There is a preacher whose sermons have taught me a lot about life. I remember listening to one of Joyce Myer’s talks where she said that we are blessed to have a God who gives us lessons and tests and, unlike the tests we may get at school, if we fail one of our life tests, we get to repeat that test as many times as we need to, regardless of how many times we fail, until we learn the lesson.
In her sermon Joyce spoke about the Israelites and their journey to the Promised Land. It was a 3-day journey that took them 40 years to complete!
Why 40 years? Well, because they had a lot of lessons to learn and a lot of tests to re-sit before they could reach the Promised Land.
It’s a great metaphor that we can apply to our lives.
How often do we find ourselves re-living the same set of circumstances, or having the same challenging personalities come into our lives? We think we have left some bad experience behind us and yet, it appears again in our lives.
Why?
Well, I believe it’s because there is something in that set of circumstances that we need to learn. Until we modify something about ourselves, those circumstances will keep appearing. Whether it be changing the way we view those circumstances, or whether it be changing the decisions we make and the actions we take – we’ll keep getting to re-sit that same test over and over again until something within ourselves changes.
I recently found myself re-sitting one of these tests.
Quite a few years ago I found myself working in a very unhealthy organisational environment. The environment was quite toxic with rampant bullying and significant degrees of incompetence. At that time, I used many excuses to keep me from taking any action that was actually in my own best interests. I feared that if I left before the project’s end, it would affect my professional reputation. I also convinced myself that if I stayed, I could help them work through their issues and make things better. In the end, I found myself simply hitting my head against a brick wall and remaining in misery.
It took quite a few months of suffering before I had the ‘best friend conversation’ with myself – you know, the conversation you would have with your best friend if they described a dreadful situation and then sought your advice. I asked myself, what would I say to my best friend if they described the situation I was in? The answer was clear. Leave.
It took me many months of unhappiness in that company before I made a stand, took back control of my own happiness, and resigned.
Fast-forward a few years and I found myself in similar circumstances. Granted, this new company was nowhere near as toxic as that first one, however, within a few weeks, I saw the cracks begin to appear in the project I was working on and I began to witness people struggling with confusion and frustration. As more people were brought onto the project, it just seemed to create more chaos. New and challenging personalities joined the team, and the standards of behaviour started to decline. What was worse was that I realised that the poor behaviours were not only tolerated, but the organisation seemed to encourage them. Again, I found myself in an unhealthy environment and it was an environment that was eating away at my peace and joy.
This time around, I didn’t want to go through months and months of suffering before taking responsibility for myself and taking control of my own outcomes. So how long would I subject myself to this?
Here was my opportunity to re-sit that same test.
I had the ‘best friend conversation’ with myself again. If my best friend told me a story of what was going on and the behaviours I was witnessing, what would be my advice for them? The answer came back loud and clear “Leave. This behavioural problem isn’t yours to fix.”
So I resigned.
I had learnt my lesson and applied what I had learned in this test.
Sometimes problems and situations aren’t actually yours to fix. Your job is to do whatever it takes to maintain your own peace and joy. You only have one life – don’t waste a precious moment of it subjecting yourself to toxic people and environments.
That’s what I would say to my best friend – or for anyone, for that matter. So, if that’s the advice I would give others, then that’s the advice I need to give to myself.
This experience also helped me learn some more lessons and I share these in today’s video.
Perhaps some of these lesson may resonate with you.
