A colleague of mine was giving some talks at a local school. When he asked the seven year olds what they wanted to be when they grew up, they shouted out the whole range:
I want to be a pilot.
I want to be a doctor.
I want to be a football player.
I want to be a teacher.
I want to be a scientist.
And when he asked them what might stop them from becoming or doing those things, a sea of blank faces stared back at him. Nothing to stop them. Nothing and no one.
When he spoke to the ten year olds, there’d already been a change. When he asked them what might stop them, answers like, “if someone tells me I can’t do that” or “I might not be good enough” had entered the conversation.
You cannot let the seven year old inside you die.
The story goes that the seven year old is allowed to dream because she’s…well, because she’s seven. But the fifteen year old, the twenty year old, the thirty, forty of fifty year old? She’s got to get with the programme, be realistic about the terrain of life and understand that not everything’s possible.
In that story we wind up with a bunch of people playing the game of life way below their potential, contributing just a tiny fraction of their gifts in service of the whole and waking up resigned, miserable and believing that the planet’s screwed.
Meanwhile, the seven year old who never stopped dreaming is flying through life, starting and taking on projects, doing things most people only ever dream of whilst everyone looks on from the sidelines thinking she’s got something special.
And she does. Her gift is that her seven year old never left her. She never stopped believing in magic. She refused to entertain the thoughts of the conditioned masses who told her it wasn’t possible. She tended to her inner garden, weeding out anything that was getting in the way.
Most of all, she never lost that connection with the ultimate truth – that who she is is infinitely powerful and limitlessly creative and that anything is possible.
Whether you’re just starting out building your business and pursuing your dreams or you’ve been working at it a while, I want you to remember this:
The seven year old inside you knows the truth and when you get up each morning and set yourself to work, she’s the one to listen to.
The only thing that will ever and can ever stop you in whichever direction you’re called to go is a thought. A thought that says you can’t. A thought that says you’re not the right sort of person. A thought that says you’re not good enough. A thought that says you don’t look the right way. A thought that says you don’t have enough skill or talent. A thought that says it’s too big an idea for you.
But look. LOOK. They are nothing but thoughts. Vessels carrying dried up waste from your past conditioning. They say nothing at all about the depth of your true power or the expanse of your true creativity. They say nothing at all of any value.
Let them move through.
There is nothing you need to change to start living right now in the utter magic and possibility of life. You only need to see that it’s already here but for a thought that says it isn’t.
If you’re going to pursue your dreams, pursue your real dreams. Not the ones you think are more attainable or more realistic or more acceptable or more…whatever. The real ones. The ones that light the fire of your seven year old self. The seven year old who knew she could do anything and that there was nothing and no one to stop her.
Never stop believing in magic. You are so much more powerful than you realise. Deepen that knowing and watch more and more magic unfold.
Love and courage,
Leah