Ask Elaine: What if Im the person holding me back?

Hi Elaine: What if it’s you? You’re the one stopping yourself from the pivot. You’ve received all the messaging, have an encouraging community that is more than ready to see you soar into something better, but it’s YOU. You lack the confidence. Fear riddles your legs. Therapy is doing its job to reveal the things holding you internally hostage, but you just don’t have it in you yet to go for it. But REALLY want to. Scared you’ll miss out on your opportunities to soar. What then?

— Is it Me?

Is it Me?: The good and bad news is it is you. It’s always been and always will be you in the driver seat of your own life. You can allow different people, ideas and beliefs to hop in and ride along (some will have better influence on your direction than others), but ultimately you and your choices will play the biggest role in charting your destiny. So, good news: You’re not stuck in denial. You seem well aware that the only thing stopping you is you. And the only one who can change that is you. But I know that can feel both freeing and paralyzing.

Rather than falling into the trap of self-loathing, let’s focus on the power of choice. Because when you change your choices, you can change your life. It’s that simple. It starts with your mentality. Many people who ultimately succeed will tell you they chose success in the form of small, medium and big choices, long before it actually came. Regardless of outcome, these choices put you in an active role in your life.

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This is why my first meeting of the day is with myself. I wake up to a calendar appointment that asks: “What will you do with all that you’ve been given? You have too much in you for God to reward a halfhearted pursuit.” These words are coupled with a link to Ralph Marston’s Daily Motivator, a website that publishes new motivational messages that always seem to strike a personal, timely chord with me. These messages are like keys to the ignition of the engine underneath my actions, activating my motivation. As I write this response, today’s message feels timely for you: “Pull the first weed, travel the first mile, make the first call, write the first sentence. And transform the feeling of being overwhelmed into genuine empowerment.”

You will feel more motivated once you get moving toward a goal — any goal. Start small. Stay consistent. Create momentum that will build your confidence incrementally. Make your bed. Book a class. Read five pages of a new book a night. Drop down right now and do 10 push-ups. And then do it again tomorrow. Never underestimate the power of making one small change at a time. Those micro shifts lay the path for macro shifts — in how you see yourself, in how you feel about yourself, in your ability to dream and follow through on what it takes to actually live your best life.

It will help to know what you want that you are not yet pursuing, so you can identify what’s holding you back and how to move forward. But perhaps that’s the problem — that you don’t know what your aim is? Lack of direction plagues the best of us. Even with a clear vision of the big picture we want, we all go through seasons where we lack clarity.

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This is where tools come in. For help building structure in your life to support your goals, I highly recommend reading “Atomic Habits,” by James Clear. For inspiration to get going on any creative process or overwhelming undertaking, pick up Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act: A Way of Being.” Set a daily page goal and invite a friend to be your accountability partner who can either read the same book or at least check in with you regularly on your progress. While no outside force will do any of the work for you, it helps to build a world outside of your own mind that sees your vision and can hold you accountable to make steps toward it. That investment can be a positive motivator on days when you don’t feel like showing up for yourself.

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The pandemic revealed for many of us that there are very few things in life we actually control, outside of the choices we make with the options we have. And even those are dictated by circumstance, access and privilege. We can place too much emphasis on luck, chance and opportunity when we speak about success. It’s a mentality. A daily practice. A way of moving through the world. Decide today — right now — to do something, anything, different every single day and watch your life change, slowly but surely. Or don’t — and count on staying where you are as you are.

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