My Confession Of Doubt And Frustration

I have a confession to make. Most of you reading this have never met me, but I will tell you that I am highly competitive and hate to lose. I strive to win and succeed at everything I do. Obviously, I am not always good enough to do so! Even worse, I am able to quickly lose my footing and fall into a pit of despair if I see myself losing. Doubt and frustration can set in quickly if I am not careful.

Continuous Learning

Let me set the scene. As I have often posted, I am a strong proponent of continuous learning. Several years ago, I attended Catalyst conference in order to sharpen my spiritual focus and learn how to better lead as a Christian business owner.

A couple of weeks later, I attended a meeting of auto dealers where we share ideas, experiences, and compare business performance among the members. I always get great ideas from these meetings because the group consists of some really good dealers!

Doubt Sets In

There is a downside, however, to these meetings. It is this downside that really hit me hard over those few days. While sitting among truly great business owners and operators can provide fantastic learning opportunities, it can also bring my weaknesses to the forefront.

As I sat in these meetings, I simply got overwhelmed at the huge gap in performance between our business and those of the other group members. I am not referring to a near miss here or there. I am talking about consistently comparing our performance to theirs and coming up WAY short. Bluntly speaking, we had a long way to go before we were even remotely competitive in this group.

Doubt Takes Over!

This kind of experience may not bother you as much as it bothered me. I am not proud of it, but this really gets to me very quickly. My mind begins to spiral as I think of all the ways I am not passing muster. I begin to think of what life would be like if my numbers looked like theirs. I begin to think about how my job performance would likely get me fired if I worked for these other dealers.

Before you begin to lecture me, let me finish. This post is not about financial results or looking good in front of a group. I KNOW where my eyes and heart should be focused. I KNOW on what and Whom my eternity is based. I KNOW that the metrics I review in these meetings will not be remembered in 100 or 1,000 years. Folks, I KNOW all of this.

But I forget.

Do You Forget?

I simply forget it and begin to doubt my direction. I begin allowing frustration to set in and take over my heart. I allow fear and embarrassment to run rampant in my mind, causing me to think about all of the ways I am falling short or even failing as a business owner.

I forget what I KNOW and start dwelling on what I FEEL.

Has this ever happened to you?

We All Have Doubts

Of course it has. In some way or another, you have at some point in time allowed your circumstances change your convictions. You have embraced your feelings rather than your faith. We have all done this.

The question is this – how do we get out of this quicksand of doubt? How do we regain our footing? How do we get back to the truth?

Great questions!

The Rest Of The Story

In fact, I have an incredible end to this story that I believe will answer each of these questions. If I were not a first-hand witness to this next part of the story, I would not believe it myself. Quite simply, God answered my prayer in a way I did not expect and even had a hard time believing!

Unfortunately, I will have to tell you about it in my next post! I strongly encourage you to check back here in a couple of days to get the rest of the story. Better yet, you should subscribe below (if you haven’t already) to make sure you don’t miss it!

In the meantime, I urge you to pray about the issue I struggled with during these meetings. Take time to seek God about how He would answer these questions. When you do this, expect an answer and wait for it. He is faithful to give it!

How do you deal with doubt?

Has God pulled you out of this doubt quicksand before?

What advice can you give to others struggling with doubt?

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