You will learn as you act. You don’t always have to wait until a final outcome to start learning. Often, information starts manifesting early on. It is important to honestly assess this information.
As you execute the actions you enumerated in the reason step, you will begin to convert faith into knowledge:
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. (John 7:17)
Your actions will reveal the accuracy of your reasoning as outcomes manifest that align with or contradict your expectations. As Jesus said, “wisdom is justified of her children.” (Matthew 11:19)
It takes great skill and practice to learn to learn. On the one hand, it is easy to ignore clear signals that your reasoning was limited or incorrect. On the other hand, it is easy to exaggerate indications for improvement as a sign of total error when it’s still too early to say.
New information can change your desires and invalidate your reasons. However, don’t make the mistake of upgrading difficulty or discomfort to the same stature as new information. Faith requires you to confide in your conclusions until given sufficient reason to change them. You never, ever surrender unless you are given sufficient reasons to—which isn’t surrender at all, but improvement.
What you currently think is the path from where you stand to where you want to go is likely to be incorrect or incomplete. The more audacious your intended outcomes, the more likely you are to imperfectly know the path to obtaining them from the outset. This is not surprising, and it shouldn’t dishearten anyone.
If you aren’t failing to perfectly guess the path beforehand, you are being far too miserly in your desires. Remember, the good things God has prepared lie beyond your wildest imagination. If you don’t yet comprehend the outcome, it’s likely you don’t yet comprehend the path, either. The question is not whether you will fail, but how many times you are willing to fail in order to fine tune your path sufficiently to obtain what you desire. If the number of times you are willing to fail is less than however many times it takes, you are cutting yourself off from outcomes God desires for you.
Be prepared for your new perspective to reveal that what you sought is harder to obtain than you thought. Don’t be disheartened by this. Simply re-evaluate your original reasons for wanting what it is you seek, and ask yourself if it is still worth it.
From time to time, you have to revisit your understanding of the path you are on and the outcomes you seek. As you learn more about yourself, the world, and God, your understanding of what is required will change. Can you honestly say that you are doing what it takes to deserve what you seek? If not, what changes do you need to make to what you seek or what you are doing to bring them into alignment?
Many times, extra effort is justified by the revelation that the outcome sought is even better than imagined. For example, the people of Limhi were faithful and patient, but were willing to increase their exercise of both in order to secure a faster delivery from bondage:
And it came to pass that so great was their faith and their patience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying: Be of good comfort, for on the morrow I will deliver you out of bondage. (Mosiah 24:16)
God helps us gain the desire for what we should be asking for by revealing to us the pain and insufficiency in all other things. Abraham would not have desperately desired a son capable of rising up to the point of comprehending Abraham for all he was if he had not already tried unsuccessfully to share what the Lord had given him with hundreds of other people.
Only in acting to obtain what you think you desire will you find out if you really want it. As you learn more about what it will actually take to get what you desire, and as you learn more about what it is you thought you desired, you may find that you don’t actually want what you thought you wanted. You may find what you originally sought isn’t as glamorous as it once seemed. Rather than see this as loss, see it as a blessing, because it takes you closer to what you really want. Only in learning the limitations of your current bearing can you steer more accurately toward your goal. Desire is a zero-sum game: it is only through seeing a decreased value in other things that you can gain a perception of value in others. And, because you are seeking and submitting to an improved accuracy in your valuation, whatever changes occur in your perception are leading you to what is of greater value than whatever you sought before. It’s a wonderful thing!
Over time, we all come to the realization that we may not be willing to commit the long, hard sacrifices required to fulfill singular dreams. We may be unwilling to endure the maltreatment from others, who reliably seek to persecute those who strive beyond the norm. We may not be willing to carry both the ever-increasing load of what it takes to accomplish our dreams—the understanding of which expands as our experience unfolds—along with the growing persecution of others—which tends to increase proportionally. This, too, is a blessing. Why waste time seeking what we don’t really want? God is gracious enough to lead us to what we are willing to receive, free of any pretense of what we think we might want, but aren’t willing to receive.
A more accurate idea of what it takes to truly and lastingly fulfill your desire can be a fantastic channel for coming to see and avoid sin. Temptation is nothing more or less than an inaccurate idea of the cost and benefit of a potential desire or action. If you can honestly reconcile to your best idea of the true cost and benefit of something, keeping in mind that the actions required to obtain a desire are part of the cost, you can avoid sin.