Done Playing Small

I’m not exactly sure what’s been going on lately but things are becoming easier to understand, my overall emotions are more peaceful and I can see where I’d like my life to go very clearly. Depending on what friend of mine you speak to this could be signs from god, messages from my ancestors, or just the universe at work showing me the way, whatever it is I am grateful. I’ve tried to be open with my struggles in the hope that someone else who might be struggling would know they weren’t the only ones, but in doing that I know I need to share when the opposite happens. Right now, things feel good, clear, I can see how I’d like to next few years of my life to play out and what I see makes me incredibly happy. However, I think to get to this point I needed to be uncomfortably honest with myself, with what I wanted and why I hadn’t chased after it yet. Which led me to one of Brené Brown’s interviews with Oprah, Brené admitted to playing small within her own life before her now famous Ted talk, and was at one point only comfortable taking chances when she could almost predict the outcome. When I watched the interview recently and heard her say that I started to cry because I realized I had been doing that quite a bit in my life as well. I’ve taken chances, some of them I’ve even shared on here with you lovely people, but there are a lot that I’ve held hidden away only for me to see because I was too scared to jump in head first. That’s something that’s hard to admit because I’ve always believed if something scares you then you absolutely need to do it, but no one gets it right all of the time. So now even I have parts of myself, of my hopes and dreams that I’ve kept secret because I wasn’t exactly sure how the puzzle pieces would eventually form a picture. It feels a bit like I’m rambling, but what I’m trying to say is this (and believe me when I tell you I’m sharing this for myself as well). You don’t need to know every single step of the way, to achieve the life you want to one day have. Maybe you know the end point, the middle, or maybe you’re saying “I don’t know where I’m going but I’m starting here.” That’s okay, you just can’t keep playing small because you’re worried it won’t work out the exact way you pictured, or because it might be harder than you expected. You are absolutely worthy and deserving of a life that brings you joy and fulfillment and at the end of the day the only person who can give you that is yourself. For me, I know what I want my future to look like, I’m still working out the steps to get there so trust me I’m just as filled with questions as you are, but I hope you’ll give yourself the chance to dream of a big life, one that fills you up, where you never, ever play it small again.