Three simple steps to escaping the slavery of self-doubt and beginning your quest for “Personal Freedom”.
Do you ever doubt yourself to the point of talking yourself out of doing something? Do you dream of starting a business, taking a vacation, asking someone on a date, but don’t do it based on not being enough of something? This is what I call being enslaved by your thoughts, trapped by your ego, a slave to self-limiting beliefs. I’ve experienced all the above and more. This is living in a state of limited freedom driven by your personal thoughts. For the purpose of this article, “personal freedom” is a place where self-doubt, self-criticism, self-judgment are no longer controlling or limiting you from reaching your goals.
When I was a young man in a small town in southern Oregon, I would spend days in the summer playing, working of my father’s small farm, practicing archery for the coming hunting season, playing soccer. I was free of my fears and doubts. Not often would I beat myself up about something. Yet, as I got closer to college age, the thought of moving away from home became real. Doing something scary like this created the first chain of slavery to my limiting beliefs. I began doubting what I was meant to do. For the most part, I followed in the footsteps of my older brother and went to college and got my degree in mechanical engineering. Maybe not what I was meant to do, but what I felt I was supposed to do. Fast forward nearly 20 years and I found myself doubting nearly every aspect of my life. Struggling to make it through the day without self-imposed thoughts of worthlessness. Then I made the brave decision to go back to college for a Masters in Management program at age 42, while continuing my day job. It was there I began learning the tools that have lead me, and continue to lead me, to a life free of self-doubt, self-judgement, self-slavery.
As I’ve developed these skills, I knew I was meant to share them with more than just myself. I’ve distilled these down to three core steps to get you started towards a life of personal freedom.
Reaching a place of personal freedom is a constant journey and one packed with continuous learning and practice. The three steps I’ve broken down for the development of a foundation to build a life of personal freedom are, 1. “Get to Know You Again”, 2. “Create Rituals”, and 3. “Get out of Your Head”.
1. Get to Know You Again. Where ever you are in life, you are at constant battle with outside influences and the internal perception of those influences. In this first step to personal freedom we take the time to get to know ourselves again, or maybe for the first time. This takes a simple commitment to yourself. Ask yourself tough yet simple questions like, “What do I want?”, “What is my vision?”, “What is my purpose?”. Journaling on each of these questions and revisiting them often until you really get to know “you”.
2. Create Rituals. In this second step we develop fundamentals and a foundation for the journey to personal freedom. I’ve chosen “rituals” over “habits” as I believe if we think of habits, we are turning ourselves over to another force out of our control. Rituals are of our choosing and completely within our power to change. The creation of your rituals to support your vision is key to reaching personal freedom. As you create your rituals in alignment with your new connection to yourself, you replace the unwanted, disempowering, victim mode habits. Creation of rituals takes time and commitment, but when in place they become the fundamental building blocks on your path to personal freedom. These rituals may include, journaling, meditation, exercise, sleep, time with family, time with a mentor. Whatever it is that you determine is a ritual that will get you closer to your vision.
3. Get out of your head! With a new found connection to yourself and a developed set of rituals, we simply have to get out of our head. One of my favorite quotes from the great stoic Seneca, “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” really drives home this point. When we conduct ourselves and judge ourselves all in our head, we forget what is in our hearts and suffer from these limiting stories that live in our heads. We enslave ourselves to the ever critical self. When we get out of our head and act with our heart, in alignment with who we are and what we value, we are free. From this place of personal freedom, we create magic. Works created from the heart are almost effortless and always for more beautiful than those create from the over analytic head.
“To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation.” From Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist”.
The quest for personal freedom is life long and until we stop to figure out what personal freedom means to us, the quest will never truly begin.
Start the quest. Live your purpose. Find your destiny. For more tools and resources to support your quest, visit our website and check out these helpful resources.
