Go as far as you can see. When you get there, you’ll be able to see even farther.

The end.

If only life was that simple. Well, it is, but it’s us who make things just a tad complicated. There are no endings, just more to learn, or shall I say, unlearn. It’s our beliefs we have to rethink and challenge. So let’s rewind just a little bit as I explain what on earth I’m on about and how we got here.

We know what we want by knowing what we don’t want. That sounds simple enough, but yet, we undervalue and undermine ourselves so much that we end up going for exactly what we don’t want because we feel that’s all we are worthy of.

In the back of our minds, we take ourselves on a journey and dream of the best versions of ourselves and think of ways to become that version we see, but at the same time, we have no idea how to get there.

My motto in life has become this, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” Well, sort of. It’s frightening to think about all the unfortunate outcomes that can befall us: fears, phobias, and insecurities galore. And instead of facing what we fear, we run in the opposite direction because it feels safe to do so.

It feels good to have a safety blanket of security far away from what we call a living nightmare, but many times, the security we want is short-lived because we ultimately continue to feel like something is missing and we feel unfulfilled. Rationally speaking, it makes logical sense to run away from danger instead of toward it. But we fail to understand the reason why we’re running in the first place.

Jump, leap, and run, not away, but toward ourselves, through our struggles and pain—not away from them. Those painful events are in the past, and that’s where they’ll stay. Those memories will only resurface, not to harm us, but to help us learn and heal from them.

The feeling of this fear can hold us back from truly living our full potential. We have to overcome that which has hurt us in the past and thinking that our future will hold the same fate; therefore, we shy away from an opportunity to not only heal but to try again with the idea that, this time, I will be successful, lending an opportunity to do things differently.

If we feel that uncomfortable feeling within us about a belief that is in contradiction toward something that was said or done, then this is our opportunity to catch the belief and find the root cause through asking the following question: “If I did allow myself to become who I truly prefer to be, what am I most afraid will happen?” This is how you will find a core belief.

We deprive ourselves of some pretty amazing opportunities because of the beliefs we hold, such as we must suffer first before we can become a success or die trying. If we want to be good, we have to act and behave in a way that will be acceptable by our peers, or we have to be skinny or pretty to be loved.

Love is a big one because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and no one will give us the time of day unless they are genuinely interested. So, this is me saying, take the compliment when it’s given because that beautiful, unexpected remark was genuine, and it probably took a lot of guts for someone to come up to us and say, “I love your hairstyle,” or “I love what you are wearing.”

Maybe we did a kind deed and someone approaches us and says, “It was kind of you to help the elderly lady at the checkout; there’s still good in the world.” Compliments make us feel good. The same goes for why smiles and laughter are so contagious.

People don’t give compliments for no reason. Sometimes, it’s hard to approach someone to give them a compliment, and I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.

It doesn’t matter how much of a cliché this may sound when we hear the words, “You must love yourself first before others can love you,” because as just demonstrated, others may love us, but we’re unable to recognise or appreciate that love because we don’t love ourselves; we’re blind to it because we don’t yet see it.

We’re not the embodiment of what we desire…yet. But we will get there, with one smile at a time, and through taking and accepting a compliment when it’s given instead of just brushing it off, and through questioning our beliefs—if they still serve us today in the same way they did so many years ago.

Remember to let go of what should be and where we think we need to be in life because we are constantly comparing ourselves to our peers, forgetting that we are all on a different journey.

Take the leap of faith.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

~