The things that seem to hold us back from living the life we want are not out there, but quite honestly inside all of us. Our minds hold us back, or our thinking to be more precise. We tell ourselves and each other stories of how the world is and what our role in it is but they are just that; stories.

Stories.

We believe and tell stories every day. That we can’t lose weight, that we don’t have time, that it’s too late or that everyone will judge and laugh at us. I’m not saying that losing weight or being fit isn’t a struggle or that I’ve inadvertently discovered a few extra hours of time each day and can help you do the same. Far from it, what I’m saying is that we have everything we need to lose weight, to gain weight, to stop smoking or to find more time for the things that truly matter.

You might be stuck in a good job, grateful that you have employment, but that too is a story. I’ll use myself as an example. I have been a teacher for going on almost twenty years and I’ve been handsomely rewarded. I have a lot of fun when I teach however, I have reached a part of my life where I want different things.

My photography, writing, and music management is not an escape. It’s a plan.

It’s a story I’ve created in order to replace the story that I’m living and why not? Why is the story that I’m living more true than the story I wish to write? It isn’t.

You are the same. Much of what holds us back is deep inside of us. Stories we heard growing up that have become a part of who we are. Stories that give us comfort, but the price of comfort is the inability to embrace change and become someone different.

It’s time to rewrite some of our scripts of what we can and can’t do. Time to rewrite that it’s too late to begin and get good at something we’ve always dreamed of. Time to tell some new stories, because after all that’s all that life ever is. 

Just stories.

Maybe a delicious cold beer and a few laughs with friends.

 

Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@heftiba