Someone Is Holding You Back

If I were to tell you the biggest reason of all that you are not achieving what you want to achieve is because there is someone out there stopping you, who might that person be?

Think about it for a moment.  Is it perhaps your partner?  Maybe it is your boss - especially if what you want to achieve is an increase in your regular income!  Or could it be someone else?  Think about it for a moment.  Then list the people who come to your mind, and who you think may be holding you back.

Unless you are a very unusual person, or have not thought deeply about this, there should be several people on your list.  If there are not, take another moment out and think hard.  Add some names to that list.

The reality is most of us can identify some people out there who are holding us back.  The first step in dealing with this issue is to find out who they are.  Then you should look at the ways in which they are holding you back and what you might do to reduce or even prevent this.

If you have put your partner or spouse on the list, which will be the case for many people, you certainly have a challenge ahead of you, although it may not be as big a challenge as you think.  It is quite normal for your partner or spouse to expect you to be doing something different if you have changed what you want to achieve since you first met them - and as all of us are evolving all the time, you should expect what you want to achieve to have changed.  When you have an intimate relationship it is important to share your deep desires with your partner.  Not just your intimate desires, but also everything that makes you who you are now, which is at least a little different from who you were last month, last year, or ten years ago.  Share it and talk it through.  Be sensitive to the fact that just as it is natural for you to have changed, so it is also for your partner.  In any relationship there must be some give and take.  If there is something you are really passionate about achieving it is vital you share this with your partner and get them on board.  But don't be selfish about it.  Recognize the need for give and take.  And also use the opportunity to find out, if you don't already know, how your partner has evolved and what he or she is now passionate about that perhaps was not the case when you first got together.  It could be the case that you have both evolved so far in completely different directions that you really no longer belong together.  I really hope not.  But it is possible.  Certainly, though, do not assume that to be the case just because you have indeed both evolved in different directions.  What is important is to re-establish proper communication - because if this has happened and neither of you has spotted it then certainly there is a problem with communication and you should both look to creating more opportunities to share your innermost thoughts and feelings with each other.

If you have put friends on the list, and again this will be the case for many people if they are honest about it, the solution for each of those friends is really very similar to the one I have just shared regarding your partner.  The difference is that where you have gone in different directions, then now may be the time for you both to recognize this and go your different ways.  What is very important is that you not keep close to you anyone who keeps being negative about your goals.  They are YOUR goals, not anybody else's, so don't let anybody else draw you away from them.  You may not have to dump such a person completely as a friend, but try not to spend too much time with them if they persist in being negative.  You can choose your friends, so choose them wisely.

If you have put your boss on the list, then you may need to think again.  It is, of course, possible that your boss is negative in the same way as some of those friends you have either dropped as friends or at least are now keeping at a greater distance.  If so, then the solution is similar to the above solution, with the difference that you need to be sensitive to the power relationship.  For as long as you are relying on the income your job gives you it is not too sensible to tell your boss to leave you alone!  But if the reason you have put your boss on your list is because you believe he or she is holding you back from earning more money, then I want you to think about this more carefully.  You are responsible for the income you receive, not your boss.  Ultimately you get paid for the value you create.  If you are not being paid enough, then maybe you are not creating enough value.  If you are creating far more value than you believe you are being paid for, then you are probably working for the wrong people.  Don't just throw it all away, though.  Explore ways to get them to recognize your worth.  But ultimately, look for a good back door so you can leave when you are ready and receive a better income.  Also, recognize that you can (and indeed should) have multiple streams of income.  Your full-time job probably creates by far the biggest stream of income, but it should not be the only stream.  Work on creating those multiple streams of income so that you become less and less reliant on your job.

Now let me tell you who is the person who is most stopping you achieving what you want to achieve.  You!

Yes, that's right!  It is you!

So many people who claim to have a big "dream" simply haven't thought it through properly.  The first thing you must always do is to make sure your dream is what, deep down inside, you really want to achieve.  If it is not, or even worse if it is actually more or less the opposite of your true inner desires, it will be very difficult for you to achieve it.  In the latter case it will, in fact, be almost impossible.  You may think it ridiculous that you could have a dream that is the opposite of what you really want, but actually this is very common.  Our minds are very good at hiding desires they think are not the right thing.

Once you know for certain that you are pursuing the right dreams, the next thing you must do is stop your mind from giving you all the reasons why you cannot achieve it.  Your mind will almost certainly find lots of reasons for this, and they may sound very logical.  But the truth is that you can always be as big as your dreams, no matter how big those dreams may be.  Don't let your mind tell you otherwise.

The whole concept of the way our minds stop us from achieving our dreams is a massive topic.  There are many books and courses devoted to just this one topic.  The first step is to recognize that this is happening.  You won't correct it overnight, but recognizing the problem is the first step on the long journey to solving it.  Once you have done that, use the techniques I have given you here but also be open to reading some of those books and following some of those courses.  There is no quick fix here, but just an ongoing journey which, if you travel in the right direction, will step by step bring you closer and closer to achieving whatever it is you really want to achieve.