If You Are Not Willing to Risk the Unusual, You Will Have to Settle for the Ordinary

Breaking news: You're playing it small. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging you, I fully understand why. Small is safe, easy, convenient. 

The human brain loves nothing more than playing it small. It's got a job to do and that job is to keep you alive.

The smaller you play it, the safer you'll be and the more your brain will be pleased. 

Every time you step out of your comfort zone, it will throw a truckload of anxiety your way to make sure you step right back. 

To your brain, discomfort equals danger. 

Forget about your dreams, goals and aspirations, your brain thinks all of that is risky-pie nonsense. It will do its level best to ensure you don't get any lofty ideas above your station. Ambition is risky. Your brain is here to knock that out of you. 

So, each day your ambition and brain fight it out. A victory here, a defeat there. It doesn't really matter who wins, for the most part, they balance each other out. Two steps forward, one step back.

Progress is slow, nearly impossible, because you're consistently fighting yourself.

This is why you're getting nowhere.

This is what is meant by "get out of your own way."

Here's what to do next

A few years ago I bought a goals book in which it asked me to imagine my ideal career. At the time I was an IT Project Manager and I hated it. 

Depressingly, I wrote down my ideal career was an IT Project Manager, but… freelance. 

That is how limited my thinking had become!

I was so in my own way even my fantasy life involved being a corporate slave. 

Like so many of us, I had lost the ability to dream, I had severed nearly all connection to my passions.

We get so used to being metaphorically punched in the face we think an ideal future would be getting slapped in the face instead.

Most of us don't have dreams, we have compromises.

Here's what to do: Stop being realistic.

It's as simple as that. That's the advice. If you're still with me, I hope you're not too disappointed. You've read this far and I'm telling you to dream big, like a Disney film. On the surface, it doesn't sound like usable advice, but let's break it down a little more. 

Will Smith said:

"Why be realistic? Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity."

If Will Smith was realistic, he'd probably be working in an insurance office right now. 

Being realistic is a cage you construct from limited thinking and other people's opinions.

And the worst thing about it is you love that cage because it's cosy, it's safe and your brain is over the moon you've ditched your dreams to stay there. "Here's to realism!" it's saying. "Three cheers for staying small!"

Holding onto a dream is a battle. Don't underestimate it. 

Everyone wants to knock your dreams out of you; school, parents, family, friends, cynics, drunks in pubs, haters on social media. Your brain.

Don't believe me? Show me a kid who doesn't dream big. No child puts a cap on their dreams. It's always "I want to be an astronaut, I want to be a millionaire gamer, I want to be a football star."

Fear is a compass. You have to rediscover your dreams, the ones that scare you, the ones that won't leave you alone and you develop a tight feeling in your gut every time they get mentioned.

Your intuition is telling you your whole live-long life what your dreams are. Start listening. Get your nose off the canvas and begin to see your life as a blank page. To paraphrase Charles Bukowski, resist being terrorised and flattened by the trivialities of life. It's time to stop being distracted and eaten up by nothing. After all, being a dreamer is a serious job. 

Final Thoughts

There's a quote you might already know. Perhaps you only know the beginning of it, but I'd like the share it with you in its entirety. It sums up perfectly why we play it small and how to counter it. It's a marvellous piece of writing, a simple paragraph to sum up everything I'm trying to express.

It's by author Marianne Williamson and it goes like this:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Don't just dream big to free yourself, dream and follow those dreams to save others. Be the light in the darkness, be the emancipator in a world full of self-made cages. Lead by example. It's not selfish to be who you really are, it's liberation.