One of the biggest challenges to making changes and creating new things in your life is getting started. Fear and self-doubt can run rampant in the beginning. They are incredibly talented at convincing you that you won’t be able to do it. Often their voices are enough to stop you before you even get started. So when you are first beginning, wanting to make changes but not sure what exactly you want to do or how to get started, when you may have serious doubts about whether youcan even achieve it, patience and trust are crucial.
It’s natural to feel fear and have doubts about your ability to create something new. Let yourself acknowledge that. Call it what it is – “Ah, self-doubt and fear are trying to stop me!” By doing that, youdisempower those voices and empower the part of you that’s really ready to change, to move on and to succeed – “It’s important to me to move on,” or, “Even though I’m not sure what I’m doing, I’m going to start doing something anyway.”
Change does not happen overnight. Again, it requires patience and trust. But if you don’t start today, nothing will happen. You will stay stuck right where you are. Not too appealing, is it?
Taking steps towards getting started, something small, every day if you can, is important. (If you only look at the big picture of how much there is to do, you will get overwhelmed and will probably stop.) So is setting realistic goals and creating a long term vision for yourself. What’s also important is learning to allow patience and trust to support you while you are working towards your goal.
Patience involves giving your dreams the time that they need to blossom and grow. It is a willingness to wait and allow the process the time that it needs to happen. Impatience wants it all to happen easily, without a lot of time or effort, NOW! Impatience makes your body tense and tight. Patience knows that change happens by taking one step at a time, steps that build on each other. Patience says, “There’s plenty of time” and knows that it’s true. Patience breathes into that truth. Patience feels easyand flowing in your body. It allows you to access your creativity and energy. It stops fear. Patience allows us to take the time needed to let your work unfold and come together. Patience is not impatient!! And that’s a good thing because making changes and creating your dreams does take time. In that respect, patience is your ally.
Patience and trust are first cousins. They go hand in hand. Trust is knowing that you will be OK, that you can, and deserve, to have what you want. For many people, trust is a belief in a power bigger than yourself that is watching out for you, taking care of you, providing for you. Trust is a tough one for many people. Trust takes time to develop. Each positive experience that you have with trust builds on itself to instill that sense of knowing that you can, in fact, trust. But again, it does take time to get in at that “cellular level”, at that deep knowing level that says, “I can trust trust!”
Because change does take time to complete and manifest, trust is crucially important to keep you going. Without trust you go back to doubt and fear, which will likely stop you again. Trust says, “I may not know exactly where this is going or how I will get there or how it will turnout, but I trust that, because I desire it and am working towards it, that I can have it and it will happen.” You have to keep believing that and reminding yourself of it. That’s part of what keeps you moving onward. Sometimes, you may not believe it. Say it anyway. Challenge the voices of fear and doubt. Empower the voices of trust and knowing. They will help you to succeed.