Risk: From Motivation to Volition

MIT researchers wanted to know what motivated people to change and also why so few “change programs” were ever actually completed in well-meaning organizations.  They found that someone can be motivated to do something, yet still not follow through when distractions occur or other things come along.

People who attain great change, or follow through, transcend motivation and volition. They ask themselves, What will happen if I don’t do this?

As we explore this concept this week taken from Jesus, Career Counselor, imagine for a moment your situation regarding your career.  Have you lost motivation? Your drive is gone?  You cant’t find your mojo to do the same things you used to do.

Risk invites us to ask the question:  What will happen if I don’t do this?  Try volition on this today.  You may have the motivation but have you thought about volition?

Risk:1) possibility of loss or injury: peril 2) someone or something that creates or suggests a hazard 3) the chance that an investment (as a stock or commodity) will lose value

Moving from Motivation to Volition this week!  Let’s Risk

Laurie Beth

I Say Unto You, ARISE!

I Say Unto You, Arise!   Taken from Jesus, Career Counselor, by Laurie Beth Jones.

Rise:  1 a: to assume an upright position especially from lying, kneeling, or sitting b: to get up from sleep or from one’s bed

2: to return from death

6: to appear above the horizon <the sun rises at six>

8: to extend above other objects <mountain peaks rose to the west>

13: to exert oneself to meet a challenge <rise to the occasion>

synonyms see spring

The word RISE is used more than one hundred sixty four times in the Bible.  It is the key foundational premise of Christianity.   It is in the essence of everything Jesus says, teaches, and does. 
 It is also considered a “feminine” word form in the original Hebrew.

Jesus told the man who was crippled, “Rise, take up your pallet and walk.”

And yet, do we rise?  Sure, we may get up in the morning and begin trudging through our day, but do we truly rise, into our fullness, our magnificence, our glory?

I will never forget the day I watched my three day old sorrel filly “Little Pistol” lying in the grass.  Her shell shaped nostrils were flaring in and out as her baby fluff mane caught the morning sun.  She had her head resting among dandelions as she stretched out in the sun.   As I stood there watching her out my picture window, something happened.

Suddenly both her little ears flew forward, and I could see her body draw itself together as if by giant puppet strings.  She poised for a moment, standing perfectly on point. Then she suddenly leapt into the air and with her feet barely touching the ground began to run full speed around the pasture, kicking  out sideways to the left and right, bucking and whinnying…fully and suddenly aware of what it meant to be a horse, alive. I tell people:  On the first day, she was born…but on the third day, she arose.

I am wondering if you have yet truly “Risen” into your giftedness.

Are you aware of the many gifts  God created in you, for you to express and enjoy?  Or are you trudging along in your career, unable even to make eye contact with your boss lest he or she notice and fire you?

Are you laboring in a parallel career, one which lets you get close enough to smell the artist’s oils and frame their paintings, but yet can’t yet make that reach into taking up the paint brush yourself?

Are you laboring in an uninspiring job, thinking that your lot in life is just to make enough to get by?

Then you need a jolt of faith, a spring in your step, because the God of you, in you, says “Arise!”

Arise today into your giftedness!

Laurie Beth

Pick Three Dream Words ….

Pick Three Dream Words by Laurie Beth  (Reference: Jesus, Career Counselor)

Greetings Friends,

Jumping into your week today with a fun exercise taken from my new book that is about to  release on May 4.  This book is laid out in a very specific format, with each chapter to be not only part of a fabric, but also a free-standing career guidepost.  Take a look at the details below and then come back and share with me on my Facebook Fan Page or here at the Blog.  I will be checking in on your insights and comments each day to share with you.

There is also another application of these chapters, and that is for you to quickly look at each following key words , and then circle the three words that most resonate with you right now.

FIRE:

Rise

Risk

Roar

WATER:

Renew

Reflect

Restore

EARTH:

Remain

Return

Regenerate

WIND:

Revive

Release

Rejoice

After you’ve circled the chapter words that most grabbed you, step back and realize that those three chapters might be a clue to your elemental make up.    For instance, if you selected Rise Risk Roar as your chapters first, you may be a Fire personality type.

If you picked only two out of the three from the same element, this may be your personal elemental blend.  For example,   Two from Fire and one from Earth, may mean you are a Fire/Earth personality blend.

(There are seventeen personality blends, including Fusion, which is a little bit of all the elements in nearly equal measure. Please get your PEP profile before reading on!)  Use this code to receive a discount as a blog reader: BPEP

Then, realize that sometimes we are attracted to the opposite of what we really need…so I would recommend reading chapters in categories that are opposite natural first choice, as well.

For example, as a Wind/Fire personality type, I love to Rejoice and Risk.  But several months ago, when my real estate portfolio and thus “self identity” took a hit, I was so energy depleted that Risking and Rejoicing were the last things on my mind.  Instead I went into an Earth/ Water mode of Reflection and Returning, which turned out to be exactly what I needed from a CAREER standpoint.

Life balance is a huge concern for every working person.  Knowing your element’s strengths and challenges can help you stay centered in the Lord, and able to focus specifically on the work you are called to do.

Recently I visited an art gallery which featured a sculptor with an obvious talent for sculpting horses.  However, this artist seems to fancy putting beautiful bronze horse bodies in un-natural situations—like stepping off a skyscraper or being stuck neck deep in a blue glass.  My reaction to this artwork was intense alarm.  My heart refused to respond positively to a horse dangling off a skyscraper or drowning in a sea of glass.  No purchases were made that day, I assure you.

I think the Holy Spirit must feel the same way when looking at some of our off balance, unnatural career selections.  God’s reaction is “Alarm!” rather than “ahh…just what I envisioned that person doing when I created them with those gifts and talents.”

Jesus, Career Counselor wants you to be living your highest gift, and operating out of it, all the time.

Did you know that Joyce Meyers, one of the most successful televangelist/teachers of modern time, was a secretary until the age of 42?   I wish I could have been a fly on the wall watching her transition, as well as interview her past bosses.  I have no doubt that she did her work even then as “unto the Lord,” but what an illsuited job that was for her God given gifts.  Fortunately, she and the Lord worked it out, and now she fills stadiums with people eager to hear her humorous and “real” observations about life in the Lord.

Jesus said my yoke is easy…he could say that because he was a “tekton/craftsman”—not just a woodworker…He crated those yokes to fit perfectly in a customized way the neck of each animal.

So it is with you.  Has your “yoke” been custom designed or are you getting blisters?

Blessings as you lead and work this week!

Laurie Beth

Jesus Career Counselor: How to Find and Keep your Perfect Work

Light Pouring From You.

Light Pouring From You

Yesterday I measured a light table for my art studio, taking its heighth and width and depth in three dimensions.  I know from my measurements that it is 48 inches wide by 66 inches deep by 36 inches high.   What fascinates me most about this particular table is not its dimensions, but the light that comes from within it.

And that is what fascinates me about you.  Not your job description, per se,  but what is being poured into the world from your soul while you are working.

In Jesus, Career Counselor, we are going into a fourth dimension if you will.

For your career is not only about how high, or wide, or deep your work is, but most importantly, what bubbles up from inside it—from inside you.

In Ezekiel 47 we are given a life changing vision of a man encountering a heavenly being who tells him to measure a steam that is flowing from underneath the altar.  As the two continue their dialogue the stream turns into a river, and the river flows into a sea.  And all along the river are trees bearing fruit for food and leaves for healing.  There are fish of every kind swimming in the river, and fishermen making a living on both sides of it.  And perhaps most beautifully of all “everything will live where the river goes.”   I have prayed that my career would be like that.

Wouldn’t you want that for yours too, or for your childrens?

In order for that to happen, the stream must start under the altar, which is a dedicated place of worship and communion with God.

JCC, How to Find and Keep Your Perfect Work.

Laurie Beth

Stuck in a Job or Career Path?

The overwhelming majority of  Biblical characters were either self employed, or worked in a family Business.

For example, among the Self employed were:

Nathaniel, Samuel, Jonah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Elijah

Mordecai, Rahab, Micah, Balaam, Malachi, etc.

Those who owned or worked in a Family Business included:

Abraham, Noah, Job, Moses, Miriam, Aaron, Saul, Jonathan, David, Solomon, Jacob, Isaac, Laban, Lot, Boaz, Ruth, Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James, John

A number of them were employees of larger organizations, such as:

Daniel, Nehemiah, Esther, Joshua

And Most of them experienced major career transitions.

A brief overview illustrates the transitions.

Family business to employee:  Joseph, Jacob, Moses

Family business to self employed: Satan, Adam and Eve,  Jesus

Self employed to family business:  Rahab

Employee to self employed:  Nehemiah, Joshua

Family business to employee to self employed to employer:

King David

This shows that God does not necessarily need or even want people to stay in the same job or career in order to accomplish his purposes.  There is a pervasive fear among parents, I am told, that their child will not get into the right school or get the right teacher or scholarship, and if they don’t their lives are ruined.  To them I say if you are afraid of every step you take, the path you are on is too narrow.  It fails to consider the almighty power of a knowing and loving God to help guide willing souls into the proper harbor.

“You will hear a voice behind you saying ‘This is the path, walk ye in it’” says the scripture.   Career planning involves listening and relationship, not fear of failure.

How many jobs have you had?  How many career changes have you made?  Are you getting closer to your mission or further from it?

Laurie Beth

Finding the Valuable Work God has for you.

Recently, as I walked in a park in Scottsdale, Arizona, I noticed a young man in shorts and a tee shirt wading waist deep in murky water. His head was down and he moved each foot slowly, diligently searching. Two of his buddies were standing on the shore, chatting and smoking, sometimes calling out encouragement.

I circled the complete park and when I returned I asked, “What is he looking for?”

“A $100 frisbee,” they said. “He’s not going home without it.”
Then while walking, in Balboa Park in San Diego, I noticed a life sized statue of a woman holding a pine cone in one hand, and a garden trowel in the other. This was a monument to Kate Sessions, a horticulturist who planted most of the flowers, trees, and plants in the park over a twenty year period.

These two images are powerful visuals that depict what my upcoming book is about. The first, someone searching waist deep in murky water for a valued treasure. The second, a person holding a treasure in one hand, with a digging implement in the other.

It occurred to me that many people do not spend as much time searching for a worthy career as that young man did searching for a frisbee. He was willing to stop the game he was playing, inconvenience his friends, get into muddy water that was waist deep, and ruin what he was wearing, all to find that which was lost.

How much time have you spent — are you willing to spend — to find the valuable work God has for you? Are you willing to take time and make the effort even if it means wading waist deep in “murky water?”

Post your thoughts or comments here or follow on Facebook or Twitter to join the conversations.

Finding your perfect work!
Laurie Beth

New Book, Jesus Career Counselor: Join the JCC conversation with LBJ.

Thank you for your interest in my newest book that is to be released May 4 with Simon and Schuster.  I believe this book is a timely book for many who are facing a variety of life transitions.  It is my goal over the next several weeks to begin sharing with my readers some of the contents and concepts from this book.  I would enjoy jumping into the conversation with any of you as you feel the need. Here are some of the reasons you might want to join into the conversation or get the book:

You’ve just lost a job

You’ve been wrongly terminated

You’ve been laid off for reasons you don’t understand

You have an ignorant boss

You are inheriting a family business

You want to leave a family business

You have inherited sudden wealth

You have suddenly lost wealth

You feel different than your co-workers

You are being called to relocate

You refuse to relocate

You don’t want to keep doing what you’ve been doing

You feel burned out

You are in a fog about next steps for your career

You are trained in one thing but want to do something different

You realize you are living out your parent’s unlived lives

You are just starting out and feel overwhelmed by possibilities

You need to learn a new skill set entirely

You are feeling irrelevant and passed by in the workplace

If any of these questions pertain to you right now, this book is for you.