The biggest break is the one you will give yourself by choosing to believe in your vision, in what you love, and in the gifts you have to offer the waiting world.
LESLIE ODOM JR., FAILING UP
Have you ever wished that one day you’d wake up and get a phone call that would change everything? Or meet someone who’d take your business to the next level? Or tell you that your work is unique and deeply needed, and they’re going to take you so far?
We see it in the movies (and probably feel like we’re seeing it on social media) all the time: the struggling artist who gets found and makes it big.
I know that feeling—of wanting to be picked—and I know the remedy for wishing someone would swoop in and make your dreams come true.
The remedy is to know that you need to pick yourself, every single day, in order for someone else to believe in you. It’s to believe that you are already your wildest dream because you believe in yourself; it’s to know you’re the one who can make your dreams (or something better) come true. You’re the one who can change everything, who can take your work to the next level, who can believe that your work is unique and deeply needed, and who can deepen your purpose. You’re the only one who can take you so far.
You don’t need the social media version of Prince Charming to make your work worthwhile, or for someone famous to pick you out of the audience and bring you onto their stage. You don’t need validation from people with big Instagram accounts to know your work is valid, valuable and enough. You don’t need an invitation to speak in front of a huge crowd to know you have gifts to share.
Of course, it’s important to cultivate friendships, contacts and collaborators while you build your dreams from the ground up; but you also need to start counting on yourself. Stop waiting for someone else to come in and change things. Change them yourself.
When you count on yourself, you create the opportunities you are craving to be a part of. You take the action, you make the plans, you put yourself out there. You do the work. You don’t wait for the green light from someone else; you’re proactive and efficient and you create your own stage on which to stand.
Sometimes on our way to getting where we want to be, we don’t realise that, on some level, we’re already there.
One of my clients, Hannah, is incredible at what she does. She’s a wife, mum and business owner, and her clients leave her salon feeling like a million bucks. However, like so many of us, she sometimes wonders if she’s doing enough to build the life, business and purposeful path she wants.
During one of our sessions together, we were discussing the shifts and changes she’d experienced since our last session. She’d let go of a huge (and very old) limiting belief and story she’d been carrying around that had been placed on her by someone else, and was now feeling ready to move forwards, powerful and free. She said to me: ‘To take it to the next level, I have to be at the next level. I can’t take the old me with me.’
Hannah was realising that to step up and into the next version of her vision, she had to deepen her belief in herself and in what she was capable of creating and receiving.
So, of course, we energetically aligned her to goals to help her realise—and achieve—this. Her goals centred around following her heart with what she was creating; appreciating and acknowledging how far she’d come; trusting that her work is important, valuable and worthy; feeling confident in her work and proud of what she’d already done; and radiating a deep inner love and self-confidence, supporting her to trust she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
What came up next was for her to clear and release the old, limiting belief and programming of her perception that she wasn’t worthy of everything she’d created, and everything she wanted to create. So we added in some more goals:
What came up next in her balance was a block in her Throat and Base chakras. When we dug deeper into this, it was a message to her to be really truthful to herself, and then to others, about what she’s capable of doing, making and creating in her life.
Seth Godin says: When in doubt, tell yourself the truth. This was her truth. Hannah had to stop telling herself she wasn’t worthy and instead, tell herself the truth: she could and did believe in herself, and in her ability to step up into the next version of her life and work. She had to pick herself.
She had to acknowledge that what she was doing was already enough, in order to give herself the confidence to continue on. She had to back herself, support herself, and believe in herself. And to do that, she had to start communicating truthfully with herself, clearing and releasing the fears and self-doubts that made her doubt her abilities, and herself.
If we’re ready to move into what’s next for us, we first have to trust the intangible calling that pulls us there. When you want to move to the next stage, you have to be able to recognise and witness the stage you’ve already created and cultivated for yourself. While you may be tempted, there can be no skipping stages. When the next stage feels far away from where you are, only a leap (and trust and patience) will do.
I’ve often found that what feels like a leap is sometimes not a leap at all. When we’ve done the inner work, the leap that feels so huge can actually be the energetic equivalent of one step off a pavement—not terrifying, not huge, but perhaps slightly out of your comfort zone.
When it feels as though you don’t know how to move up and into what’s next, trust that you can simultaneously accept and acknowledge where you are right now, and be driven to keep moving forwards. Don’t let one stop you from doing the other.
As you do so, keep remembering and trusting that it’s already enough. Where you are today is already perfect. You can keep building and feel like you’ve arrived, even if you know there’s more for you to create.
This might sound contradictory but what you create in your life is so rarely black and white, right? Let’s make space for the greys, the spaces in between the rules we think we need to live by, and relish the freedom and space this creates.
I just jumped onto Facebook for a bit of procrastination between chapters (it’s been one of those days), and a ‘memory’ popped up, dated exactly four years ago. It was a status I’d put up, that simply said:
If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
Toni Morrison
I wrote that status months before I’d go on to win a book deal to write my first book, the book I’d have wanted to read while stuck in comparison and low self-worth. And it was years before I’d write my second book, the book that I really wanted to read when going through a year of challenges, growth, and uplevelling. So seeing that status appear, when I was writing this book, made me pause.
I paused to give thanks for exactly where I am right now, and to honour that younger version of me, who had no idea what was coming next.
We can set goals and work towards them, but we must acknowledge just how far we’ve come. We must also acknowledge that, on some level, there’s a younger version of ourselves cheering us on, every single day.
When I started my business at 24 years of age, if you’d run me through a grocery list of all the things I’d go on to do in my business over the next several years—all the programs I’d create; the books I’d write; the clients I’d work with; the places I’d travel to; the workshops and seminars I’d run and attend; the events I’d speak at; the people I’d meet; the relationships I’d foster and cherish—I may have said to you, ‘Whaaat!!! Really? That list is everything I’ve dreamed of and more. I can’t even imagine all of that happening right now though.’ Today’s version of me wants to hug the past version of me, and tell her that everything is going to be (more than) okay.
The younger version of you who’s cheering you on wants you to know that you’re ‘there’ now (even if you’re not exactly where you thought you’d be). There’s no more asking, ‘Am I there yet?’ because there is a constant evolution taking place—of who you are, of what you want, and of what you’re calling into your life.
So take that knowledge; keep it close to you, the next time you feel far away from your dreams. Tune into the version of you who wanted what you have now; there’ll always be something that comes to mind, even if it feels small and insignificant. Compared to the younger you, you’ve already made it. You’re already there.
I believe that for as long as you know you have work to do, to create, to share, to publish, to launch, to release … you’ll never feel like you’re ‘there’ yet. But you can always be grateful for where you are, while holding the need to continue to create close to you. And that’s beautiful.
If one day you believe you have arrived ‘there’, you may well have emptied yourself of your best work. But from my point of view, being ‘here’—where I can create something new every day, continuously emptying myself of my best work—is exactly where I want to be.
If you ‘picked yourself’ today—by choosing to fully believe in yourself—what would you do tomorrow?
I trust I’m always exactly where I’m supposed to be, and able to expand into what’s next at the same time.