Hey, hey and Happy New Year! I can still say that right? January comes with renewed energy, focus and sense of purpose. The beginning of the year is a time where we are all inspired, we are betting on ourselves to achieve goals, old and new. It’s a great time of year. 

Have you set your goals for yet year? If I’m being honest, I haven’t set mine yet. I’m honestly still processing last year and I’m taking my time to sit with it. I do still feel a sense of inspiration to live better, to do better and to generally be better. I have a lot of ideas and things that I want to get accomplished and I know that I can do these things.

Some of these ideas and things that I want to achieve are old goals, unresolved resolutions, if you will. So I had to ask myself, why haven’t I accomplished or completed the things that I was once so inspired to complete?

Inspiration doesn’t get results

Inspiration only lasts for a little while. Once it wears off, it is your action that continues to carry you toward your goal. When we have fresh inspiration, we act freely and use our inspiration as the motivation to keep going. Inspiration is defined in the English dictionary as the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something. It comes from the Latin word to breathe. Once you breathe in your inspiration, you can use it as motivation, but as soon as you exhale, that breath is gone. Your inspiration is gone. So how do we continue to spur action when our inspiration evaporates?

Faith

That’s right, faith that you can achieve the goals that you have set before yourself is what will keep you going. Faith is what will sustain you when you’ve lost your breath of inspiration. It won’t be easy, in fact, if it’s worth something, it will most certainly be difficult. When that happens, keep going, smile, you’re developing spiritual stamina (James 1:2). You can pressure test your faith by asking yourself the following question: What have I done this week to get closer to my goal?

Your actions are proof that you believe

At some point, you might have people calling you crazy or telling you that it will never work. That’s fine. Keep putting in the work. Prove that you have faith. Even Jesus had haters, but he kept tending to the work that God put him on earth to do. In the same way, whatever it is that is on your heart that you want to achieve, accomplish or complete – there is a reason it is on your heart. The world likely needs it in some shape or form. Don’t give up on that. Show your faith. After all, faith without action is dead (James 2:17).

My prayer for you is that you would have big faith. I pray that you would go confidently in Jesus’ name to achieve your goals. I pray that you would have a firm WHY behind your aspirations and that you  would remember that doing the right thing is easy when you have the right reasons. I pray that you would recognize difficulties as tests to grow stronger in your faith. I pray that you would rejoice in your blessings and lean into your support system when things get hard. Remember that with God all things are possible.

Yours in progress,

Anisa-Naomi

Click here to learn how I am converting my inspiration to action and proving my faith by launching my Arbonne business.

Freedom (noun) – the power of self-determination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or necessity.

Photographed by @tha_realjordan

We all want freedom. Whether it be financial freedom, emotional freedom or freedom from a bad habit that prevents you from achieving your goals, we all have the desire to exist in a state where we are not tied down by an external source. Freedom is a right, not a privilege. Personally, I desire freedom from my circumstances. I want nothing more than to live a life where I am mentally and emotionally unaffected by my circumstances. I want to be at a place where, regardless of my circumstances, I maintain a level of joy and positivity that is unshakable.

I believe that in order to achieve this state, one must find enough value of self to pursue that freedom relentlessly. We must believe that we deserve freedom from whatever is holding us back. For me, I was the very person/thing that was holding me back from pursuing my dream. I failed to execute on my goals out of fear. That fear stemmed from a lack of self-value. It was not until I recognized my true value that I realized that I deserve the freedom that I desire.

So, why do I desire freedom from my circumstances? I went for years letting life happen to me instead of manipulating my life to fit what I wanted. The problem is, that when you live like this, you are always behind. Again, I did not recognize that I deserved more from my life than I was getting. Once I made the decision to live independent of my circumstances, my quality of life significantly increased. The sun shined a little brighter, the birds chirping in the morning was a little sweeter, I found myself expressing gratitude for the smallest things. Don’t get me wrong, this type of freedom doesn’t come easy, it is something that is practiced. As I improve my practice of freedom, I plan to share my observations and insights in order to, hopefully, help someone discover their own freedom.