Welcome back!
Planning our destiny requires the same kind of knowledge of the terrain and reading of the environment as a whitewater rafting trip. If you’re seeking to launch out into a new industry, you’ll need to study what the current business practices are. You’ll need to learn current market conditions in your area. You’ll want to try to predict what challenges lie ahead, and literally draw yourself a map or timeline of what’s to come. Perhaps your area is supposedly saturated with the kind of venture you really believe you are called to. You’ll need to think of ways you can set yourself apart. Perhaps there aren’t many products or services like yours offered in your area so there is little competition now, but the market is bound to grow. Think about what you can do to establish yourself and continue to build your market share despite what the competition does.
Of equal importance is thinking through what personal obstacles you may encounter. If you have health challenges you’ll need to take those into account. A diabetic wouldn’t launch out onto a day long raft trip without the proper supplies on board. In the same way, you won’t want to launch out into your destiny without making sure your medical needs are provided for. If you struggle with pain or fatigue, plan to work on your destiny during your freshest hours. If you’d currently limited in what you can do, plan to have someone help you with any physically demanding tasks that are beyond your capabilities right now. Or maybe you already know that you’re going to have to deal with significant resistance from some of the most important people in your life. Planning ahead for ways to ease their minds, address their objections, and enlist their support can be one of the wisest strategic moves you can make. Planning can be a really fun process if we let it. If we can view it with the same excitement a rafter feels when they stop out onto their porch the morning of a trip, we’ll experience one of the many benefits of living into our destiny, which is a revitalized interest in life.
Until next time, I’ll be praying for you to start mapping out the conditions you’ll face as you’re getting up and running.