What’s Holding You Back?

I am writing this blog, more to me than anyone else who might happen by.  If you do, and if you read it and/or watch the video I am going to share, then I pray you will find the inspiration, the motivation, to..damn it (sorry don’t usually swear, but I think I am angry at myself)…just do it and be grateful that you have everything you need to just do it!

Why is it that it takes something like this video, that I was so blessed to come across, because someone tweeted me on twitter, and I went to their web site (because they are into Reiki as am I) to check them out, and there it was; a message just for me.

I’ve thought about things, planned things, changed my mind thinking, “Okay I’ll do it, but let me …. a little more money behind me….until such and such happens!”  Well, what if; what if those things eventually do happen. Given the track record, I think it’s a safe bet to make that when they’ve been accomplished I’ll come up with some more, “I’ll wait until …. or after this is done ….or…”  Do you get the message?  A life of procrastination, and why?  The other day at work we got news that someone had passed away.  He’d worked for the company for a lot of years and retired in December 2009, bought an RV and was going to take it easy, travelling and enjoying life with his wife.  Six months later, no prior health issues, and he passes away.  I wonder if he’d thought about retiring earlier than he did and then thought perhaps he’d wait until the kids were in college, or the house was paid for, or he had $$$$ amount in his pension plan, etc. etc.  Well, did all that happen?  Possibly.  But look at how much time he had to enjoy the fruit of his labours.  Six lousy months!  That’s it; six months out of (let’s say) 65 years.  Not a lot of fun time when you add it up, is it.  Will his children remember the size of his pension plan a year from now, or his wife be grateful that the bills got paid?  Would they have missed those things more than they now miss their father, their husband?  I somehow doubt it.

So, what’s holding you back – I ask myself (and perhaps you can ask you)?  My answer is, nothing, nothing but me is holding me back from doing what I love to do, from getting joy out of what I do every day and being able to say, “I can’t believe I am getting paid for this!”  I know what that is like.  I once worked at a job where I spoke those exact words and actually found it so rewarding and joy-filled, I thought, I wanted to pay them!  Guess that’s the message, isn’t it.  I was a full time counsellor in a women’s residence and I absolutely loved it.  Why did I leave?  Money.  I needed the money and we all know that if it comes to choose between working in law or in the social services profession  – law beats it by a milesetone as far as the $$$$ is concerned.  But…the rewards!  Now how many working in law can say, or do say, at the end of the day, “God I feel so good!  What a fantastic day.  To see the smile on XXXX’s face when I/we did this or that for him/her?”  Given I’ve been in the profession for a lot of years, I can safely say – very few, very few indeed!

Please watch this video, and then look at yourself in the mirror, see what you have, who you are – be grateful, and ask yourself, speaking your name, outloud, “XXXX, so what’s holding you back?”  Chances are…only you, right?