5 Christian Survey Results That May Surprise You

Reporting Early Purpose Self-Assessment Results

For those of you who have been our clients or are blog subscribers, you may have been to our website and taken the purpose self-assessment. There have been some very interesting results to which you may be able to relate. Next year, we are going to start releasing the annual tally of the results to help understand what Christians are feeling about their lives. Since you are loyal followers, we thought we would give you a sneak peek at what we are already seeing. Before we go there, let me tell you about the Unstatus Your Quo® Purpose Self-Assessment and its origin.

My MBA Professors May Cringe at This Section

One of the best lessons I learned at business school was that the “Ideal Client” defines pretty much everything about a business: marketing message, service or product model, culture, staff, production, sales approach - everything. I did not mention the business school’s name because they may be embarrassed at what one of their graduates, me, did - which I’m about to tell you.

I’ve started four businesses in my life, not including the dog walking service in elementary school, three are still operating or have merged with another company. So, I knew this new ministry, Unstatus Your Quo®, needed a formal business plan. The original mission was to help people experience more meaningful and fulfilling lives using either a Christian or secular process to do so. After knowing the mission, it was time to start investigating the “Ideal Client” and doing some market validation – fancy term for trying to make sure there were enough potential clients to support a business.

What every MBA with a low budget would do for market research is go to a big box bookstore with a tape measure. It was a pretty fancy and impressive tape measure which I causally allowed some people to see as I walked around the store. Well, I measured all the shelf space dedicated to books on religion, self-help, philosophy, psychology and anything else related to improving one’s life. The result was almost 15% of the non-children section of the store!! The potential market was huge!!

The only problem was that it was too big which is not a bad problem to have, but we risked diluting the business’ message and other elements by trying to be all things to many people. There were so many potential ideal clients that I had to regroup and rethink what I needed to do next. I had never faced a situation like this. We had to make the market smaller, so we settled on just helping self-identified Christians. Based on some later research, it turned out the market was still huge in just the US.

At this point, the only way to go seemed to be to let the “Ideal Clients” for our purpose coaching experience identify themselves through awareness of their current emotional state in life: frustration, dissatisfaction, pain and/or fear. The best way to do that seemed to be a low-pressure, confidential, self-assessment tool that a Christian counselor helped us design. We ended up with 15 questions and created a scoring system to help potential clients understand where they were and if our coaching would be worth pursuing. Fast forward: we launched the business and website with the life self-assessment with it. Next, I will list and discuss the top five areas of dissatisfaction, frustration, pain and fear for Christians per these data.

Preliminary Unstatus Your Quo® Purpose Self-Assessment Results

#1 - Do you often think that you are not on the path to leaving a lasting and meaningful legacy?

Our sample set may be on the older side of the adult population, but this expression of concern was the clear leader for affirmative responses. As people age, they start thinking about their legacy or their life in a deeper way. At about 50, it may be a mid-life crisis. You may be challenging the career you are stuck in either due to the cost of your lifestyle or not knowing what else you could do. You may even have some uncertainty about who you really are.

After the mid-life crisis, we start thinking about our mortality and if people will remember us or what we “accomplished”. It is a wonderful opportunity to become closer to the Lord, lean on Him, surrender, and listen to Him about how you are to use the wonderful gifts He has given you. Rearranging your priorities to be more in line with His is always helpful, and this concern will nudge you in His direction.

#2 - Do you have a feeling that you are stuck in a rut without direction or an escape route?

We have a deep desire to help people who are ranking this item as a high area of pain and dissatisfaction. Not knowing how to get out of it can lead to a numbness about life at the least and to some dangerous places at worst.

If you ever hear yourself think or say, as one of my clients did, “I think I can tough it out for five more years”, you are tolerating something that does not need to be tolerated. If you know you need a change in your life but can’t figure a way out, He can help you. Maybe you care more about what the world thinks of you than what the Lord thinks of you. Maybe you don’t know the purpose that all of mankind has – the answer to why God created us. You clearly could benefit from someone to help you design a new life that will glorify God.

#3 - Do you have a feeling that the life you are leading isn't as fulfilling as you want?

Are the fake lives on Facebook defining what looks fulfilling or is your relationship with the Lord fulfilling? Do you even know what a fulfilling life looks like? Do you have a researched and concrete vision of what a fulfilling life looks like?

He really is all that we need, but He also expects us to use the gifts that He has given us for His glory. A fulfilling life includes many elements like an easier decision-making process while temptations fly by usually without distracting us. There is a step-by-step way to change how you live your life in a way that is ultimately so much more fulfilling than what most Christians are experiencing today.

#4 - Do you have a feeling of uncertainty or worry as you contemplate a move to a new phase in life (retirement, sell a business, etc.) and don't have an inspiring vision for that future?

I used to be a Fee-Only Financial Planner, and my clients were multi-millionaires to those worth over one-hundred million. I don’t care how much or how little money you have, the future can be very scary. Let’s say you are about to retire from the paid job community, but you don’t really know how to move forward to this new stage of life. I would include widows and widowers in this category as well.

I used to tell my clients that “You must have a vision of what could be … to leave what has been.” Most people can’t do this on their own, but there is a way to do this in taking tiny steps of change to fulfill the vision of what could be. It just depends if you are near the threshold of fear and pain to cause action.

#5 - Do you have a feeling that you really don't have deep, "sharing-anything" friends - really just acquaintances?

OK, men. We stink at this. As part of our coaching process, we ask for men’s spiritual maturity around God’s will for us in the Friends area of life. The maturity level here is generally the lowest for men out of all the areas of life for which we study God’s will. We grew up with coaches telling us when we were hurting to suck it up and get back in the game. The same message later transferred to the game of life. We can’t admit weakness, pain, or any other elements of our lives that we think would reduce what the world thinks of how strong we are. We can be very lonely and even quite superficial when it comes to the important issues of life.

Ladies, this morning I was in an Emotional Intelligence class, I barely passed by the way, during which the counselor said that women have more negative self-talk than men. You seem to be better at relationships than we men are, but do you have one or two deep relationship friends where you feel safe to reveal the hurt part of you? Can you even go there with the shame you may be feeling and how you have not forgiven yourself? He has!

There is a way out of this dilemma for both men and women, but it depends on recognition, acceptance and the level of dissatisfaction you are feeling. We are biological organisms, and we won’t change if we aren’t stressed.

There Has to Be a Better and More Joyful Way

If you answered in the affirmative or strong affirmative to some or all these questions, you may be realizing that there must be a better way to live your life. It starts with knowing that your purpose is to glorify God. Without this foundational knowledge and wisdom, you will be off on the wrong life’s path. Next, you must understand how to glorify God, and fortunately, Jesus made this very simple and clear. You can build on His instructions in each of the basic areas of our life with growing maturity for His glory. Finally, you can take a series of tiny steps to make your way into a life that fills that vision He has for you. Commit to yourself, to Him and to your dearest family and friends that you have had enough. You want to change your life to fulfill His vision for you. Join me in waking up each morning so excited for what each day will bring. All you need is some prayer, coaching and Bible study to make this happen.

Charlie