Debt – You Owe You

“Is your investment bigger than the bank” – Bishop T.D. Jakes

When it comes to sharing your ideas, dreams, goals, visions with those around you, are you met with excitement or are you met with criticism?  Are you trying to fit your solar system sized ideas into a six foot deep swimming pool?  By the end of this post, you will see why it is dangerous to live up to the thoughts that others have about your vision and why it is important not to surrender to their beliefs of your dreams.

As I began writing this post, there were people around me that said I could not do this, my goal that is.  My goal is to become a successful mindset and career coach that makes a difference in whatever part of the world I am in.  Money is not a factor, as money comes a lot easier and more frequent, when you take the time to hone your craft and execute on a consistent basis.  Once shared, I received more negative than positive feedback.  Let me state the obvious, there are going to be those that do not believe or cannot see it for you.

Once upon a time, I would have stopped in my tracks because I would have let their thoughts close my mind to what I could see for myself.  It’s a lot easier to stop something than it is to start something.  It’s also easier to be a victim to the negative thoughts in your head, and even easier to forget the positive thoughts and visions that led you to believe you could do something.

Story time, but I’ll keep it brief.  So, roughly six years ago now, I started venturing into conducting professional enhancement courses for the military.  These are courses that help enhance a person’s chances at progression in the military but not necessarily outside of the military.  I am not going to lie, at first, nervous was an understatement.  Speaking in front of people is not an issue, however, I am not big on meaningless talking.  The topics, at the time, I was covering were meaningless to me, so it was a rough ride, to say the least. 

After about four months of those types of topics, I started asking myself the question, “why not risk doing a topic you find important and go from there”.  It sounded good in my head, but once I started looking for affirmation, things started to go south…or so I thought.  Hindsight is a crazy thing!  I began routing professional and personal enhancement course pitches up to our education department and it was met with hesitation by some and opposition by others.  I did not stop there, I just adjusted my approach and kept pushing.  I realized that I don’t necessarily need anyone’s approval, when it comes to my dreams.  This is real life and I determine if my dreams become reality, this is not American Idol.

I started reaching out to private organizations and pitching the idea to them.  Most presidents said yes but when the date came near, fifty percent of them faded to the background, and so did the participants they recruited to attend.  By this time, I had already heard enough no’s to become callused, been abandoned enough to not depend on anyone, people saying yes but when the day came, they did not come through.  After all of those disappointments, in that many different areas, I asked myself…what do you have to lose? 

I’ll wrap this up, before I begin to go on a long winded venting session. Once you start to honestly answer the question that you ask yourself, “what do I have to lose”, and the answer should always be nothing, then the hesitation, fear, limited vision and belief of others, tend to fade away. This is why hindsight is crazy, I never needed approval to keep going. It was my fault for listen to those that didn’t believe in me. I didn’t not realize that they were limiting themselves, as they too had dreams and visions and someone told them what they told me, and they settled for an outsiders word over their will to be better.

This popped into my head, as I was writing this, “if you worry more about keeping them happy, then you’ll forever be unhappy, unfulfilled, and resentful towards yourself”.

“You owe you!  You owe it to you, your current and future self, to see things through.  You owe it to yourself to make whatever it is you tried to get feedback on come to fruition.  Small minded people will never be of any help to you, other than them pointing out negative things they see and you correcting them.

Now ask yourself, what is it that you are not doing that you want to do but are choosing to not take action on because someone told you that you could not do it? Take out a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle and do this; write “my thoughts” on one side at the top, and the names of “people that told aren’t supportive” at the top of the other side. List the names of those individuals and then list all thoughts that have popped into your head that make you believe you can get it done. If you have more thoughts of how and what you want to do to achieve your goals, dreams, visions than you have the names of people against you, then you need to take action.

Everyone that was against you doing it, prove them wrong and torture them with success!