This is for the individual on the proverbial hamster wheel. You keep moving but get nowhere. Your life is a constant stream of what to eat, where to live and what to wear. You are stuck at existence, and worse, other people depend on you too for their own sustenance.

Then there’s you, the entrepreneur. You are trapped. Because you’re the critical thinking force in your company, if you don’t show up, the company will eventually burn.

Your situation is reminiscent of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 13:3–9. You will find yourself in verse 7: “Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants.”

See, you are essentially good soil. You can nurture and grow greatness, but for the things that are choking you. So, you are drowning.

It’s time to stop complaining and to do something about your life. Here’s why: you don’t have much time. When God puts an important destiny-changing seed in you and you don’t produce fruit, you will eventually be discarded and burnt – Luke 13:6–9.

But the good news is in the last verse (and also in John 6:39) – Jesus never loses anyone God puts in his care. He will keep coming back for you and will never stop helping you until you produce fruit. But it’s time to recognize your thorns and to aggressively do something about them.

You are addicted to your suffering, work and problems. They have become your identity. You just don’t want to admit it.

Hamster Wheel Hannah

Hannah is stuck in an inescapable loop of survival and family obligation.

She doesn’t have the skills to qualify for the best jobs, or if she does, is not in the right networks to find great opportunities.

Even when Hannah has above-average earning capacity, she immediately spends what comes in, and doesn’t know how to say no to loved ones.

Eventually, life gives her every chance to create sustainable wealth, so she has the power of choice and can finally step off the hamster wheel. But she keeps delaying financial planning, saying she’ll get to it later.

Soon, she’ll look back to discover she’s spent her whole life living for others and never fulfilled her purpose.

Overwhelmed Oscar

Oscar runs a business but feels trapped. He is the chief sales and innovation officer and if he doesn’t sell or think, nothing moves forward.

Oscar doesn’t have the bandwidth for strategy because he’s inundated with operations. But without increasing income through implementing new ideas, he can’t afford more competent staff.

He’s also reached his operational capacity and knows he needs people who are smarter and better than him. But he doesn’t know how to attract them, since they have other options.

Stop Everything and Rest

If you see yourself in these archetypes, then you urgently need to do something counterintuitive – stop everything.

Take a break, perhaps during a public holiday when no one will look for you. Set up your out-of-office email response, disable all app notifications and just disappear for a few days.

The clarity and innovation you need will be found in the space of unhurried rest. Go somewhere familiar where you don’t need to plan anything. Take walks, visit a bookstore, sit in a park. Wake up late. Eat whatever you like. Buy last minute tickets to things and just show up. Suspend your executive brain.

Zoom out completely. You cannot see the forest for the trees. During your time away, you may need to talk to someone who is objective and can dispassionately give an opinion about your life or structure. Tell the truth – we tend to hide the more embarrassing parts of ourselves in order to project a false narrative to the world.

Talk to a close friend, mentor or professional coach, and be brutally honest. Their insights will give you food for thought during your time away.

When You Return, Prioritize Operations

You need speed when you return from your break. There’s no point coming back with a solution with no one to implement it.

Talk to people who have solved the same problem before. How did they do it? Who did they hire and how? Don’t reinvent the wheel. Copy and paste. If you need to bring in a short-term project manager, do so.

James 4:17 addresses those who know what to do and still don’t do it. Fight inertia and the status quo with everything in you.

It’s Not About You

All of this advice is not about you. It’s about the seeds you carry and the thorns that are choking them. If you were not good soil, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

There is something you carry that is important to the world and God’s kingdom. So, I am appealing to you – please do not let it die.

You may think no one is indispensable and that God will simply raise someone else. But it may not happen in this generation. It might take years to find someone else with your unique confluence of skill, character and style.

While God has time (and can wait), humans don’t. In that time, real destinies will be truncated and people might die. So, approach this with urgency.

Thank you for reading. For more, read How Do You Use Social Media