Hi there. I'm Jill Allen and this is find your fierce, the show designed for women to discover your fierce, unlock and unstoppable mindset. Build unbreakable courage and completely transform how you show up every single day. Each week I will bring ideas, methods and strategies that will inspire you to step into your greatness and live life on purpose. Let's be fit, fierce and unstoppable.
(00:34): Hey there, gang. Welcome to find your fear. So glad you're here. Today's chat. We are continuing the series called strength in hard places, and I love where this journey is taking us. And you have to understand that I am still pretty fired up about it because I like I've mentioned last week. I talked with so many of y'all and I feel like you are on this rollercoaster ride filled with all these ups and downs and twists and turns. And instead of us moving forward with peace and purpose, our lives spin out of control and I get it. We get it. Life is hard and we find ourselves in some really tough places where the chaos and the uncertainty threatened us to make us feel helpless. So we're going to discover what to do about it. And we are flipping the script here today that our problems do not define us, but they actually refine us.
(01:17): But before going any further, I have to say that I love that you are here listening in and spending time with us. So honored that I get to be a part of your day. You are all so amazing. And I have to thank you for your love and support as always. I appreciate all the feedback, all your reviews. And I just love that you share this podcast and the set free message with your friends and family. And if you could keep on doing it, that would be absolutely amazing because you are helping this movement as it helps reach more women and it impacts more lives and not is certainly what life is all about. So thank you again for being with us each week. So let's retrace our steps so far, right? We, we have covered a lot of things these past few weeks. So if you miss an episode in a series that there's no worries, just go back and catch up the next time you're driving in your car or out for a run.
(02:03): We have talked about how clarity of our vision can help us not only overcome, but to prosper from the problems we face. We've talked about perspective and how we can change the way we look at things. Things will change the way we look, right. And we also learned how our strength of purpose empowers us to add value to the world and our why that it trumps any obstacles of the how. And we even touched base on how with every hardship and every win, we become more clear about who we are and what we are made of and living authentic lives. And I want to dive into a little bit more of that this week. So let me ask, do you agree that every trial, every failure, hardship and defeat that you face reveals another part of your character, that it's another opportunity to reflect the light of God's grace.
(02:55): Okay. So for example, every opportunity you have to, or to apologize, it makes you shine a little brighter, right? If you show and give mercy to others, same thing, you get that in return. I tell you why he promises that the more you give, the more you will be given, the more you lose your life, the more life you will find, and just think of it in terms of like a diamond, the more you are cut, the more you will sparkle. This is the power of perseverance that persevering brings out. It really does. It brings out the best in us. That's when we push the envelope, we step out of our box. We climb that mountain. We elevate our attitudes and we are willing to do what needs to be done until it is right. Doesn't that sound amazing, but I want to be real here for a moment.
(03:45): We all been to that place where maybe it's a broken heart or a broken dream or broken promises that have made us want to quit to throw in the towel. But this is life and life is not just happening to you. We, you are happening to it as well. You have this beginning and an end, and we have this freedom to choose how you're going to live between the start and the finish lines. We all heard of the story of the tombstone, right? We have the two dates on that stone, and then we have the dash. And it's what we do. How we live is what is in that dash it's what's in the, in between. It's what that dash represents and makes you think for a moment. Doesn't it. I am such a big proponent for lack of a better word of personal responsibility, personal ownership.
(04:36): Yeah. I truly believe that taking responsibility for the outcomes we want and the consequences we desire is more than what we are often willing to do. Personal responsibility. I mean, we talked about this a few weeks ago, playing that victim card. It's not our weaknesses or the mistakes that necessarily holds us back, but just simply being willing to identify and admit to them, are we willing to do that? Do we do that? Do we take the time to identify and admit to things that we need to own up to? We need to take a deeper look within ourselves and be willing to let go to ditch the weights and the burdens we carry around and get rid of this baggage to abandon what is unnecessary and that we can cut away all the superficial, all the fake, whatever isn't serving you to your higher calling.
(05:26): We need to get rid of it. Cause that does, that really hits me to the core. It fires me up, but that type of self-examination, it's going to require you to be vulnerable. And that takes a lot of courage to step outside of your comfort zone, to be willing, to find new life strategies to persist when you don't want to anymore, that you're going to have to give yourself permission to grow, to maximize your potential and to discover the greatness within it's going to take a lot of courage. And I've always debated as to whether or not God orchestrates every problem in our life. And I'm not sure if that is really true or would be true. I mean, he's everywhere. He knows about everything. He may allow them to show up in our life, but thinking that a lot of our problems, I think they might be self-induced a lot of them.
(06:16): And once we embrace that truth, we are going to be in a position to take control of the quality of our life, taking that responsibility for our thoughts, our actions, our mindset, no matter how tempted we may be to blame the government or the economy or our upbringing, the way that we've been raised or other people even it's going to be, you know, we're going to be empowered to make a shift. We can focus on the life you want versus the life you want to erase. Have you ever thought that some of the outward junk that you may be experiencing, it might be a reflection of the inner junk or the inner turmoil that you are experiencing when it comes to your mind and emotions. And once you grab ahold of that, once you flip that script, once you start thinking or pondering with that is what it may mean.
(07:03): Guys, you're going to begin to realize how powerful you really are, that all the things, the good and what may seem kind of bad, are all working together for your growth and your maturity. In my small group, we are diving into Romans. And to think that Paul reminded the Romans of the exact same thing. Like he says, there's also glory in our sufferings because we know that's what suffering produces, perseverance and character, and that all the things work together for good to those who love God in all these things, we are more than conquerors. Do you ever actually know? Y'all have, you know, live on the edge, teetering between the right and the wrong, the good and the evil morality and the immorality integrity versus compromise the sanity versus the insanity. And then we've got the desperation and the impatience or the impulsiveness that pushes us over the edge, where you don't want to create anymore.
(07:56): That we just want to take the easy way out. We want to cut corners or look for the shortcuts. And too often, we take that road, at least the resistance and attempt to lessen the pain, to lessen the length of the stuff that we got to go through, or maybe the humiliation and the shame and the discomfort that's associated with all the consequences of her past choices. I mean, look back, take any shortcut that I've taken. It's actually doubled the journey. The time that it takes, it ended up being the long way home. And I get it. Hindsight is always 2020, but if I had only known what I know now, imagine if we'd only know that every solution that we were looking for was already inside of us from the very beginning, when it comes to everything, our family, our parenting, our marriage, our finances, our reputation, our lives.
(08:43): If we have increased our faith, if only we increased our faith in God and his ability in all we do, if only, but if we take all that and we examine it, and when we are willing to confront all those consequences from our past, and we learn from our mistakes and we overcome them, then there is no limit to the good that can come out of it. It's like that cause and effect law, right? I want to share this with you. It's from, man's searching for meaning. It's pretty predictable that life operates under this law, but every now and then, as he says, there could be some sort of deviation. I mentioned before when we lose our life, we will find it in death, that there is life we gain through loss. We are strengthened in our weakness. We increase after we decrease and the best yet.
(09:33): I love it when he says that is that we can be exalted in our humiliation. If at the point of our most crazy moments, we determined to follow the path of truth we can with God's help turn any condition around. I just love that, that deviation. Thank goodness. There's a shift in all of that, but let's not confuse facts with the truth because certainly, or surely, you know, things may have actually happened, but they don't define our reality. It's our interpretations of the circumstances that actually defines our reality. You know, Victor, Frank, you know, he said that the last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given circumstance to choose one's own way in the in-between in that space is our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom. Wow. Don't you love that?
(10:27): It's like the only change we can guarantee comes from our own power to choose until we are willing to be changed or change. What we are willing to see is possible that we are going to be forever bound by our circumstances. How many times do we fall into the trap of trying to change everyone and everything around us, but forget to change ourselves that we must choose to see ourselves and what we are capable of. And if we keep doing what we've always done, we're going to keep getting what we've always had. So if we don't like our circumstances that we are currently living, you need to change them. Take ownership, embrace change, quit, wasting time and energy on silly things. So let me ask you, what are your challenges? Will you identify them and sit with them long enough for God to reveal a solution?
(11:16): And then we need to get into action. We need to use what God downloads into our spirit to propel us into a better future. Absolutely love it. I'm going to wrap it up today with that lots to reflect on this week. So glad to be a part of your day and that you are a part of mine. I want to invite you to head on over to Joel Allen, coaching.com. Ladies, we have retreats going on. We've been everywhere. We've been to Sarasota Sedona, the Tetons, where else? Oh, Bryce canyon, Zion. And we're heading to Asheville here. If you want to join us in a retreat and keep up to date, go to Jill Allen, coaching.com. I would love it if you and your girlfriends would join us on a breakthrough weekend, as well as if you want to grab a copy of my book, set free.
(12:02): It's a woman's guide to freedom from confusion, control, worry, fear, and stress by letting go and saying yes to God's endless love it is now on Amazon. So be sure to check that out as well and heads up on the next episode, we're going to continue the strength in hard places and going to talk about the power of our attitude. So be sure to listen in next week. Thanks so much for joining us today. Please subscribe, share this episode, link on your social media. If you felt encouraged or inspired as we now all know someone that can benefit, and I would love it. If you would give some feedback and a review as well, talk with you next time. Be fit, be fierce, be unstoppable. Ya
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