Ambitions

My Dictionary defines Ambitions as A desire for success: a strong feeling of wanting to be successful in life and achieve great things. My dictionary also defines the word Talent as an unusual natural ability to do something well, especially in artistic areas that can be developed by training (important key phrase).

A few months ago I was called to be a Mia-maid advisor in my ward. I was ecstatic because this was actually the calling I wanted. Like in every ward, part of my calling as a young women’s leader includes trying to encourage the girls to do personal progress and to help them see it’s importance. I thought it would be hard to encourage the girls to do something if I wasn’t actually doing it myself, so I decided that I wanted to do my personal progress over again. However I decided I wanted to start with the third value  “ Individual Worth”  because that is something I (as well as most people I believe) always seem to struggle in.

While working on the different value experiences, I did one that asked the young women to write a list of ambitions in their journal and to talk about their hopes and dreams, then write a plan to accomplish those ambitions. So there I went, I typed up a list that actually surprised me, it was long! I didn’t include silly things like sky diving or touring Italy, it was a real list of hopes, ambitions and talents that I wanted to develop. It felt wonderful to see a real list of things I wanted to accomplish most (if not all) being righteous desires that would help mold me into not only the person I want to be but the person the Lord wants me to be.

A few days ago a friend of mine posted this quote on her blog by Sister Hinckley saying:

"We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives. We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us. We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something. We have to learn to be content with what we are."

At first I was troubled by this quote because I thought it pretty much condemned me for trying to improve myself (which is hard because I have been coming up with a big “self improvement list” recently). Except the more I thought about it though I discovered that the quote is not trying to tell us to stop improving ourselves. Instead it’s saying exactly what the Individual worth value is supposed to teach us, which is to be content with ourselves, love who you are and develop and cultivate our unique talents that we have been given at our own pace.

Of course its alright to try to improve yourself. :) After all doesnt the parable of the talents in the New Testament basically commands us to do so? The important thing to remember is that we can’t compare ourselves to those around us who may be moving at a different pace or may be at a different place in life. We need to look within ourselves and just try to be the best you that there is and continue to strive to be better and more Christ like each and every day.

I hope that through learning this lesson and completing this value I (along with everyone else) will learn that its okay to be you and move forward at your own pace as long as your still striving to move forward. Feel free to have that LONG list of ambitions and have a deep desire to learn new things and develop new talents. Lets give our self a break and not break our back to be “Super woman” today, but instead work on one thing at a time and slowly multiply the gifts and talents that we have been given.

- Laurilee