How to Blast Limiting Beliefs

It's Surprisingly Simple

It’s not easy.

But it is simple.

Personal growth is a two-edged sword. It turns you into a razor-sharp knife that slices through the daily actions you take on your way to wherever you’re going.

Or it can trap you in the amber of stagnation when you use it for validation, instead of transformation.

The prime directive of personal growth is to change your present situation across the board: money, health, relationships. If you forget or ignore this directive when things get uncomfortable, you become stuck. Instead of using it to propel you to act on the things you would love to do, it becomes a substitute for taking action on those things.

True personal growth demands you have to willingly step into discomfort. And do it again when you feel yourself becoming comfortable with your new normal.

The prime directive of personal growth requires that you let go of who you were. You ignore or forget this directive, and you begin to use it to feel better about who you are.

This is the deciding factor in establishing whether you're using personal growth as a tool or an excuse:

The willingness to be uncomfortable.

Personal growth demands discomfort on your part. The true victory is in learning to be comfortable with discomfort. Image couresy of istockphoto.com

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"The need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist. The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all."

Julia Cameron

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Journaling has its place but it can become an escape exercise instead of a method to help you get to where you want to go. Image courtesy of istockphoto.com

You can journal your feelings for 2 hours a day.

Or you can send that scary email.

Or write that screenplay.

Or paint that landscape.

Or share those photos.

Or make that comic.

Or start that ARG.

Journaling makes you feel good temporarily.

Taking action on any of the things I mentioned above moves you forward.

And gives you the feeling of satisfaction that comes from doing.

Most self-improvement routines become rituals of avoidance.

To make it clear: I am not knocking personal growth. It’s a powerful set of tools, but like a kitchen knife or a hammer, it’s a tool of neutrality. A knife can cut your vegetables or cut another person. A hammer drives nails into wood or splits a human skull open. Personal growth can become an excuse if you use it like an escape drug, instead of something to motivate you to take actions.

From the above quote by Julia Cameron, we know that creating art carries an extra weight of assumption. The word artist evokes a set of emotions, ideas and misunderstood composites of what an artist is and does. If we’re not clear about ourselves as artists, we struggle to do our work. The complicated history of the word artist and the expectations it creates in the mind can get in the way of the simple act of making art.

Of creating with joy and flow.

But perhaps one of the best aspects of our current era is not just the fact that we have these platforms, where we can freely create, either under our own name or a made up identity, and share it without waiting for permission.

But that we don't have to call ourselves artists. As that word that can weigh on our necks like the sword of Damocles.

We don't have to call ourselves writers.

Or painters.

Or photographers.

Or sculptors.

The titles that bring an aura of pretension that get in the way of writing, painting, photographing, or whatever you're compelled to do.

In this realm, we can just call ourselves content creators.

Or just creators.

A broad title that can mean anything from blogger to meme creator.

A simple label that allows you to mix and match any of the arts, crafts, and disciplines available to practice to do something that previously was unthinkable, and maybe even unacceptable to the entities that dictate what is worthy of artistic merit.

But they're opinion doesn't matter anymore, so you're free to execute as you please.

But you have to act on these desires, regardless of what people will think or say.

If you recognize invisible blocks preventing you from executing, ask yourself: What am I resisting? What am I not doing, being or having?

Resistance manifests itself as anxiety, irritation, and fidgeting. The tension that comes from avoiding the actions that terrify you with the discomfort they bring, but you know are the ones that propel you forward.

Acknowledge the discomfort.

Be grateful for it.

It’s an indicator of what you have to do next.

Then act from the certainty that personal growth will bring you.