A Self Pruning Plant

“Seest though a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.” – Proverbs 22:29

How many times have you applied for a position and been rejected for one of these reasons: not enough training, not enough experience, or both? I know I can’t be the only person. And how many times has it caused you to feel defeated, because they were right? You haven’t been in the game long enough, studied hard enough, known enough of the right people. You’re a small fish in a big ocean and the place you want to be doesn’t want you back. That hurts. That doubt shows it’s ugly head and taunts your Confidence until it shrivels up and hides. Then you become complacent, and just accept what is as all that will be and you stop trying to grow. After all, how many times do you have to hit your head on the ceiling to know that it hurts?

That was my story. A fresh college graduate, with a crisp new diploma that I’d placed in a very expensive well adorned frame and hung on the wall in my parent’s basement. It was my greatest accomplishment and I just knew that I was going to take the world by storm. I was ready. Until the first job I applied for didn’t offer me an interview. And then the second said they were “going in a different direction.” The third one didn’t even bother replying at all. Days of rejection turned into weeks, into months, and when I had been unemployed for a year I finally received an offer to work in the fashion jewelry department at Macy’s. Feeling rejected and unimportant, I took it. But it was definitely not where I thought my 4 years of studying and applying myself would lead me.

How did this happen? How could a bright eyed, young, smart, educated me end up in a place that high school students came to work during their holidays and summers? Hadn’t I done what I was supposed to do by going to college and getting an education so I could have all the things that hard work was supposed to make a way for? Yes, and no. There were many things I didn’t know I could or should be doing while I was a student that could have paved my way for greater success. Internships, networking, summer fellowships, all things I had let pass me by because at the time I didn’t understand the importance of it. I had not been a self-pruning plant, and it was showing. But instead of seeing the opportunity I missed and doing what was necessary to bounce back from it, I was embarrassed and I felt inferior. Everyone else was more prepared than me, and better than me, and it was all my fault.

When it comes to succeeding in life, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be good. We want to be eligible for that promotion, worthy of that bonus, entitled to that 401K and better benefits package. We show up everyday, on time (ish), clean, and ready to work, and nobody notices us. How does that happen? That’s that Inferiority coming out. We WANT those things, but more than we want them we want validation that we deserve them. We want someone else to recognize how great we are and to offer us the desires of our heart, because somewhere along the way we decided that it’s not ours for the taking, but ours for the receiving. Because we feel Inferior, we need someone else to tell us that we aren’t. Sometimes we want reward to come easy and because we want someone to notice us, or recognize what we’ve done, or make room at their table for us we stop trying to make room for ourselves. Inferiority makes us lazy.

What do I mean by that? Earlier I mentioned being a self-pruning plant. Self-pruning plants do just that. They take care of themselves, cutting off the branches that are leaching from the healthy parts of the plant, turning themselves to the sun to provide better nourishment, even storing water so as to not dry out when the rain doesn’t come. These plants know what it takes to survive and they do it. They know how to best be about the business of living their best life. But plants aren’t people, filled with emotions that get in the way of Confidence. That doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them. When you don’t have enough training to do a certain job, go get that training. When you don’t have a strong enough knowledge base to try that new thing, read a book, an article, take a seminar, watch a TEDtalk. LEARN. Be about the business you want to succeed in and success will come. Don’t be impatient with the process, but welcome the wealth of the knowledge you may have missed out on in the first place. And when you have that knowledge and are ready to race down the track in a new lane, and you get tired of waiting for the other cars speeding by to make room in their lane for you to merge over, make your own! Confidence is a lane no one can push you out of. Don’t let Inferiority make you too lazy to take the chances God is waiting for you to take.

When I got tired of waiting for Macy’s to be the place I wanted to be, I did something unthinkable. I turned it over to God. I put my faith in Him, told Him that I wanted a new job in a new career by a certain date and what I was willing to do to get it. I edited my resume, highlighted all my strengths and skills, and started to fast. I also continued to read, and work on my writing and educate myself on the things I wanted. Half way through my fast, a distributor saw me and talked to me and told me I wasn’t working where I should be. She required me to give her that resume I had recently edited and told me that she would give it to the right people. After that I got a call for an interview. I took the interview and a week after that I was offered a new position. And guess what? I didn’t have all the training and experience but they were willing to help me get it. My last day at Macy’s was 2 days before the deadline I had given to God.

God gives us the strength we need to succeed in this life that He gave us. But it is up to us to go out there and make those things happen. We have to be Confident enough in ourselves to study harder, learn more, train more, so when the opportunities aren’t just handed to us and we have to step outside of our comfort zone and make a new lane, we aren’t too Afraid or too Inferior to do it. The bible says study to show thyself approved… (2 Timothy 2:15) and this is the same thing. We study the bible so that when we’re unsure about something we can know that we know. If we study our trade, our business, our passion, there’s no reason to doubt we can handle that massive order that comes in. Or that project that’s bigger than the last one, or be nervous when going before the VP of the company to state our case about better options for the company. A man or woman who is diligent about their business shall stand before KINGS, not mean men. God said it is so, and I’m confident enough to believe it.