Are you a woman who has finally wanted to bring her vision for a company to the world, whether it be a business, a book, a private practice, a nonprofit foundation, or a speaking career? And have you felt stuck… your vision is still on the mental drawing board?
As a psychotherapist and coach, I have heard many women express that they have had ideas and dreams within them for years, but have never been able to bring them from the state of desire to reality.
Some women don’t believe that what they have to offer is valuable, so they dismiss their vision or pretend it’s not important. Others entertain the sight for a while, but then give up and put it on the back burner where he scolds them at regular intervals. Others have assured themselves that they would begin to realize their vision once “X” (the stated reason they couldn’t do it now) was fulfilled. There are those who have wanted to start but were never sure how to proceed. Still others have made attempts with varying degrees of success, but have never realized their vision to its full potential and still yearn for more.
Usually what is at the root of this are many self-limiting beliefs as well as anxieties. “Who do I think I am/What makes me think I could do that?”, “People like me don’t do that”, “I’m not (insert name of famous person who has done it)”, “It’s done ”, “What if no one is okay with it?” (or some variation of looking silly, embarrassed, or not loved or accepted), “Even if I could, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
The first place to start is always with your mindset…and the most fundamental part of mindset is belief:
- Belief in yourself and the value of the contribution you are here to make.
- Belief that only by virtue of having conceived an idea, you can realize it.
To paraphrase one of my mentors, why would God/Universe/Spirit give you a wish and then not let you find the means to manifest it? When you think about this, it just doesn’t make sense. It would make God/Universe/Spirit as whimsical as the gods in the Greek myths that I loved to read about as a child. I’ve always marveled at how resourceful the gods were in doling out their punishments and rewards. “You made me angry, so you can roll a stone up a mountain only to have it roll back down again, over and over… forever. But you, I liked you, so you become a constellation.” Such was the understanding of the cosmos at that time.
But sometimes we think in the same way as the ancient Greeks: we walk, for what seems like an eternity, with a wish or a longing and believe that only a chosen few are lucky enough to fulfill their wish. We believe that perhaps they found the secret, the magic formula… as if the ability to make it happen is not in your own hands.
You have to come to a place of knowing that if you want something, you will surely attract the opportunities to make it happen. The next step is to pay attention to what they are and stop ignoring the signs. The caveat is that most of the time opportunities will always require you to push yourself. And know that this will take you out of your comfort zone, which will require letting go of fear and trust in the process.
Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve no matter how many times it has failed or how high its aims and hopes may be.” Hill went on to emphasize that your greatest gift as a human being is that you have the power to control your own mind…in fact, your mind is the ONLY thing you have complete control over. You can direct it to achieve what you want to achieve. Knowing that you can have this control… that you are in the driver’s seat when it comes to your thoughts… is very liberating.
Start believing in your vision. Allow the opportunities that will make you grow and expand. Then take action on those opportunities.