Ok – so you’ve been assigned a project but you have no idea where to start. Or whether you have the ability to do it. Perhaps, it is outside the scope of what you normally do and does not align nicely with your abilities. Granted, you’ve done something similar but not e-x-a-c-t-l-y. You’re ready to try something new but hold on – you’ve never done this before.
So what do you do? Do you ask for help? Or do you plunge ahead and navigate the waters yourself? So you take the project by storm — bit by bit— learning the process and increasing your skills at the same time? Suddenly, whatever you thought you could not do becomes doable because you kept at it, chomping at the bits and learning our way through. Your ability to do a task had somehow expanded your capacity to do it. Capacity had just accommodated ability.
If only I had discovered this in the early on in life as I faced new opportunities. For most of my adult life, I was being stretched for capacity but never realized it while going through the process. I was fearful of taking on challenges that seemed to be outside my reach. And I struggled with working through tasks that I had no idea would produce personal and/or professional growth. My thinking was short-sighted by not seeing the value in doing the work. Yet it was obvious as I looked over my shoulder retrospectively that all the pulling, tugging, molding and shaping of my life into something productive was for my own good. And over the years I was being stretched to reach new, yet unfamiliar capacities that I thought had far outstripped my abilities.
But what I realized belatedly was that my capacity is never out of reach of my ability — that somehow, ability would always reach capacity. That my capacity would expand with each new challenge because whatever God has tasked us to do, He has also equipped us with the ability to accomplish it. Our challenges are designed to pull out of is what already resides on the inside. We are made to overcome. But I didn’t realize it.
When Fear Comes — Overcome It
Fear was my enemy. Afraid of change. Afraid to take on challenges. Afraid of failure. Afraid of success. Afraid of being afraid. Have you ever been afraid to do something? Afraid of change? Fearful of the anticipated result? I remember how my father feared flying. For years, he refused to get in an airplane and preferred to drive. I vividly remember pulling all-nighters in the car from Michigan to Chicago where we went to visit relatives. I also remember how my parents would go on vacations to the South — driving for days on end to get there. Then one day my parents decided to visit my sister who was living in California. They couldn’t drive such a distance, so they flew across country. When my father returned, I remember him exclaiming that flying was the only way to travel. The look on his face said it all! He was excited to have discovered that flying wasn’t so bad after all and that he had absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Whatever he feared before then had no validity.
While I do not recall him ever getting on another plane, something happened that helped him to overcome his fear of flying. Something happened on that flight that caused him to let go of what he feared most. To this day, I have no idea. All I know is that when he came home, he embraced his new mode of transportation.
My father overcame his fear by doing the very thing he feared most. This is a lesson that I should have taken from his playbook but didn’t. It would have saved me years of anxiety about embracing new experiences.
After many years of watching opportunities pass me by, I grew tired of the fear that continued to distract me from purpose. That stymied progress. That hindered me from being successful professionally. At some point, it was as if God wanted me to see what He had placed in me. And as I sought to reconcile my perceived truth with His reality, I began experiences that forced me to face my fears on the professional front. I took on new projects, new jobs, and hesitantly faced new challenges.
But I learned a valuable lesson through it all. God created me for victory. He created me to overcome. He created me to face challenge with a mindset of winning because that’s what I am — an overcomer in all things.
Women in Purpose 