Don’t Tell Me It Can’t Be Done
Most people I meet have some change they’d like to make in their life.
The focus of said change might vary from their career, marriage, friendship, the number of vacations taken a year, etc., but the reasons for not making change are always the same.
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
I don’t know if I can make money doing something different. I don’t know if I can leave. I don’t know if I can run a company. I don’t know if I can stand up for myself. I don’t know if I’m strong enough, tough enough or smart enough to do this.
I hear these sentiments from women across the country during my workshops with working mothers, but they are not new thoughts to me. I’m intimately familiar with those debilitating delusions because they plagued my mind and dampened my motivation for years.
I stayed in a job, situation and life that wore me down for one reason and one reason only. I didn’t know if I could create a better one.
I wanted to work fewer hours, but I didn’t know how to do it. I wanted to become an entrepreneur, but I didn’t know where to start. I wanted to share my struggles with other women, but I didn’t know if anyone would listen.
“I don’t know if I can do it” and all the excuses that surround that sentiment are paralyzing thoughts. Sure, you can dream of a better life, an easier life, all you want. But if you don’t believe you can achieve that life, then guess what? You’ll never achieve that life.
Because you’ll never try.
Fear is a choice, and I chose fear for years.
When I think about the dramatic changes that I made in my life, career and happiness, I didn’t take the leap because I had all the answers. I took the leap because I was willing to try to figure them out.
My goal was never perfection; it was trial. I decided to try saying no more often. I decided to try becoming an entrepreneur. I decided to try writing a blog.
You just have to be willing to try.
The same is true when you became a mother for the first time. You didn’t have children because you had all the answers and knew what you were doing. You decided to have children because you were willing to try and figure it out.
If you waited until you knew exactly how to be a mother, you’d never have children. The same is true with other change in your life. If you wait until you have all the answers, you’ll never take the leap.
We like to blame other people for what’s going on in our lives. “My boss is working me too hard, my kids won’t listen to me, my husband won’t pay attention to me, there are too many soccer games this summer.”
But here’s a fact of life: You chose how you spend your time, you chose what activities to participate in, and you choose what risks to take.
If you never try, you’ll never know.
If you’re longing to make a change but don’t know how to start, ask yourself this question: What are you afraid of? If you’re afraid of making a mistake, that’s to be expected. If you’re afraid of failing, that’s normal.
However, if you’re afraid of trying, that’s a different story.
Don’t put my life or anyone else’s life on a pedestal and therefore believe that change was easy for them. During my journey, I spent plenty of time sitting in my car crying in the driveway, losing sleep at night and fearing the worst.
I’m no different than anyone else. The change was hard, the fear was real, but I made the decision to try.
People say that “seeing is believing” but thanks to the spiritual guru Dr. Wayne Dyer, I look at life through the opposite lens. I trust that “believing is seeing.”
If you trust that you are smart enough and tough enough simply to try, you’ll start to move in the direction of positive change and reap the benefits every baby step of the way.
2 Comments
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I know that most people who read your blogs are mothers, but I am a (Canadian) male college student and I find that the things you write about apply to my life too. I believe that the messages you write about have a deeper meaning than you might think, and can touch and/or help more than just mothers (like they did for me). Keep up the great work, and thank you.
THANK YOU! Writing can be such an isolating experience – I can’t thank you enough for sharing your POV. While my posts are written with mothers in mind, I agree that the lessons I share have the ability to make an impact in anyone open to the possibility of change. Thanks for reading!
– KW