Bishop T.D Jakes
If You Grew Up In A Bad Environment
This Is For You! - T.D Jakes
If You Grew Up In A Bad Environment, This Is For You! - T.D Jakes
Do you know someone who has relocated to a different city, career field, home, or even relationship because they believed a “new start” was what they needed to achieve their destiny? We all know someone who thinks that way. There are plenty of them and you can find many people with that mindset just by stepping into the nearest coffee shop!
Before you read on, understand that some situations do require some restructuring of life. Nevertheless, relocating somewhere else and doing the same thing you did in your previous environment will yield few beneficial results.
What is it about us that makes us tie our goals, purpose, and destiny to our environment? What forces us to believe that who we are is based completely on what happened to us and where we reside? Granted, our environments do play a role in the makeup of our lives, but we all have the choice to remain the way we are or change ourselves for the better. On top of that, we see others who were similar situations to ours but went on to bigger and better things. What sets them apart from us? What did they do that we are not doing? Why did they receive an opportunity that we did not?
I wholeheartedly believe our destinies are not products of our environment. On the contrary, our environments often serve as motivation for us to pursue our destiny. If we would throw ourselves into the purpose and destiny over our lives, we will often find our destinies taking us along paths that lead us to the right opportunities at the right time. We need not seek a “new start” in a drastic way in order to improve our creativity. All we must do is take advantage of what we currently have at our disposal, because our gifts will grant us audiences with influential people.
Once we know what our destiny is — once we have an understanding of our purpose — we must make the necessary sacrifices to achieve them. This might require taking a step back from watching too much television and devoting that time to doing what’s necessary for us to achieve our goals. An excellent, successful writer does not become successful without writing. A bodybuilder does not achieve his desired look and proportions without putting in the time and effort to train his body and eat nutritious meals.
Pablo Picasso painted. Ludwig van Beethoven composed music. Maya Angelou became a world renowned novelist and poet. Arnold Schwarzenegger became the world’s standard for bodybuilding, having trained and worked his body for tens of thousands of hours. Albert Einstein defined modern physics with his theory of relativity and was labeled a genius. Each of these people became the definition of greatness in their fields simply by devoting themselves to their crafts, sacrificing their time, and throwing themselves into their purpose. In addition, each of them came from a variety of environments and overcame some of the most difficult odds while on the road to their destiny. They did not allow their surroundings to dictate their identities.
Do not allow your surroundings and experiences to distract you from your destiny. If you do what great people do, you can get what great people got.
