I clearly remember up to this moment that day when, I must have been around 5 years old, I went with my mum and sister to the bookstore.
A bookstore in Romania (‘librărie’) is the store where they sell books, stationary and toys.
Anybody who has experienced or even visited a communist country under dictatorship can imagine how poor that bookstore must have been.
Yet, for me, a child who had never seen anything else, anything more or anything better, that was a paradise, a place of abundance and a source of infinite joy.
We did not go there often so when we went my heart was bumping and drumming like the fanfare on a national day, my tiny body was filled with magic and excitement. I was fantasising with buying everything in that store; that is why it was very difficult to choose when my mum offered to get something for me.
The reason why I remember that day so well, it’s because of how I choose what to go home with. It was the only doll I got to chose in my childhood, as most of the times we were sharing the few toys with my sister.
From the ‘multitude’ of beautiful toys in the store, I chose the most average one: medium in size, with short hair and not even that pretty. I would have loved to have the biggest and the prettiest one, but I just did not want ‘to ask for too much’. I did not want to bother too much. Even though I was so young, I already had a sense of having to be proper, and that to me meant being moderate.
It’s strikes me to realise how often later in life I made choices driven by the same values.
The reason why I am writing about this is because I hope you can recognise and learn to choose better.
If you still don’t understand how this relates to you, let me ask you this: have you ever realised that you are SETTLING in any area of your life? Have you noticed yourself playing small?
My God! Numerous are the ways in which we can play small. Some that quickly rushed to my mind are:
- choosing the partner who is less than what fulfils us and staying in that relationship when we are not happy
- staying in a very badly paid or unsatisfying job
- hanging out with toxic people
- shutting down our passions
- living in a place we don’t enjoy
- always buying the cheapest things for ourselves (especially the cheapest thing on the menu)
- not taking holidays or time off
- not speaking up
- not going for our dreams; or even worse, not dreaming at all.
All these just because we think we can’t do better, or that we don’t deserve better or that there is no better out there.
Other than the choices we make on a day to day basis, this deeply rooted limiting belief and sense of lack, also makes us sabotage situations that are meant to favour and facilitate success, happiness and fulfilment. For example, even if we realise we want something better and we decide to go for it, if we haven’t tackled that deeply rooted feeling of unworthiness, it will jump out from the unconsciousness in the most unexpected moment, like a panther from the darkness, catching us off-guard and plunging us on the direct route to failure.
So despite the obvious negative impact on the quality of our lives, why would we chose to play small?
Simply put: it is a loyalty to a puritan belief that makes us feel that being humble and modest, that shrinking ourselves makes us better people.
And if you think about it, ‘better people’ than whom? This kind of passive-aggressive generosity and humbleness will not empower or enable us to experience life to its fullest and it will not be the means for us to grow, to experience our greatest potential. On the contrary, it will make us feel stuck and negative about life and about what is possible in general, it will keep us and our lives small.
But here’s some news:
YOU ARE.
That is enough. You are complete and perfect because you are a creation of LIFE that is perfect in itself.
You have come to BEING because you are already complete. There is no creation of Life that is not perfect.
When you choose less than what your heart yearns for, you tell Life ‘You are poor’, ‘You are flawed’, ‘There is not enough for everybody’ and Life echoes back You are poor’, ‘You are flawed’, ‘There is not enough for everybody’.
So how to break this pattern?
First of all, become aware that you are silencing the greatness within. Become aware of how you are keeping yourself small through the choices you make.
Be honest to yourself and look into your heart, find out what your Heart’s desire really is.
Then think 'What is the first thing you could do TODAY that would move you closer to your HEART’s Desire?’
Go for it and do it unapologetically.
Once done, take the next step.
And Remember, as Mandy Hale said it, ‘Ten years from now, make sure you can say that you chose your life, you didn’t settle for it’.
Unsure of how to take the next step? Why not book your FREE online or face to face Coaching session with me to learn about your HEART’s Desire and build your plan to achieve it?