7 Distractions That are Keeping You from Your Calling

It starts out as a whisper, a nudge inside your soul. A random idea that comes to you through an experience, a song, a person; and when you really start thinking about it, it isn’t so random at all.

You pray on it, you meditate, you journal about it. The more time you spend looking at this idea, this nudge, the more you start noticing signs from God that no, you’re not crazy to think of this.

You are being led here; you are being called to something.

To share, to create, to give, to take action, to inspire. Whatever it is, it’s unique to you.

What you’ve been through, what you’ve learned, and how you’ve grown from and in this thing gives you special credentials to live out this calling.

You are the expert in this field, or maybe you have a different take that hasn’t been done yet, on something that’s been done a million times over.

This is your calling.

You get confirmation to go for it, you get a vision of what God is calling you to do.

You decide to step out and go for it.

You make a plan, set goals, get organized. You start telling people so it becomes real – or maybe, you keep it to yourself because you know there will be a right time to speak about it.

Your excitement grows. You’re going to help people! You’re going to give back! You’re going to break generational curses and heal yourself and heal others! You’re going to change the world!

So you dive in. You take the first step, then another, then another.

Maybe it’s smooth sailing for a while and things fall perfectly into place before life pops up, snagging your attention like a loose thread in a sweater.

And then you blink, weeks have gone by and you’re no closer to bringing this vision to life than when you first started.

Or maybe from that very first step, you’ve experienced nothing but conflict, pushback, and distraction.

Maybe months or even years have gone by since God deposited the dream like a seed inside your heart, but you’ve been stuck at step one, unable to give that seed the water and time it needs to grow.

It’s okay. I’ve been there. Anyone who has gone after their calling has experienced setbacks.

It’s important to recognize that this isn’t failure, but distraction.

When you step out into your calling, there are going to be forces at work trying to keep you from it.

By mistaking these little snares as failure and not distraction, we stay in the same place, never moving forward to what God has called us to do.

I recently evaluated what was keeping me from my own calling, and I realized they were just that: distractions.

Here are 7 distractions that are keeping you from your calling:

Laziness

So you’ve landed on a brilliant idea. You’ve made the choice to go for it.

But as you start researching and brainstorming and networking, you realize that you’re quite a ways off from the vision in your head. You’re at the starting point. And you can’t just jump from the beginning to the end – there’s work involved along the way.

After a few days or weeks, you realize how much work – and possibly time – it’s going to take to get you to where you want to be.

You’ll have to be super dedicated; you’ll have to make sacrifices.

You think about your life, and it’s pretty damn comfortable. You like your life. You have a lot going on right now, and there just isn’t enough time to start this project, you tell yourself.

You decide to start by tackling one task, but then the week slips by and you didn’t complete it. You promise yourself you’ll do it next week. Another week goes by. Then another. Soon it’s months since you last looked at your journal, which is now at the bottom of the stack of papers on your desk.

You know you should work on your calling, you want to work on your calling, but after a long day you’re tired or you’re too busy.

If you have time to spend on social media or binge watching Netlfix, you have time to take one small step in your calling.

If you have time to spend going out on the weekends and traveling nonstop, you have time for your calling.

You’re just being lazy.

You don’t want to put in the work needed to launch this thing off the ground. You don’t want to wait the time it will take to see the product of your persistence and perseverance.

Don’t let laziness hold you back from the thing God is calling you to do.

Fear

It’s scary putting yourself out there.

It’s scary to quit that job or move or any other big life decision for the sake of your calling.

The smaller steps can be just as terrifying.

When you step out into what God has called you to do, people won’t get it. There will be people who won’t support you, who might criticize you, ridicule you, or try to prevent you from going for it.

These people might be your family members, your partner, or your friends.

Don’t let the fear of what people will think stop you.

Don’t let the fear of failure, making the wrong decision, or not feeling qualified hold you back either.

There’s no way of knowing the future, but it’s so easy to slip into that mindset of, “what if?”

What if this business fails and I lose all my money? What if I don’t have what it takes? Who I am to teach people about this topic, when I’m still figuring it out myself?

Endless scenarios play out in your head, the fear building like a monster that keeps you from even taking that first step.

Don’t let fear of the unknown hold you back. Fix your eyes on the One who created you. He’s walking alongside you and he won’t let you fail.

When you focus on the goodness of the Lord, think about all the things that he has done for you. If he’s given this vision to you, he’s going to clear the way for you.

Bring your fears to God and watch them fall away in his presence.

Life’s responsibilities

It’s no secret that today’s world is busy. Packed schedules, chronic stress, and hustle culture make up much of our daily lives.

Honestly, f*ck hustle culture.

Decades of societal conditioning have engrained in us the belief that to be happy, content or successful, we need to constantly be striving, push harder and do more.

Like an overstretched rubber band, you’re constantly tugged in a million different directions, barely able to meet the needs of yourself, your family, or even your dog.

There are jobs to be worked, children to be cared for, and friends to see, all while keeping on top of running the errands, keeping the home clean, and spending time on your own health and wellness.

It’s no wonder you don’t have time for your calling.

And like a rubber band, you can’t stay stretched forever. You will, inevitably, snap.

We get so sucked into the belief that we have to do everything. We have to go to work. We need to clean our house. We have to go to our sister-in-law’s birthday party (who we don’t really like) because it’s expected of us, even though we desperately could use a night to ourselves.

In reality, we have the lovely gift of free will.

And in case no one’s ever told you this, you don’t have to or need to do anything at all.

We get to do things. We can do whatever it is we want to do.

And there is enough time in the day to start pursuing your calling, even if it’s the tiniest lil baby step.

Even if it’s jotting down ideas on the back of your grocery list for five minutes at the end of the day, sitting in your car before you go inside the house.

Even if it’s doing research on your phone during your bathroom break at work, instead of scrolling through Instagram.

Even if you quit that job, take on two more, delegate the housework to your partner, stop going out on Friday nights, enroll in school, take out a loan, sell your car, stop hanging out with family or friends who don’t support you, be mindful of what you consume, commit to getting up an extra 10 minutes earlier each day or staying up a little later each night – those choices will make the difference.

They will give you the time needed to pursue your calling. You just have to figure out what will work best for you.

Shiny Packages

Don’t be surprised when the moment you step out into your calling, that something else comes along that seems better.

Like a package wrapped up with shiny paper and bow, an opportunity might present itself to you that looks like the better option than the one you’ve selected.

You start to question which way you should go – both options seem great, or maybe the newer one seems better.

This other option could differ from your calling, but it promises more success, adventure, community, money – something that you know you want for yourself.

It might seem like the easier or faster or more rewarding route.

Seek God’s counsel. This new opportunity might be where he’s leading you… or it could just be a distraction.

When starting my blog, I was met with so many different options. There were just so many things I could do with it.

Did I want to make money from it? Should I focus on driving traffic? What about creating content?

I ended up driving myself crazy going in circles, asking God which path was best for the blog, only to be met with silence. I ended up getting next to nothing done for a substantial amount of time because I was distracted by all these seemingly great ways to make the blog better and it overwhelmed me.

At the end of it all, I went back to the vision God gave me, and back to the last instruction he gave me, which was simply to write.

Now that I’ve refocused on this goal, this vision of keeping it simple, I’ve been able to create with so much more ease, and little stress. I’m living out what the Lord has called me to do, and it is the best feeling.

Conflict

Another form of distraction is conflict, being met with problems every step of the way. These issues are directly related to your calling.

Your car breaks down on the way to your class, or you spend days writing up a proposal only to have it mysteriously be deleted from your files on your computer.

It was one helluva struggle getting the back end of my website up and running. Every step was met with blockages – I don’t know how else to describe it.

I’d follow a video tutorial of something they claimed was “super easy and took ten minutes,” only for it to not work. I’d spend hours – or days, or even weeks – on the most simple steps, and it frustrated me to the point of tears.

I started to dread working on the calling that I had been so excited about at the start. The constant struggle wore on my morale, and I started to look at the whole process very negatively. I started to procrastinate, and as a result, it took ages to even launch the blog.

Don’t be surprised if this happens to you, and don’t get discouraged. Don’t let the roadblocks make you question if this is the right path.

If you are truly following what you believe is your soul’s calling, there will be forces at work that will try and stop you.

They will do everything in their power to prevent you from breathing life into your calling, because they know you’ll be creating change in the world.

They will do everything in their power to prevent you from breathing life into your calling, because they know you’ll be creating change in the world.

Recognize the conflict as something that’s making you grow stronger, and push forward, growing more confident every step of the way.

Sh*t Hits the Fan

Then, there are the battles that will happen in your life, that have nothing to do with your calling, but can and oftentimes will take up all your time.

I’m talking about when sh*t really hits the fan. Like when there’s a death in the family, or a loved one gets sick; you suffer a financial loss, your kid gets suspended from school.

Those life events that have you facing off like Leonardo DeCaprio with the bear in The Revenant. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that scene is not pretty.

You feel thrown around, mauled, and left for dead after something big happens to you.

How on earth are you supposed to focus on your calling, when you’re bleeding out in the wilderness?

Be kind to yourself and be realistic about your current capacity for creation.

Do a little at a time, but don’t give up.

Use your pain, your suffering, whatever you’re going through, to propel you forward into action. Leo didn’t give up. He lived. He kept going. And he slaughtered those men who killed his son and left him for dead.

A gruesome analogy but be like Leo. Persevere, in whatever way you can, no matter how small.

Rely on God for strength. He will give you what you need to keep going.

Disbelief

Another thing that can hold you back and distract you, is your disbelief.

Disbelief in your abilities to manifest the vision, and disbelief in God. You wonder if he’ll actually deliver on his promises.

You have such a strong, vivid idea in your head, like an art mural spray painted in an alley.

Bur you’re seeing the end, while you’re at the beginning, and the middle – the steps along the way are either one of two things:

It’s super murky. You’re not sure how you’re going to write a book or move to an underdeveloped country to stop sex-trafficking, or even stand up to your mother and have that conversation you’ve been putting off forever.

There are too many little side trails leading to the top of the mountain, too many miles of dense woods, and fog, and storm clouds to figure out the best path.

Or you see exactly what needs to be done, every step typed up on an Excel spreadsheet, and the sheer volume of what needs to be done overwhelms you.

How are you capable of performing all these tasks? How is God going to bring this to life when he’s only given me the vision of the end result? It’s so easy to picture how everything could go wrong.

This disbelief, or distrust of God cripples you into staying where you are.

You don’t trust yourself, and you don’t trust God.

Friend, God has equipped you with everything you need to live out the life he’s calling you to. He put this desire, this calling in your heart for a reason and he choose you to do it.

He’s not going to lead you out onto the ledge and push you over to tumble to your death.

He’s going to lead you out onto the ledge, and give you wings to fly.

Sure, there will be a little bit of free fall, before you discover your wings, but you’ll figure out how to ride the currents of the wind.

Because if you’re following your calling, God will give you those wings. He will support you and provide for you, he will demolish the roadblocks and pitfalls in your path.

You just have to trust him. And trust in yourself.