’t worry, because I promise this post is about to get hopeful.

A couple of weeks ago, on a Monday (of course it was a Monday), I woke up feeling anxious. A whole week of writing, editing, and working on my business was before me, and I didn’t know where to begin. Before going about my day, I prayed for focus and that God would help order my day. And because God has a way of speaking to us (if we’re listening), through anything and everything around us, He answered me. In my work out.

The first thing I did that morning, was exercise. I streamed a TMAC workout in my living room, and got ready to begin. But as I was straightening my yoga mat, the instructor began by giving us a quote to focus our workout around. And it was this:

“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”

—John Wooden

Of course she was encouraging us to put all of our effort into the parts of the workout our bodies could do, and not to worry about the exercises or reps we couldn’t. But as she kept coming back to this focus throughout the workout, I couldn’t help but feel like God was telling me something else through these words. The Instructor kept saying:

“Focus on what you can do, not on what you can’t.”

When it comes to large projects, I have a tendency to look at what has to be done in the big picture, and feel as if it all has to be completed at once. Or I fixate on the hardest parts—the ones I don’t know how to do or that feel impossible—and I get a little paralyzed. Exactly how I was feeling that Monday; I was overwhelmed with all of the things that have to be done to start my business. Only, over and over, as the workout instructor was telling us to shift our focus, it felt as if God was shifting mine.

In all of our lives and in our world, there are things that feel impossible, or that we don’t know how to do. But when we focus on these things, we forget or ignore all we can do. All the baby steps we can make today that lead us to progress. All the things we can change.

During my workout that Monday morning, I felt as if God reminded me of the things I did know how to do, and of all the next steps I could make to move forward. Rather than feeling anxious, I began to feel empowered. So today: