Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
2 CORINTHIANS 9:7
Christina
When I got engaged, and even before then, I knew Nick and I were saving for our wedding, to buy a house, and to furnish our house. There is always something to save for in your future. Your first or next car, first or next house or apartment, a dream you want to be able to fund, school, everything! We don’t often look ahead a year or two when it comes to finances, and then we are shocked when we don’t have the money we wish we had to make these big, necessary purchases. But this can be avoided by looking ahead at the next ten years and asking, “What kinds of things will be coming up that I need to make goals for?”
My current savings goals revolve around the next several years, not the next several weeks or even months. I want to be a good steward of my money. To me, this means tithing, avoiding becoming greedy and worshiping material things and money, and not giving in to the temptation to use money to impress others. When I make purchases, I normally consider whether I really need what I’m buying, what my intention is in buying it, and whether this is the wisest use of my money. Sometimes I mess up. Sometimes I get overly excited and don’t think things through. But I always come back to my financial goals and values and get myself right back on track as soon as I can.
* * *
What kinds of things will be coming up that I need to make goals for?
* * *
When I want to buy something I’m not sure about, I make myself wait. I add it to my cart online but tell myself I can’t buy it until next month, or I just wait a week or two. Most of the time I don’t even end up buying whatever it was. Impulse purchases will get you! That’s why I need that strategy. It works for me.
Amy
When I was younger, I used saving money as an outlet for my control issues. I felt like the more money I saved, the more in control I was, and spending money would make me feel out of control. I was also too scared to take full responsibility for my finances by making a budget. It is okay to spend money. It doesn’t mean you are out of control, and fearfully saving money with no real goal won’t make you safe. Don’t be scared to take control of your financial life. Money can cause a lot of stress, but it doesn’t have to. Just budget smartly and trust that God will provide for you.
Christina
When I was a teenager, I thought that when I could afford to buy most things I wanted, this would make me super happy and be so exciting. I didn’t realize that the “happiness” gained from buying things doesn’t last very long. It’s really nowhere near as exciting as I thought it would be. I’d tell my younger self not to worry so much about money but also not to idolize it. Worry doesn’t help in making plans and taking action, and idolizing money only takes you down a misleading path. The money mind-set that has made me the most peaceful is making plans for the future, being knowledgeable about my money and where it’s going, knowing my goals, and ultimately focusing on influencing myself and others positively with not only my money but also my time.
Those who trust in their riches will fall
But like green leaves the just will flourish
PROVERBS 11:28
JOURNAL
•Think about the emotions you have around money. The last time you made an emotional purchase, what were you really trying to buy?
•If you don’t have a budget, use a page of your journal to sketch out your expenses and income. Take a few days to keep track of a typical week, and then make it firm. Does anything surprise you about your budget?
•What are your hopes for your money future? How can what you’re doing today build habits to get there?
PRAY
God, help me cultivate a healthy attitude toward money. Show me how to seek wisdom and knowledge, and guard my heart from greed and impulsive decisions. I want to use my resources the absolute best way I can!
CHAPTER 7
YOUR FUTURE
WHAT COULD YOUR FUTURE LIFE hold? What will your career be? What kind of person will you turn out to be years from now? We’ve all spent lots of time wondering what the future would bring us. We’ve dreamed dreams and felt anxiety, made plans, and struggled with decisions. And we know you’re probably doing the same. We want to encourage you to make big goals and not be afraid to go after what you really want in life! Lots of people will tell you what you should do, but only you can decide what you will do.
Growing up in our family and choosing music as a career, we never fit into a box. In our small town, a lot of people criticized us and tried to discourage us from being a band and hoping to make a career out of it. In their minds, they were probably trying to protect us from the harsh realities of rejection and the “real world.” I mean, can you really blame them? We probably seemed crazy when we first started our band, just a band of teenagers and preteens in a small town. Why would anyone have faith that one day we would achieve great things?
Twelve years later, we’ve released four albums of songs we wrote, toured all over the world, and, greatest of all, been given the chance to share our music and message with girls like you. We’ve experienced incredible things—things we never dreamed possible. But our greatest accomplishment is truly that we never gave up, even after countless mistakes, lots of rejection, and tons of failures. We had to learn those lessons, just like we continue to learn lessons, fail, and make mistakes.
* * *
Lots of people will tell you what you should do, but only you can decide what you will do.
* * *
We want to encourage you not to be afraid of failure. To think outside the box for your future, even if that means stepping outside of “normal” to do something incredibly unusual. With some thought and reflection, you can find your passions and use them to choose to do something with your life that you truly love. It will not be easy, but it will be worth it.
MIND-SET
Nothing affects our decisions in life more that our mind-set—or the direction of our thinking. The most empowering moment is when you realize you can choose that direction. You’re in control. Here are our thoughts on cultivating the kind of mind-set that will take you where you want to go in your future.
Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.
ROMANS 12:2
Amy
The biggest challenge we face in our lives is learning to control our thoughts. The way we think about ourselves affects how we interact with the world. When we see ourselves as worthy of love, we act with love and compassion. When we learn to forgive ourselves, we can forgive others more freely. When we are compassionate with ourselves, we are more compassionate with others. We can make every situation better or worse, depending on how we think about it.
* * *
When you wake up, be thankful for your new start!
* * *
When something happens and we automatically go to the negative aspect of the situation, that can take us down a long, dark, and winding path that can derail our future. If someone discourages us, we can either go, “Ugh! How could this happen to me? I don’t deserve this. How could they say that to me?” or we can take the more positive approach of “This is only a small setback; I can try again.” Every morning you can wake up and be grateful that you’re alive, or you can wake up tired and negative, dreading the day ahead. When you wake up, be thankful for your new start! Life, and your future, is all about how you think about it.
Challenge your mind-set. If you come up against a setback on your way to reaching your dreams, instead of thinking, What is wrong with me? think, What is wrong with my thinking? You can always change the way you think!
Christina
Few things in life should be taken more seriously than cultivating a healthy, positive mind-set. It all starts with how you talk to yourself. Whether you’re aware or not, there’s a conversation go
ing on in your head throughout the entire day, every day.
Sometimes it’s conscious, but other times it’s more of a subconscious voice. Sometimes it’s not even you talking, but you’re replaying quotes from the past—things other people have said. Maybe you even hear a meaner, more critical voice. Whatever it may be, it’s up to you to control that constant conversation.
The tricky part about changing the conversation from one that drags you down to one that empowers you is that it’s not enough to simply “stop the negative thinking.” Instead, every negative thought must be replaced by a positive one if a positive change is to take place. This is all about awareness and effort. Become aware of what you are thinking throughout the day, and make the effort to consciously give yourself pep talks and say positive things. Replace all those negatives with positives; this will change your life drastically.
REPLACING NEGATIVE THOUGHTS
If you’re constantly battling the same negative thoughts, you can plan ahead with the positive thoughts you want to replace them with. Some people use encouraging scriptures for this, and some use positive affirmations that reflect the way things really are instead of allowing their minds to go down that negative path. Here are a few examples:
Negative
Positive
I can’t do anything right.
I’m allowed to make mistakes. I learn from them and get better every day.
I’m too scared.
I am courageous and brave.
I should just give up.
Tomorrow is always a fresh start. I will keep going.
I’m not good enough.
I’m getting better every day in every way!
I’m annoying.
I love and embrace who I am.
I have nothing to offer this world.
I have so much to offer this world. I will find and share my specific gifts with people!
I hate my body.
I am learning to love my body.
I’m stupid.
I am learning more and getting smarter each day.
I have no friends.
I am making friends. I am friendly, and people like me!
I can’t do this.
I will keep trying until I can do this.
The world, unfortunately, is full of negative messages. We get these from the media, people who don’t like us, people we work with, and sometimes even our friends and family members. Sometimes they mean to hurt us, and sometimes they don’t. That’s why we need to protect our mind-set. It’s so important to talk back to the negative voices in your head and develop an automatic, habitual way of talking ourselves back up when we’ve been brought down. Putting in the daily effort to make this way of thinking a strong habit will be some of the best time you’ve ever spent; I know it has been for me!
Dani
When you think about your future life, you should ask yourself one simple question: What really matters?
Find what you love, and do exactly that—not just because you should do what you want in life but because you’re going to be the best at doing things you truly enjoy. People find it so stressful choosing what college they’re going to, picking a person to date, deciding on a career, or just making decisions in general. However, it’s really not that stressful if you simply do things you actually like. Don’t be friends with people you don’t like. Don’t go to a college that you don’t like just because your parents like it. Don’t date someone because you feel like you should be in a relationship. You are in control of your own life. Let me say that again: you are in control of your own life. Breathe, sit, stand, cry, scream, eat, drink, live that sentence. Even though it might not seem like it sometimes, you are in control of the things that matter. You literally do not have to do anything with your future that you don’t want to do, and you especially don’t have to listen to other people trying to make decisions for you. Stand your ground. Find what you love, and live a life you actually like. You deserve to live a happy life, and you definitely don’t deserve to look back on an average life that you weren’t even in control of.
* * *
Even though it might not seem Like it sometimes you are in control of the things that matter.
* * *
Your path in life is going to be bumpy, confusing, and at times stressful, but it’s all heading toward your destiny. I believe that God has a special place where I’m supposed to end up and that He has a plan for my life. You have to trust yourself, make your own decisions, and make them as smart as you can, but remember that it’s okay to mess up. You don’t have to have everything figured out. Just take it one step at a time, and live the life you love—because you have a choice. You can live your unique life, or you can live someone else’s.
“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
JEREMIAH 29:11 NIV
Lisa
Nobody likes failure, but you can develop a mind-set that will turn your failures into strength for the future. Every major success story is full of failures leading up to it. The best lessons we learn in life are from our failures.
Things go wrong before they go right. Get that into your mind. Anyone who ridicules you for falling down probably hasn’t stood up much in their life. You’re gonna get noticed if you try, and some people are uncomfortable with that because it makes them think about how little effort they put in and about all their regrets. It hurts them to face that. They’ll try to bring you down and stop you so they can feel comfortable again. They want you to fail and be invisible so they can feel comfortable in their own invisible life of failure! Do not be a cushion on their couch of mediocrity! (Lol. Okay, Lisa, chill.)
* * *
Anyone who ridicules you for falling down probably hasn’t stood up much in their life.
* * *
Anyway, don’t shape your life around other people’s feelings like that. It’s not only unhealthy but destructive. You must put up boundaries. This is you. This is where you begin and you end. This is what you want to do. This is what you need. This is how you are going to get it.
PASSION
Do you know what your passions are? What makes you excited about life? What can you do for hours on end and not notice any time has passed at all? If you’re thinking about a certain thing, great—you can develop it and let it inform your career decisions in the future, making it more likely that you will be happy and fulfilled in your job. If you can’t think of anything you are passionate about, don’t worry. Now is the time in your life when you might just be figuring that out. Let’s take a moment and reflect on what our passions are and where they come from.
Katherine
Passions are those things we do without much effort—the things that come easily and that we really enjoy. For me, those passions are writing poetry, baking, music, and other random things, like public speaking and fund-raising for a cause I believe in. The options are truly endless. I encourage you to spend at least a little time every day doing something positive that makes you feel alive. Don’t push it aside ’cause you’re too busy, or you may find that your life begins to feel gray and meaningless.
Christina
It seems like knowing what you are passionate about would be very easy. For some people, it is. But most of us have at least some interests and passions buried deep down within our hearts, waiting to be discovered. They get buried there for many reasons. Maybe we thought they were unacceptable and denied them, or someone told us we shouldn’t, so we believed them. Maybe we weren’t very good at something, so we told ourselves we didn’t like it—or maybe we just haven’t discovered what we like yet.
* * *
When you find things that make your heart happy and give you a great gut feeling—and that bring good into this world—hold on to them tightly and never give up on them.
* * *
I say, let’s jump in and figure it out.
Discovering, uncovering, and livin
g out our passions to the fullest is one of the greatest joys in life. To reach the end of the journey here on earth and realize you didn’t pursue what you’re passionate about would be a tragedy. When you find things that make you happy and give you a great gut feeling—and that bring good into this world—hold on to them tightly and never give up on them.
On top of trying new things, you can also take tests to find out more about yourself. I recommend taking the StrengthsFinder test, which you can find in a print book form or online. The Myers–Briggs test offers career suggestions for each personality that are interesting, and our mom always suggested the book What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles.
Dani
The only way to know what you like is to try stuff. You can watch TV shows or documentaries about people doing certain jobs, do research on what being a nun in a convent is like, or see how much money lawyers make. It can be so fun to discover the different possibilities in life; you just have to put in a little time.
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