If you tell yourself that you can’t, you won’t.
If you tell yourself that you can, you’re more likely to try.
When you’re more likely to try, you’re more likely to win.
Achieving the unimaginable doesn’t require any special skills, it does require a willingness to show up.
More importantly, how you show up.
If you’re going to a party, chances are you bring something along.
Why not take the same approach with life?
So here we are at this pivotal point in history, hopefully asking ourselves, what unimaginable things can I accomplish in my life?
That’s the question I asked myself as the dread of becoming a year older crept up.
It was time to set the theme for the next year of my life.
Besides, what’s the sense of creating an entire brand development framework and program if I don’t take my own medicine?
The rules are simple, look at three areas that I want to focus on or improve in.
From there the overarching theme often arises.
So after reflecting on the past year of returning to the stage after burnout, reigniting my loveable core, and finding the passion to create again, the answer became quite clear.
In order to reach the next level as a creative and entrepreneur, I would need to be relentless in my pursuit of my ambitions, while removing the fear of setting healthy boundaries.
Most importantly, in order to heal, I’d need to create deeply.
Let’s break it down.
Chase Your Ambition
Often we’re told to chase our dreams but what about chasing ambition instead?
Dreams come and go.
Ambition however requires a much different approach.
The long game, where the endurance levels intensify and only those who see it through will make it to the promised land.
In this lane, it comes down to how bad you truly want to reach a better level that goes beyond financial gain and fame.
We’re talking about the kind of ambition that wields true influence where it naturally sets the standard everywhere it goes.
This only happens when you set your focus on something bigger than what the status quo offers.
It’s an opportunity to stretch farther than your current comfort zone suggests but only if you dare to answer the call.
With that in mind, I assembled a traction list aka a list of things that I want to accomplish before 2020.
The plan with this strategy is to leverage the trade winds of turning a year older to finish the year strong and build up the needed momentum to crush the upcoming calendar year.
In short, it’s an ambitious effort to supercharge my loveable core to an intensity that it hasn’t really seen before.
Surprisingly I’ve accomplished a little over 30% of the things on the list with a few months left in 2019 to spare at the time of writing.
That’s the thing about being intentional when you’re chasing your ambitions. It allows you to reach into a source of energy far greater than what the gurus and self help experts can ever offer.
Ambition however, is limited by the boundaries you perceive and the boundaries you set with those around you.
Set Your Own Boundaries
Protecting your energy as a creative and leader is key to being successful.
Let the wrong energy into your life and you’ll spend more time trying to balance things out than anything else.
This is one area where prevention is definitely much better than the cure.
However, if you limit yourself to only achieving what you think is possible, you’ll never go farther than I what you can see.
Setting your own boundaries requires a different type of faith, one that is only acquired by passing through the valleys.
Experience is the only teacher that can deliver this perspective effectively.
As you set boundaries the key here is to balance making the map and filling in the details.
Lean too much in either direction or on anyone’s shoulder too much and there could be a problem.
There has to be a point in time when you’re simply comfortable in your own skin and content with who you are as an individual.
No one else can determine what’s ok for you.
Only you can decide if you approve or deny of an experience.
Above all, only you can limit yourself.
It’s about time you started to view your life with a little more appreciation and with the perspective that you can accomplish the things others say you can’t.
There’s a certain level as an individual that you realize that you need to find the limit and push it.
When you think you can’t.
Keep going but be respectful.
Like seriously, if you need to reach that next level.
Like you’ve been dreaming about it until you want it so bad until you want it badly at every step of being awake…
Max it to the limit.
Dig deep into your creative self and unleash ALL the dreams.
Too many people out here in this world living with regret.
Too many people wishing they could just be unchained from the expectations and created the good they wished to see.
Goodness. At what point does that change?
Let’s get real, if you don’t value yourself then chances are others won’t value you either.
The boundaries you set will either give you room to heal or they’ll constrain you to continue suffering in pain.
Create To Heal
Creativity is all about solving problems, so why not utilize a little creativity when it comes to healing?
Whether it’s establishing boundaries, setting goals or in this case with healing, creativity can go a long way.
If there’s a most important thing or “growth hack” it would be this; your creativity shouldn’t be overlooked in the healing process.
Often the emotions and thoughts that don’t fit within the normal boxes of expression find their way out through ones creativity.
When they do the first response is to fight the thought away.
The problem is that the thought builds up to a feeling where at some point the dam bursts.
In some cases that burst is expressed in a constructive manner and in other ways through unhealthy behavior.
One of these allows you to heal and face the fears you’ve been avoiding while the other ends up creating a much bigger mess to clean up later.
Immerse yourself in the creativity of life.
Take the scars of life and turn them into stories that leave an impact.
Push back on the negative thoughts and reinforce your spirit with love and hope.
Establish the boundaries necessary to protect your soul, extend the vision of your ambition, create that which allows you to heal.
Keep the receipts of thy accomplishments and frequently give gratitude for the experiences that lead to each one.
Find your others, the ones that push you to be better in all the things.
Quality is the result of intentional and intelligent action.
Remember why you started but focus on why you kept going.
It’s not about being liked.
It’s about being respected and learning to respect yourself.
Do you respect yourself enough to attempt to achieve the unimaginable?
If you do, go out and live like it.
Live like you’re actually aiming upward and not just wishing it.
