By suzanne Barnett

How many times have you heard?

“If you don’t know where you are going, you won’t know when you have arrived”
“You must set your goals so you know what you are aiming for”
“What will it feel, sound, smell, look like when you get there”
“How will you know”

I confess I have never been very good at setting goals and more to the point knowing what my dreams are, really to my deepest core knowing what I want. I am sure that some of you will be able to resonate with that. But why is that? Well we are often told by our coaches and mentors that the things that hold us back are our belief systems.

I have had moments in my life when I know what I want and where I am going, but they seem to be for brief moments, they last a few months and then I either forget, write them down somewhere that I can’t see them. I have even created a dream board, which I used to look at and it left me feeling empty, (my coach would tell me that it is because I was being incongruent, I didn’t really know what I wanted). Ironically the dream board got trashed by someone else, which at the time made me angry, but in hindsight it was the best thing because really those desires were forced upon me by pressure of HAVING to set my goals, at that time.

Now this was not external pressure, I take full responsibility as this was my own internal battle, what do I want? what do I want? what do I really want?

Coaches would often say to me close your eyes and imagine what it would feel like if you were doing what you really wanted to do, and I just couldn’t I closed my eyes and all I saw was blackness. Then it would get embarrassing so I would make it up, reciting what I thought would sound good, but never ever really FEELING it.

There are times in my life when I have wanted a big house, flash car, nice holidays, lots of money in the bank. I put the pictures up, but none of it felt right, I put quotes up all over my board to try and drill into my mind that I really wanted these things.

I suddenly realised this morning, why I lost the ability to dream, and the coaches are right, it is all to do with belief systems, which I would like to share with you in the hope that it helps someone, just one person out there to start dreaming again.

When I was a kid all I ever wanted to do was to travel the world, I didn’t think in terms of getting married, having kids, big house, big car. I used to dream about going to work around Europe with my mates, working from bar to bar, living off the land, going to countries to work in villages, I wanted to explore the seven wonders of the world and beyond, I always dreamt of going to Machu Pichu, the Great Wall of China, to go to Phuket, the Maldives, to volunteer help in Africa…………I really wanted these experiences, to my deepest core, I can feel it now as a write the excitement of “this is exactly what I want in my life” I wanted to get a mobile home and travel Australia, New Zealand, Europe. I had a dream of visiting every single corner, edge, centre of the world, not one would be missed.

But I didn’t

Why?

I was conditioned not to dream beyond my parents beliefs………….so I stopped

When my mother was alive she never went outside of this country, and when my father was alive he often worked abroad, when he came home there would always be a row
about how much time he was spending away from home, and Dad would acquiese and say he wouldn’t go again, and “it’s only hardwork anyway, no fun”.

I heard these statements over and over and over…………….

“you have to work hard to earn money”
“As soon as you get the chance you must start working”
“you’ll never be clever enough to get a decent job, so work the hardest you can and whatever you get”
“Don’t even think about travelling anywhere it’s much too expensive”
“Why would you want to leave your family”
“What makes you so special that you think you can JUST go off and travel”
“You must be a secretary”
“It’s not possible to have your own business, you haven’t invented anything”
“You’ll never earn enough money”
“Your Dad works hard to bring in the money, so when you can so must you”
“Your Mum works 2 jobs to bring you up, it would be selfish if you didn’t do the same”

Jesus, no wonder I can be a headcase………ha ha

Continue reading →