What are things that hold us back? From achieving more at work? From being better husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, friends? From starting to write down the ideas that we have or to be bold and confront the things that challenge us? Is there something in your life that you have held back from the people you love? What most often gets in the way of our forward progress?
Speaking for myself, fear is the most central, boiled down answer for the questions above. Having lived just enough of life to have experienced deep embarrassment( I won't go into detail) and occasional humiliation, those are feelings I'd rather not revisit. I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing. I'm afraid of not being liked. I'm afraid of making the wrong choices, and I'm definitely afraid of choosing to be disciplined when I'd rather life be easy.
Watching my 2-year-old play in the yard yesterday I observed some interesting behavior(as most toddler interactions are interesting, to say the least). I could tell him to "stay on the porch" and for the most part, he would oblige. Except when I blew bubbles. When the wind blew his favorite spherical friends(and they are his friends) all over the yard, the neighbor's yard, the parking lot, and into traffic, he would chase them with reckless abandon. Without regard for safety, he would go wherever the bubbles went even if that meant disregarding what he understood to be the safe boundaries of our porch, where the bubbles went, he went.
What are your bubbles?
I challenge you to take some time today to figure out what you've been held back from. It could be as big as wanting to start a new career, or as small(but impactful) as having a more positive emotional impact on the people around you every day. Maybe there's a part of your life that you want to leave behind, like an addiction, or an unhealthy relationship. Bubbles can be anything, but if we don't take them time to identify and prioritize which ones we want to chase, we will be running all over the yard without catching any.
What's stopping you?
Thankfully, my son hasn't learned about embarrassment and humiliation. He doesn't care how far the bubbles go from the porch, or how many times dad says to "stay right here". His only concern is catching one.
What are you afraid of? When we let go of the fear we have learned from our experiences, there's nothing stopping us from moving closer to what we are chasing. What is on the other side of taking a leap into more of who and what you want to be? Probably more of who and what you want to be.
I want to unlearn the boundaries that fear has given me and start chasing bubbles.