A Fish Was Never Meant to Climb the Tree

A leader once told me my greatest superpower was my ability to motivate others.

They said I could motivate a fish to learn how to climb a tree.

I understood what they meant.

I know how to see possibility in people.

I know how to speak to the part of someone that has not fully stood up yet.

I know how to make the hard thing feel possible long enough for a person to try.

That is a gift.

But I am wise enough to know something else too.

A fish will do its best work in the water.

That line has stayed with me because it tells the truth about gifts and wisdom.

Just because I can motivate someone does not mean I should motivate them toward everything.

Just because I can help someone move does not mean every direction is aligned.

Just because my words can lift a person does not mean I should use them without discernment.

Gifts need wisdom.

Influence needs stewardship.

Encouragement needs truth.

Otherwise, you can become so good at helping people believe they can do anything that you forget to ask whether the thing is actually theirs to do.

I do not want to motivate people into exhaustion.

I do not want to inspire someone into a room that was never designed for their assignment.

I do not want to use my gift to make someone perform strength where alignment was the real issue.

That is not leadership.

That is recklessness dressed up as empowerment.

Real encouragement does not ignore design.

It pays attention.

It asks what a person carries naturally.

It notices where effort becomes fruitful instead of forced.

It honors capacity, timing, calling, skill, desire, and season.

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say to someone is not, "You can climb that tree."

Sometimes it is, "You were made for the water. Let us stop measuring you by the wrong environment."

That takes wisdom.

Especially when you know you can move people.

I have learned to respect the responsibility of that.

Motivation is not manipulation.

Encouragement is not pressure.

Belief is not a substitute for discernment.

My gift is not only that I can help people move.

It is that I can help them move with purpose.

In the right direction.

For the right reason.

At the right time.

That is the part I care about now.

I want my gifts to be useful, not loud.

I want them to build people, not drain them.

I want them to help women recognize what is possible without asking them to abandon what is true.

Because a fish was never meant to prove itself by climbing the tree.

It was meant to live fully in the water.

That's part of my Herformation.

And maybe...

yours too.