I’ve been covering the RISE UP and Shine Your Light framework the last few episodes of the podcast and today we’re talking about the E: Eliminate Obstacles. In the previous episodes, I told you about R: Remember God’s faithfulness, I: Identify who God created you to be, and S: Silence the negativity. Each letter in the RISE UP framework stands for one of the key components in my coaching process to help you figure out your next steps to begin walking in your gifting and live out the calling God has for your life so that you can begin to shine your light the way God has always intended!
Ultimately, you have a purpose and a special way to further God’s kingdom here on earth and it is my unique calling to encourage you and help you discover it and begin to walk it out! The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 that we each play a special part of God’s Kingdom here on earth. We’re all designed for a specific purpose and I am passionate about helping you figure it out so you can live a purpose-filled, abundant life while you’re here!
OK, so back to the E–I never thought about it until I was in training to be a coach, but obstacles are often inevitable and often equally avoidable. But, we can’t avoid something or eliminate it if we aren’t anticipating it.
When we are planning to do something, no matter how big or small, it’s SO important to consider the things that could possibly derail your plans. What are the things you can anticipate happening? What is something that seems to always happen when you try to take action steps? What are possible things that could happen that you may not even anticipate? And how will you proactively ensure that you have a backup plan so that you can continue making progress?
These are some of the questions you might hear me ask in a coaching session. Why? Because I want to help you to be prepared for anything that comes your way! If you are anticipating an obstacle, then you will be more equipped to squash it and keep going. So, let’s just walk through a couple of scenarios.
Let’s say you are planning to create a website for your dream business. You go through the planning process and determine the url, the host site, the page design, who will design it for you, and when you want it to launch. Sounds great, right? Well, let’s say you want to launch it on January 1st. You can have a fabulous plan, but if you don’t consider the obstacles, you might be very disappointed when you realize the person you want to hire doesn’t work the month of December. Or you forgot you were going to visit family for Christmas. Maybe you didn’t think about how much time is needed to finalize those finishing touches and have to decide between the website and wrapping Christmas presents.
These are just some examples of what the business folks call “risk mitigation.” Why is this so important? For one, if you start planning in October, you still have some time to revamp your schedule or ask the right questions to make sure your plan will come through without a hitch. But maybe it’s already Thanksgiving and you realize you need to push back your launch date. At least you have time to adjust and can prepare as needed. But there’s nothing worse than to feel blindsided by a surprise shift that could have been avoided.
Now, of course there are always things that could come up that you can’t plan for. I’m not suggesting playing a never-ending game of what-if here. I’m just talking about those things that you can foresee happening if you just step back and think about it. Oftentimes, when I ask this question to my clients who are mothers, the first thing they think of is the kids. Hah! Motherhood can be so exciting. 😉 It can seem like every time we start something, a child gets sick, or something comes up with a school project or sporting event. It’s not exactly possible to prevent a kid getting sick, but if you are anticipating it, not only can you manage your expectations, but you can have a backup plan in place.
So, let’s talk about expectation management here too. This is SO important in pretty much every area of our lives. Even our relationships. How often do we get upset with someone (husband, friend, co-worker, etc) because we expected them to act a certain way and they didn’t. We can get so frustrated with someone if we think they are going to do something for us but then they don’t. But, maybe they had no idea you were even expecting something from them. My favorite example of this is about a wife who was waiting on her husband to get home from work. He was late, so a million thoughts went through her head. But the one she honed in on was where she imagined her husband was stopping at the store to pick up flowers for her on his way home. Well, he shows up late with no flowers. She doesn’t even realize it, but she feels so angry at him when she sees him walk in empty handed. She never says anything to him about it, but deep down, she’s thinking, “what a jerk! I can’t believe he didn’t even think about me. All I do is cook him dinner and what does he give me in return? Nothing!”
What happened here?! The husband is totally clueless about why she’s giving him the cold shoulder. He was expecting her to be happy that he was home, but instead, she’s acting like he’s a villain. Now both of them are mad and they don’t even realize why! Have you ever experienced something like this?
That may be an extreme example, but this kind of thing happens all the time because well, we’re human! We have a tendency to get an idea in our heads about something and then act completely caught off guard and shocked when it doesn’t pan out the way we planned.
In the example I just used, imagine if the husband would have called home before he left? He could have told her he was leaving work and what time he’d be home. That would have prevented the wife from allowing her mind to conjure up the idea of him getting flowers. Also, the wife could have managed her expectations. Even if she thought of the flower idea, she could have reminded herself that he was most likely just running late and was just going to come home frustrated and hungry. This could have prevented her from getting upset and feeling so unloved.
It’s the same when we are planning action steps for our dreams. We need to plan for one step at a time and take just a few minutes to jot down some possible (and maybe even probable) potential obstacles or set-backs. The practice of doing this not only helps us to mitigate any potential risks, but it also helps us to manage our expectations and prevent us from feeling like failures. A set-back doesn’t mean failure! It just means we have to redirect and keep moving forward! The more we can manage our expectations and be prepared, the more likely we are to keep our momentum and keep moving forward.
In all of your coaching sessions with me, we will discuss any potential obstacles and do our very best to think of anything that could come up to set you back. Then we’ll work through some ways that you can either prevent them from happening, or just have a plan in place to overcome the obstacles if they do arise. This will help you to feel successful and stick to your plans.
Please check out more information about coaching here on my website and follow me on Facebook and/or Instagram for more encouragement and helpful information to get you on track to start planning your next steps and RISE UP and Shine Your Light!
