7 Things Holding Us Back in Life

What if there is more to my life than what I am living? With all of my heart, I want to live the life that I am supposed to live while I am on this earth, but what if I miss it? What if I get to the end of my life, look back and think,

“My God, what did I do?”

This thought haunts me at times, never enough to leave me paralyzed, but enough to keep me moving. I want this life to matter. I want my life to matter. I want to challenge myself. I want to challenge others to keep moving forward. This life does have a purpose and that purpose is unique for each of us. It is vital that we get our head in the game. We get no second chances. We only get today, we only get right now.

What is holding us back from living our fullest life?

Fear

Fear keeps us living in the future. Fear tells us that our present moment is for preparing for, or worrying about, our next one. We need to have a strong stance against our fear.

 Fear will keep us stuck in a future that often never comes.

Fear keeps us fixated on our nightmares titled “what-if”. Make no mistake about it, our fear will steal our lives from us if we let it.

To live in the most dreaded fantasies of our future is to forget to live our present moment and to forget to live our present moment is to not live at all…

Shame

  Fear keeps us stuck in the future, but our shame keeps us stuck in the past. We all have a relationship with shame, some more than others. Our shame keeps a close eye on us. It is always there to remind us that we have failed and that we most likely will again.

Our shame keeps us tiptoeing through life and intimidated to live free.

We all have moments that we fail and then we all have those moments that we fear we may be a failure. During our moments of failing, we must hold fast to the belief that despite our falling short, we are not a failure. We must learn to offer ourselves grace.

Secrets

 Our secrets keep us isolated. No matter how many people we have living around us we will always be alone if we can’t find a way to live openly and honestly. Our secrets stay in the darkness whispering to us that we should always keep them protected.

Of course, we don’t want to tell the people that we love that we have ugly things within ourselves, but we must. It is imperative that we find a way to invite people into our darkness. Not everyone, but someone.

If we truly want to live free, we must find a way to live an honest life, no matter how much it scares us.

Lack of Self-Awareness

I am a full believer in self-evaluation. We need to understand ourselves. We need to understand our strengths, our weakness, and our brokenness. We need to own that we are made up of both beauty and ugly and that it is our job to sort through it all and own it all. It is our job to grow, it is our job to heal.

Blaming our life on our circumstances

This is perhaps one of the most common, yet most unacknowledged thing that is holding us back from our life. We believe that our problems in life are caused by our circumstances. We think that our work, our marriage, our friends, or our parents are the problem. NO. They are not our problem. Our circumstances are not the problem.

Our problem is that we do not know how to thrive through our difficulty.

We want someone to blame so that we don’t have to take responsibility. Even when life or people disappoint us, it is ultimately our responsibility to decide how it will affect our life moving forward.

Distractions

Wow. Right now in life, this is a big one. Our technology gives us an endless supply of distractions. In a life that seems to constantly be bustling around me, I often turn to my phone for an escape. I am fully aware that I have missed precious moments while I was looking for a distraction that never seems to satisfy.

We must seek to live present. Have time on social media, sure, but do so on purpose and not accidentally wasting large amounts of our lives in little chunks of time.

Seeking Validation

We are living in such an interesting time because we are constantly able to receive instant validation. Feeling down? Post a cute pic and instantly start receiving likes to remind yourself that you are awesome… or not.

At some point, we have to own our worth for ourselves. We cannot rely on other people, online or in real life, to give us our self-confidence.

If you want to live confident there are steps you will have to take and none of those steps involve someone else doing it for you.

There are many things that can keep us from living our best life, but my advice is to get real, live present, and push forward.

Don’t ever give up on the life that you want to live and the person that you want to be.

Besides, what else do you have to do?

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Our Intentions Matter... A Lot

Have you ever done the right thing for the wrong reason?

I have.

Growing up, I was taught that my intentions were just as important, if not more, than my actions.  However, I did not fully embrace this teaching.

It was easy for me to convince people, including myself, that my motivations in life were pure. However, my intentions were often fueled by more than I was willing to admit.

I was filled with the need to prove something to the world, but ultimately, I wanted to prove something to myself.

I was scared. I was scared of making a mistake. I was scared of failure. I was scared of rejection. I was scared of losing control. And to top it all off, I was ashamed of all of these things.

I felt like I should be more than I was.

And I was afraid that someone would find out.

It was not natural for me to question my own intentions. That is until one day, I decided to walk away from the façade and reconcile my internal motivations with the outward perception I had created.

The last several years, I have been on a journey to purify my intentions. I now live in a constant place of evaluating my motivations daily.

Why am I doing what I am doing? Why am I saying what I am saying?Am I feeling ashamed? Am I feeling hurt? Am I being dishonest? Am I being hurtful?

Am I looking for people to accept me? Am I looking for someone to validate my worth? Am I looking for people to approve of my choices?

Am I afraid of possible conflict? Am I afraid I may disappoint someone?

I am no longer trying to prove anything, but trying to understand myself.

I am dedicated to understanding who I am and what motivates me in this life. 

The reason why we do the things we do is of utmost importance. Our intentions are the very thing that is fueling our choices. What would happen if we were all honest about our intentions?

Perhaps we should start with being honest with ourselves.

Our why matters. It matters a lot.

Are we being fueled by jealousy, insecurity, fear, anger, hate, comparison, or shame? What is our motivation? What is our intent?

Doing good things in this life is wonderful, but better than doing good things is doing them for the right reason. If we want to truly find freedom, we will have to come face to face with our real intentions.

 It is our responsibility to own our intentions.

No one can choose this journey for us. We have to demand ourselves to be honest with who we are, motivations and all. Not to feel ashamed, but to grow.

Whether we want to change them or not, we must face our intentions and own them. Make no mistake about it, if we do not own them, they will, in fact, own us.

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