Episode 158: Uncover Your God-Given Talents Outside of Teaching

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
You guys. We are less than two weeks away from the official book launch of Teacher Turned … So excited for that to come out officially February 20th, and for our five day giveaway, the week of February 20th through the 24th, just a heads up by purchasing your pre-sale copy now of Teacher Turned … You’ll be entered into win all five days of the giveaway. So make sure you go ahead on over to teacherturnedfreelancer.com/book to grab your copy.

(01:53):
So February’s episodes are all centered around helping you pursue your God-given purpose outside of the classroom because that’s what the book is about. I think one of the most challenging pieces of discovering your God-given purpose outside of teaching is uncovering what giftings you already have deep down inside of you. If you’ve been teaching for any amount of time, I’m willing to bet that you struggle with feeling like you don’t have any other gifts, skills, or talents that you could turn into a career. You guys, I’m here to tell you that that is not true. If you’re not sure what you would like to do outside of teaching or what you would be good at, I’m gonna walk you through my four step process so you can start to uncover those God-given gifts inside of you.

(02:38):
So let’s just dive in. Uncover step number one is to pray. God knows exactly who he created you to be, and even if you can’t see it yet yourself, turning to him is the quickest way to start unlocking what’s been hiding inside of you. So just ask him, ask him to show you what skillsets you have to show you how you could use those to both further his kingdom as well as to support yourself and your family. Sometimes we end up just sitting in the “stuckness” because we’re looking at ourselves through the lens of who we are now. But remember, God knows exactly who he designed you to be and how he plans for you to get there. So rather than trying to control the situation, try turning to the God who knows and loves you so deeply that he felt compelled to create you. Ask him for guidance in uncovering your purpose rather than just floundering around trying to figure it out yourself.

(03:42):
Okay, so step number one is to pray. Step number two is to ask others. Now, for this step, I encourage you to select a few special people in your life and ask them what they think your giftings are. A word of caution here is make sure you don’t ask everyone you know it’s important to be discerning and only ask those who are really close to you, who know your heart inside and out and can speak to God’s giftings in your life. Some great people to ask include your parents, your closest friends, somebody who’s a spiritual mentor to you and or someone who is where you wanna be. Now, this doesn’t have to be a super long process. There are really only two key questions that I want you to ask. Number one, what sets me apart from others? And number two is what God-given gifts or talents do you think that I have the people around you see what your strengths are, even when you might not necessarily see them yourself? You might even think that everybody has the strengths that you have, but spoiler alert they don’t. If you can pull these answers out of the people who have been observing you, who know you so deeply that they’re gonna be able to help you identify your strengths, this can be incredibly helpful in pointing you towards your purpose outside of teaching.

(05:05):
Okay, so step number one, we pray. Step number two, we ask others what our gifts are. And then step number three, we gotta pray. Again, this is where you go back and take what you learned and step number two and confirm it with God because we don’t want to just take human words at face value. You want to confirm that what they’re saying is true and that that’s really where God is calling you to go. So ask him to show you your gifts. Ask him for confirmation of what your friends, family, and mentors have told you, and ask for signs that you’re on the right track. I do wanna make a little caveat here and remind you that if God doesn’t answer you right away, he might just be asking you to wait. Sometimes we need to be patient and know that God wants us to trust in him. So maybe he’s asking us to have patience for a reason. So as you’re waiting, continue to pray and just take action in the route that you think you’re supposed to go. But just know that you might have to do a little bit of redirect once you do get that answer. So God asking you to wait isn’t an excuse to sit around and do nothing while you wait for an answer from him. It’s important that while you’re waiting, you do take the action that you think you’re supposed to take and then God will eventually give you clarity.

(06:27):
All right, step number four is to believe in yourself. I think so many people, they completely skip over the step and it is so important. I want you to know that you have the ability to pursue your dreams even if they seem scary. All of our dreams are scary. They wouldn’t be on our heart if they were like super easy. God wants to challenge us, to stretch us, to push us, to grow us, and so he’s gonna give us these big goals that he wants us to chase, and we just have to have the faith to chase them. It is really easy to get trapped and worrying about the big picture. There’s a saying that goes something like, how do we eat an entire elephant, one bite at a time? You don’t need to try to shove the whole elephant in your mouth. That would probably hurt, so I’d prefer you didn’t even try that. All you have to do is take small steps. You just have to trust that you either already have the ability to do what you need to do or that God is going to help you figure it out because that’s what he’s there for. He is here to guide us where he wants us to go. He has a plan for us, and that plan was set before we were born. So all we have to do is follow in his footsteps. I pray that God would shine a light on your abilities, your skills, your gifts, so that you can use those gifts to further his mission. I pray that he places people in your life that will speak love and life into you and that will encourage you to go where he is calling you.

(08:07):
Real quick, let me recap those four steps I had for you. First step is to pray. Ask God what his purpose is for you. Ask him to uncover it for you. Step number two is to ask those in your life that you really trust and value and respect. Ask them what your giftings are. Step three is to pray again, and step four is to believe that you can do it to believe in yourself.

(08:33):
Just a reminder, if you loved love this episode, we’ve got pretty much the same kind of content going on in the Teacher Turned … book, so make sure that you go and grab your presale copy at teacherturnedfreelancer.com/book. And remember when you grab that presale copy, you get entered into all five days of our giveaway starting February 20th through February 24th. Thank you guys in advance so much. It means so much to me when you support everything that we’ve got going on around here, and I just can’t wait to pour more into y’all. I love you so much and we will see you next time.