Welcome to Big Girl Panties and other business essentials where we turn big dreams into real businesses with faith, creativity, and grit. I'm Amy Howard, and here we dive into the stories, the strategies and heart-centered truths that will help you build and grow a business that you'll love. Whether you're a creative and entrepreneur, a maker with a vision, or someone who's passionate about serving others, you have found your tribe.
If you love Jesus, you're in the right place. This podcast is all about giving you the tools, the mindset shifts, and the encouragement you're gonna need to take your dreams and turn them into reality. So put on your big girl panties. Get ready to be inspired. And let's get to work.
Hey friends, happy New Year. I did a post I was writing, it was talking about, I love New Year's because I love fresh new calendars. I love clean slates, I love new journals. I just love new beginnings. And with that, I think we're really offered an opportunity to start looking at how are we going to step into this new year.
And one thing I wanna really bring you on today, I'm holding your hand. I'm gonna share with you as I'm really kinda speaking to myself, but I want us to look at what does redefining greatness look like for all of us? And as we step into a new year, I want us to pause for just a moment and do something that's so important and that's dream.
It is not hustle. It's not rush. It's not to fix everything. It's can anybody gimme an amen? Are you a fixer? It's not about fixing everything, it's about dreaming. I have to allow myself Sunday afternoons just to be able to dream, to be able to process things, because you have to be asking yourself, what do you want this year to bring?
Not just what do you want to do? But who do you wanna be? Because dreams don't begin with our circumstances. They begin with our identity. No matter what your circumstances look right, look like right now, no matter how delayed, discouraged, or maybe how uncertain things may feel, we must become faithful to our dreams.
Faithful doesn't mean flawless and faithful. Definitely doesn't mean that we don't forget the dream, but dreams are gonna begin with who we are. It's not, there's no FOMO here. It's not that we've got to change or we've gotta be somebody else before we can start to dream. They're like a thumbprint.
They're all different. All of our identities are different. God's created all of us with different giftings. But dreams are always gonna begin with who we are first, and then what are we gonna do with it. So often we think a dream is something out there. It's bigger than us, it's beyond us. It's something that we'll arrive at someday.
No dreams start inside of us. They are shaped by how God designed each and every one of us. And dreams always have detours. If you've experienced setbacks or delays or disappointment, I want you to hear this very clearly. A detour is not a denial. Sometimes the very thing that feels like it's working against you is actually working for you.
You've gotta be able to kind of think who's on your team. Dreams are never meant to be carried alone. Have you ever thought about it that way? So let me ask you, who's on your team? Maybe it's your family, maybe it's certain friends that you have. Maybe it's your faith. We all have a role of leadership.
Every single one of us. And leadership is not about position. Leadership is about responsibility. But it's about making people. I mean, everyone you come in contact with feel better, feel stronger, and feel seen. Leadership is a responsibility to serve others. That's how the world defines greatness.
Back up. That's not how the world defines greatness, but it, it's exactly how God defines greatness in Genesis 50. 19 through 21. God meant it for good. I'd love for you to just take a moment if you wanna pause this and go through and read Genesis 50 19 through 21. It's where Joseph said to his brothers, the very ones who betrayed him.
Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. I will provide for you. If we think about it, Joseph was betrayed. Joseph was abandoned. Joseph was falsely accused and forgotten, and yet God meant it for good. Here's something that's really important that I hope, oh, I hope and pray this for you.
This year, Joseph did not let bitterness cancel his destiny. And here's something powerful. Joseph's dreams foreshadowed his destiny. Your dream is often a preview of what God is preparing you for and your dream that is important. Your dream is a piece of the puzzle. It's not the whole picture, but it matters because your greatness is going to begin with giftedness.
We all have a responsibility to turn this talent that God has given us, and we're all different. We've gotta turn that talent that God's given us into strength. Greatness is always beginning with giftedness. Did you hear that? Greatness always begins with giftedness, and here's the danger, not acknowledging your giftedness.
Guys, because your heart is never in neutral. If you don't steward. This is hard, but I need you to hear this. If you don't steward your gift, something else will compete for your attention. When you take your giftedness and you develop it, you can turn it into a marketable skill. That's why I love, I love the Proverbs 31 woman.
It's not that she was just a business woman or just a mom or just a wife or someone that was involved in her community. She was all of those. She knew who she was. Dreams are almost always focused around a gift, and the desire connected to that gift is what sustains us through every season.
The difficult ones, the childless ones. I want you to write this down right now. I want you to pause after this POD podcast after listening to me, and I want you to do something very intentional. I want you to write down three personal dreams. Just breathe what are three personal dreams that you have, and , write down three professional dreams.
It's very important that these aren't vague and they're, they're not generic. They need to be very, very specific. You know why
being specific gives you more clarity and more clarity brings courage. Have you ever heard that? That's why I never pray in generalities. I'll pray very specific prayers for each of my children, for Jean, for friends. I think the Lord truly wants us to learn how to be specific prayers. In Genesis 37, we talk about the dream and the delay.
If you go back and you read Genesis 37, Joseph had the dream at 17 years old, but it didn't come to pass for 13 years. 13 years, and yet he let setback. Become the set up. Did you hear me? He let his setback become the set up. Here's another, I always say this, I don't have any tattoos, but I always pretend if I had these tattoos and this would be something that I would put on my arm, what God originates he orchestrates.
Wow. Think about that for a minute. What God originates, he orchestrates when, when God speaks, it is a promise. You can take it to the bank. A vision will leak. Motivation can leak, but nothing will kill your dream faster than discouragement We need to put into our life. That brings us courage. Depression is damaging discouragement, distorts perspective, and the easiest time to lose hope is in the delay.
So let me ask you, what promise do you need to remember most today? Because preparation before presentation, every dream is gonna begin with a desire, but the desire alone isn't enough. The vision cannot sustain itself without preparation. And the vision must be prepared before it can be presented.
Visions rarely change, but plans often do. That's not failure. That's what I call wisdom. We have to bring our dreams into some scalable format, and sometimes the problem really isn't the dream, it's that we need a new reason to battle an old. Problem. Another thing is, God's made us to be relational.
The enemy loves to isolate us, and it's hard a lot of times in the winter when it's cold and we're inside and the enemy, if he can get a hold of us and isolate us, then we go into that whole thing of stinking thinking that I talk about. But you need to realize how important community is. Community matters.
And you are the commonality of your five closest friends. So choose them wisely. Maybe this year is time for you to get some new friends because you will become like the five friends that you're around all the time. And we need to be around people that we can watch, that we wanna mentor ourselves after.
'cause one, we need to encourage one another daily. We need to inspire one another in Love Daily, and we need to restore each other in a spirit of gentleness. Guys, we're called to carry each other's burdens,
and that's not just a scripture, it's a daily practice. What does it look like? To carry someone's burden. Think about it. It looks like noticing. It looks like responding. It looks like doing something, and we are called to live for each other's joy in the faith, and that's greatness. So in order for us to be able to redefine greatness.
Let's def, let's redefine greatness around blessing others. Ask yourself, what areas have you been competing desires in your life? How has God uniquely designed you, and am I embracing this quote unquote golden rule in my business and in my relationships? God's definition of greatness. It's paradoxical. We conquer by yielding.
We gain strength when we admit our weaknesses and we reign by serving. I can tell you this. This is not what the world is telling us, but my dreams are founded in God's dreams for me. God speaks through people. He uses us. It is better to have the relationship than to be right. I have to constantly remind myself to surrender, to let God do the work.
So for us to go from desire to direction, we've gotta go back to the three personal dreams, the three professional dreams, and ask yourself, what is my true desire? Because whether you believe it or not, your desires turn into decisions. Your decisions turn into disciplines, and the disciplines determine the direction of your life.
I truly want you to move from generic to specific. In Exodus 35, 30 through 35, when they're building the tabernacle. Please go back and read that. And I've shared with that in another podcast when my pastor had had a dream about a Holy EBI Bial, but they had a unified vision. Everyone brought their gifts and everyone worked toward one purpose.
The tabernacle. What a powerful example of what happens when people come together with one focused goal. That's greatness. I'm sure many of you have always heard that there's no I in team. When our focus is and our thought process is taken away from what we want and how we can bless others, that's when God can truly do his work.
I always like to share three takeaways with you, so one. Greatness begins with giftedness. You've got to acknowledge that the gift that God has placed inside of you, and you've got to make a decision this year that you are gonna steward it well. Number two, dreams require faithfulness even in the delay, huh?
Because what God promised he will fulfill. Please don't lose hope in the waiting. And redefine greatness as serving others. True greatness is not elevation, it's contribution. As we begin this new year, I want you to dream again. I don't want you dreaming small dreams, not safe dreams. I want you to dream God-sized dreams.
Because when God speaks it, nothing, nothing can hold it back from your destiny and let's redefine greatness together. I love you guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for allowing me to share my stories, my heart, the things that God lays on my heart, because these are my personal dreams.
I wanna see you step into the woman that God has created you to be. I want you to have God dreams and I want you to start to see this year as you surrender to him. His beauty, his glory will shine so bright through you. There's no way that others can't see a change. That's my prayer for us. Have a great day, guys.
