James 2: 17…faith by itself, if it is not
accompanied by action, is dead. 24You see
that a person is justified by what he does
and not by faith alone.
It has been my experience in coaching people
to finding their life’s purpose, generally,
actually FINDING their purpose is a simple
process. But, helping them to actually taking
that first step into doing something about
LIVING their purpose has been challenging.
Let me tell you a story about Susan.
After working with Susan for a few days,
it was evident by her talents, passions
and abilities that she was meant to write.
She was born to write. She loved it. She
told me that every since she was about 6
years old, she kept notebooks in which she
wrote stories and poems. She never really
shared her writing with anyone. She actually
kept them private. Her family had never even
read her writing. They knew she loved to
write and knew that she had notebooks that
she carried around with her all the time and
was always scribbling something down. But
they never showed any interest or ever even
asked her to read any of her stories. So,
she has spent most of her life, hiding her
talents under a bushel.
After a lot of pleading and persuasion,
I finally convinced her to share some of
her work with me. She finally agreed and
I was blown away. Her work was touching,
moving and inspiring. She was a true writer,
yet, no one other than herself and now, me,
was even aware of her talents.
I was dumbfounded. Why are you hiding your
talent? Why haven’t you put this information
into booklet form and shared your talents with
the world–or at least with your immediate family?
Susan’s answer to me was that she has only
planned to put it into book form. She had been
inspired, on numerous occasions to share her
writing with others, but she never got around
to doing it. Her days are filled with work,
coming home and taking care of her husband and
children, and pets and on the weekend she has
to clean the house, the yard, run children from
one event to the othershe simply have never found
the time to do so. She wants to and agrees with
me that she is extremely talented, and one day
she is going to take me up on my suggestion.
I gave her a complete outline of suggestions
on what to do. I suggested that she find magazines
she wishes to write for and find their
Article Submission requirements and submit
some of her articles. I suggested that she
contact ezine producers and submit her articles
to them and even though she will probably not
get paid for her articles, it is good publicity
and can help to get her writing out there. I
also suggested that she start her own ezine
where she can write what she likes and get
people to subscribe who will enjoy her articles.
Another suggestion was that she submit her
articles to the millions of web sites that
simply host articles and I gave her a few
she could start with.
About a month after speaking with Susan,
I contacted her like I do with most people
that I deal with in any wayjust to see how
things are happening in their life. I was
convinced that when I contacted Susan she
would have exciting news about the many
places her articles were being published
and perhaps she had taken the step to even
writing her own book.
But what I discovered when I contacted Susan
was that she hadn’t done any of the things I
had suggested. She thought about it on numerous
occasions and had planned to spend sometime
gathering the information. She knows that she
should do something but she simply hasn’t done
anything yet. But she will. She will get to it
this weekend because she has a lot of time on Saturday.
I didn’t say anything to Susan except quote
James 2: Faith, by itself, if not accompanied
by action, is dead.
Susan had the faith that her writing was wonderful.
She believed that she had something to offer the
world. She was convinced that she could serve
others by giving them joy by sharing her gift of writing.
But Susan had done what so many of us have done.
We know our talents. We know the gifts that God
has given to us. We can feel it.
BUT WE DON’T TAKE ACTION!
Why don’t we take action?
This is a very personable question.
Why aren’t YOU taking action?
Why are you hiding your talents under a bushel?
Why aren’t you using the abilities that God
has blessed you with to serve his people?
What excuses are you telling yourself to
justify your lack of action?
Is it that you don’t have the time?
Perhaps it’s that you need to study more
before you take action?
Maybe you want to wait until the time is right.
That’s the same as saying, “We are waiting until
the time is right to start our family.”
The time is NEVER right. The time is RIGHT NOW!
ACTION POINT: TODAY, not tomorrow, not next month,
not next Monday, not after the holidays, not on
January 1 TODAY make the decision to TAKE ACTION.
Do SOMETHING. ANYTHING. It doesn’t matter because
SOME action is better than NO action.
If you know that your spirit is calling you to do
something, stop making excuses and start taking action.
When you make excuses, you hurt yourself and the
others that are waiting for you to bless them.
If you are a writer and your spirit is telling
you to contact a certain magazine and submit
your articleTHEN DO IT.
If your spirit is leading you to speak and teach
others about discovering their gifts and talents,
THEN SPEAK. It doesn’t matter where, and, it
doesn’t matter if you get paid for it or not
JUST SPEAK.
If your talent is to start a business and you
haven’t started on your business plan but your
spirit has been gearing you towards writing it,
yet you haven’t started, START.
I don’t care WHAT you doJUST DO IT!
(As Nike would say.)
Dawn Fields is a Motivational Speaker, Life Coach and Author. She teaches how to discover your life’s purpose and incorporate it into a career. Visit her web site at
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