Carrie Baker – The Growth Collective

Do you feel as though you need permission to start that beautiful dream in your heart? Are you waiting for some big sign from the sky, or at least someone to say, ‘Yes!! Do that thing, you’ll be great!’ before you begin?

Well friend, today is the day you stop waiting. You don’t need to seek permission from others, you need to give it to yourself. How can you do this? How do you give yourself permission to chase after you dream when it feels too big, or you just don’t believe that you can?

It begins with your mind.

The mind is a battlefield at times, and having the ability to fight those limiting beliefs is an important step for so many people. A limiting belief is something (or many things) that we believe about ourself, that limit our ability to move forward. It may be something someone said to you, a past failure, or just wrong thinking that you believe about yourself. These beliefs hold you back or even paralyse you completely.

There are a number of ways that you can overcome a limiting belief, one of them is to rewrite the lies that you have believed about yourself. Take a sheet of paper and write down a limiting belief, then write a truth that overrules it.

For example: Lie: I’m not that great at writing, no one will want to read what I post. It’s all been said before.

Truth: I am learning to write well, I know I am improving all the time. I have permission to use my writing to say things that are on my heart, even if it helps a few people.

Create your list of lies you’ve believed, and write a truth for each one, then speak those truths over yourself. Your words will unravel the lies and pave the way for the life you are made for.

Our failures can teach us.

Another way that you overcome limiting beliefs, is knowing that it’s ok to fail and make mistakes. Every successful person has a long list of those behind them. Did you know that it’s normal to fail?

When you give yourselves permission to fail and learn from it, you begin to see that they are the stones that make up the path that takes you towards your dream.

If you are brave enough to look back, you may see where those failures or mistakes taught you something, you grew, you became stronger, or learnt a new skill. Some may have slightly changed your direction in a good way.

Give yourself permission to and expect to fail, because we all will. When it does happen, you’ve just found another way something didn’t work.

Use your imagination.

Your imagine is a powerful tool and most people don’t understand its potential. You can use it to steer the course of your life.

In a moment, I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are a few years in the future. I want you to imagine that you are doing that thing you dream of. You have made it. What does it look like? Really let yourself be fully immersed in the daydream, now close your eyes…

By using your mind to visualise what you want your future to look like, you are giving yourself a practice run at success, what it will look and feel like. As a byproduct of this ‘practice run’, your clever mind will begin the process of working out the next steps and seeing the way forward. By doing this on a regular basis, you are preparing yourself to succeed.

Thoughts to actions.

What are your thoughts when it comes to chasing that dream? Just as the image of your future success needs to be clear, you need to be clear on your thoughts, inner dialogue and external processing. It is so important that our thoughts and self talk align with that image of our future self.

We become what we think about the most, and that is the strangest secret.

Earl Nightingale

If you think you can’t, you won’t. If your thoughts are full of doubts and maybe’s, then you probably still won’t get to where you want to go. How is your inner dialogue at the moment? Are you being your best encourager? Or are you being your own worst critic? How are your thoughts when you think about your dream?

Grab those rogue thoughts and rein them in, you tell them some good old truths about who you really are, where you are going and what you are capable of. We talked about limiting beliefs, the next step is to train our way of thinking.

Our thoughts follow the most used neural pathways, and if most thoughts about ourselves, our dreams and aspirations have been negative, then there is work to do to create better pathways for positive thoughts. It’s simple but not easy.

Just as you wrote a truth for the lie when dealing with your limiting belief, you deal with negative thoughts the same way. Catch it and correct it. Catch the negative thought or self talk, and think a positive one in its place. You can write some encouraging statements to yourself on post-it-notes, and stick them around the house to read daily.

Acceptance.

You need to accept yourself just as you are, right now. You also need to be ok with learning as you go and not needing to have it all worked out. It’s ok to be bad at something at the beginning. Think about when you’re on the road and there is a hold up in traffic, which you find a little frustrating. When you find out there is a learner driver ahead, you feel bad at being impatient, then you find you have grace for the slow and careful driving. Have that some patience and compassion for yourself as you wear your ‘L Plates’ on your own journey.

Anyone who is successful, was bad at the very beginning. We so often see success stories at their peak, we don’t always hear about their difficult and messy beginning. We all have to start somewhere and you are a wonderful work in progress. By accepting who you are, this beautiful current version of you, (on a journey toward your dreams) you’re setting a good foundation, to being able to love and accept each version of yourself along the way.

If faith is important to you, you’ll know that God loves you and accepts you just as you are, right now. He is proud of who you are and how far you’ve come. He is your biggest cheerleader, shouting and waving from the sideline. Those dreams in your heart, have been carefully created and designed by him, just for you, to you bring joy, fulfilment, purpose and to bless those around you.

Lean into your community.

It is so important to build a community of people around you, who believe in what your dream and the person you are growing into. I wrote about this in a previous blog post (in point seven), you can read that here. Your community might be as big as two, and that is more than enough. If you have more than that, fantastic! The right people will gather to you, at the right time.

Sometimes you want those who know and love you best, (your family and friends) to get caught up in your excitement for the dream you have. Sometimes they will, sometimes it will take a while for them to catch up and sometimes they just won’t get it. But that’s ok, you don’t need to run around looking for approval from others to go after your dream. Not everyone will be happy for you, and that’s alright.

You have probably heard of the ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’, when people want to cut down those whose head has dared to rise above the crowd. Often this is due to the insecurities of others. They envy you for doing something courageous when they feel they can’t. You are moving on in your life, bravely chasing your dream and they wish they were in your shoes. They feel disappointment in themselves that they haven’t gone after their dreams or goals, and their knee-jerk reaction is to put you off balance. Instead of encouraging you and cheering you on, they make hurtful comments. This is 100% them and not about you. As much as you can, choose to brush this off and don’t let it stick to you.

When you have a community to do the journey with, they will be the ones who remind you that you can do this, they will celebrate your big and small wins. They will remind you that the only permission you need, is yours. You have permission, go do the thing!

Today is yours!

Every day you have (even the bad ones!) is a gift that you won’t ever get back again. So make time today to reach toward your dream, taking the steps that will draw you closer.

• Work through those limiting beliefs, don’t allow them to hold you back any longer.

• Your failures are your best teachers, learn from them and embrace them.

• Use your incredibly powerful imagination, to visualise a clear path to a successful future you,.

• Thoughts become our actions, train your brain to allow your best thoughts to be the loudest.

• Accepting who you are right now, gives you permission to wear your ‘Learner Plates’ while you need them.

• Lean into your community as the place you draw strength from, find your people and let them be a part of your journey.

Thank you for reading this post! If you found it helpful and encouraging, please like it and share it with your people.

Come back next week for another blog post to help you step out of your comfort zone and onto the path that leads to your dreams.

Sending you love dreamer,

Carrie xxx