You know how they say: “The only thing that gets in your way is you”?
It’s true. Not to sound too hippie from the forest (who am I kidding, I love traipsing around like a hippie from the forest wearing flared sleeves and a flower crown!), but we literally create our reality according to what we believe.
If your parents only gave you love when you were a well-behaved, perfect kid, then you’ll grow up being a perfectionist overachiever who thinks that love has to be earnt and is conditional. If you moved schools a lot when you were a blooming tulip, you might feel like human interaction is temporary and will probably find it hard to connect with kindred spirits. If everyone around you took a conservative path, taking risks and thinking outside the box will feel scary and unpredictable, and you might find that you don’t really contemplate a life outside the safety net of tried and tested roads.
You amalgamate all of these experiences and subsequent beliefs together, and you powerfully create the reality that matches your beliefs.
I read this amazing book called “The Six Pillars of Self Esteem” by a guy called Nathaniel Branden. He talks about a guy who worked really hard and really, really wanted a promotion. He was on track to being promoted, but then all of a sudden, he started feeling really anxious and uneasy. Now that the long-dreamt about possibility was turning into potential reality, he felt deeply uncomfortable.
He started sabotaging himself in meetings (turning up late), hit on the prettiest secretary at the Christmas party (who was married to some senior staffer) and eventually undid himself to such a degree that he was stood down for the promotion. It all blew over and he kept his job, but this Branden guy describes how the overwhelming feeling this guy felt at the end of it all, was relief. At his core, he didn’t feel like he deserved the recognition and proverbial standing ovation and so he kept his reality to what he knew: being overlooked and undervalued.
The most interesting thing is that most of our beliefs come from random experiences in life, and once we realise that we just clutched onto them in a random moment of none-the-wiser distortion, we can start challenging them and doing things differently- little by little.
Now, let’s all go twirl in the forest wearing flower crowns and playing the ukulele. There’s no better day than hump day to do it 🙂
