Counselor's Corner: How to Get Your Traction Back

A definition of traction is the support or interest that is needed for something to make progress or succeed.

I was making good traction over the last several weeks in my work, in my health, and in my small group I lead with my husband, but then out of what seemed to be nowhere, I lost my traction in all areas of my life. I felt as if I was making great progress but then it seemed as if I was going backwards. No matter what I did, I could not get my traction back. This lose of traction has been going on for a little over a week, so I decided to step back and seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit as to what appears to me going backwards instead of forward.

Key points to why you may lose traction when you are making progress:

1.     You have an enemy, he hates your progress and will use any scheme, person, or parts of your past to derail and sabotage your forward progress.

2.     If you stop and stare to long at what the enemy is showing or speaking to you, it will be a matter of time that you will begin agreeing with those lies, magnifications, and vain imaginations. The enemy is a master of distraction. Distraction causes you to lose traction because you stop and look and get your focus on what the enemy is showing you.

3.     Not feeling physically well can cause you to lose your traction. If you are not physically strong most likely you will not be able to keep going at the rate you were going before you got sick.

4.     Feeling overwhelmed, stressed, fearful or disappointed over circumstances. These can weigh you down and you can lose your motivation to continue making progress.

5.     Reliving past failures or experiences. You may begin to have thoughts like, “That failed before, so it probably won’t work this time either.” This is called stinkin’ thinkin’ and can cause one to completely lose any traction or forward progress in one’s life.

How to gain your traction back and move forward:

1.     Identity what may have caused you to lose your traction: schemes of the enemy, sickness, stinkin’ thinkin’, fear, reliving your past failures.

2.     Recognize that if you are making any attempts to grow in your relationship with God or allowing God to use you in some way, the enemy will try and thwart your progress. Ask God to strengthen you as opposition and resistance have come your way. Don’t agree with any lies, half-truths or vain imaginations the enemy would send your way. Get daily into the Word of God and allow the truth to saturate your thinking.

3.     Take every thought captive into the obedience of Christ. This will take discipline, but choose to take every thought that is contrary to the Word of God and speak life and faith over yourself.

4.     Keep taking steps forward even when you don’t feel like it, eventually you will get your traction back instead of wallowing in your lack of progress.

5.     If you have been battling some sort of illness, take the necessary time to heal and restore. Do not beat yourself up for needing to take some time to recover. When you are better, pick up where you left off. This may mean taking a day, half-day or longer if needed to properly recover.

Don’t quit or give up when you have been knocked off course, identify what may have caused it, and then take the steps that you need to get back on track. Everyone has moments in life that they lose their stem, just don’t allow those moments to cause you to believe that you always be in that state.