First Step
Well, this is it! My first blog post ever written. It’s a gleaming reflection of overcoming huge self-limiting beliefs. I sincerely mean it when I say a short while ago I would have already given up on creating this blog. The “halfway” me would have convinced myself I didn’t know enough about blogging and used that excuse to go back to my familiar life. Although at this point I don’t have anything of excellence to share with you about what I have accomplished, just writing this first post and creating the blog is the first step and a success for me!
We have to start somewhere and just taking that first step is a success in itself, it’s only failure when we don’t do anything. Earl Nightingale said, “If, despite our gnawing doubts, we can muster faith enough to take a single step on the road to where we’re going, we are on the way to create achievement.” This blog is my first step, and I’m so happy to be sharing it with you!
Self-limiting Beliefs
So what changed? What got me to this point where I believed enough in myself to take a chance? Well, I started dedicating time to myself every morning and used this time to learn, search, and grow. I began to see the self-limiting beliefs that shadowed my life and decided to break free and start living the life I wanted. I started taking care of me first, and it was incredible to see how things began in fall into place. It wasn’t long before I quickly began to see what I had been missing in my life, and it was so simple!
Is your oxygen flowing?
I like to use the analogy below to illustrate why taking care of yourself FIRST is absolutely imperative.
You know when you get on a plane and the airline attendant starts to demonstrate all of the safety features of the plan and what you should do in case of an emergency?
Every single time, no matter what airline you are on they explain what to do in case there is a loss of cabin pressure. They tell you to put on YOUR mask first and ensure air is flowing before assisting someone else. You see without first taking care of yourself, you run the risk of running out of oxygen and at that point, you couldn’t assist anyone. It’s not being selfish or putting your own life above others; it’s the smart thing to do!
What if we compared this to our daily lives? Is oxygen properly flowing before we start the day? If it’s not, do you think our interactions with our kids, husband, boss, clients, whomever, are affected by it? I can tell you that for the “halfway” me this was absolutely the case. If we aren’t investing in ourselves first, we will never develop into the people we want to become, or create the life we have envisioned, and we certainly won’t be able to help others.
Hitting a wall
Our minds are like a garden full of fertile soil. Whatever we plant in our minds is what will grow. Let’s think about our thoughts as water. What if one seed got most of the water (thoughts) and that seed was doubt, or fear, or bitterness? These are the things that are going to take root, grow and flourish in our minds, sometimes completely smothering out the rest of the good seeds.
The “halfway” me showered my brain with thoughts of I didn’t believe in myself, I didn’t think I was qualified, I wasn’t smart enough, I didn’t have any unique talent, and this was in fact how I was living out my life.
I had hit my wall at the age of 28. Now, when I say I hit a wall, I don’t have a dramatic story of something crazy that happened to me to make me realize this. Like I said in my about section, I didn’t have a miserable life; there were a lot of really great things about it!
The scary thing I realized was that I was on a path of letting my thoughts control my actions or lack of actions I should say. My thoughts about myself were toxic, and as a result, I was not taking any action in the things I wanted for my life.
That thought should scare everyone. The idea that your own thoughts can rob you of the life you want and cause you to miss the small enjoyments of everyday life. To me, that was just as scary as near death experience.
I don’t want to look back on my life and wish that I would have done more, loved more, given more, and been more. Regret.. that is the near death experience that should motivate us to make a change. The last thing I want to do is look back on my life with regret.
Start with new seeds
The beautiful thing about our minds is that we choose to make whatever we want to, grow. When we start taking care of ourselves first, we can continuously learn, search, grow. This allows us to decide once and for all what seeds we want to plant in our hearts and minds.
Even if years of bad seeds seem to have taken over, we can till those plants up and use them as fertilizer for new seeds to flourish. So where do we start? Well, it all starts with YOU and with developing habits that will help your new seeds take deep root and grow in abundance. Your purpose will begin to become clearer, and soon you will be on your way to creating the amazing life you’ve always wanted.
There is a beautiful gift you have to offer the world, dig in and start to figure out what it is!
Click here to read about the one habit that changed my life.
Take one small step today,
Xo Jenna
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