What's Holding You Back? by: Scott Hansgen



Of all the people I know, there isn’t one of them that doesn’t have a dream of some sort. One may dream of owning a coffee shop while another dreams of being a fulltime musician. Another wants to be able to just have a little extra cash at the end of the month while yet another wants to go back to school. We all have dreams of some type. The problem is most of our dreams will go unfulfilled for one reason or another. Strange thing is it mostly comes down to belief in our selves. It’s easy to convince yourself that the lack of money, knowledge, opportunity, youth and yes time are all legitimate reasons that we can’t pursue our dreams when in fact, none of them are. There are countless successful folks out there that have realized their dreams and faced all of these obstacles and more. The difference is they honestly believed in themselves and they really, really wanted to see their dreams become a reality. They talked themselves into realizing their dream where the rest of us talked our self out of it. It all comes down to perspective. How we decide to look at things is the one key that makes all the difference. Some folks see the good no matter what they look at where others are only able to see the bad. That negativity is the single largest stumbling block that most of us face. If we can overcome that obstacle, the sky’s the limit! We first must accept the fact that everything we have in life such as relationships, family, career, material things and mindset are of our own choosing. We are not in our current state because of any other factor. We made decisions along the way that determined where we are now. We must first take responsibility for those decisions. That’s the first step. If we can do that, then we will realize that we simply have to make new decisions to take us to where we want to go. Let me give you an example. A man is unhappy in his current job. He doesn’t feel it is meaningful, he doesn’t feel challenged and he thinks he is way underpaid. However, he’s been in search of a new job for a long time but can’t seem to find anything better. He feels stuck in this big hole that he can never get out of and at some point life seems to become just one big burden. Now, looking back through his life he made a conscious decision to not further his education and therefore, he can’t get into a better career position. Oh I hear you. You’re saying that maybe he had to go to work for economic reasons right out of high school. Well that may be true. However, he still could have increased his education through night classes and such. It may have taken him longer but he still could have accomplished it. The fact is, life sometimes isn’t fair. Some have it harder than others but we all still have choices to make and those choices determine who and what we will become in the future. I heard a speaker once ask a lady in the audience what her dream was and she said she always wanted to become a nurse. He then asked her why she doesn’t go back to school to get her degree. She said she was too old. He asked her this, “How old will you be in 4 years from now”? She replied, “I’ll be 52”. He then asked, “How old will you be in 4 years if you go back to school”? She then of course said, “52”. He looked her in the eye and said would you rather be 52 and doing what you’re doing now or would you rather be 52 and be a nurse”? She never responded but the answer was obvious. It gets right back to what I said earlier. It’s all perspective. It’s how we choose to look at things. So in closing, think about where you are now and where you want to be in a year, 2 years, 5 years. Make a list of all the reasons why you CAN be successful in following your dream. Then put the resources you have available to good use and make them work for you. There’s no reason whatsoever that you can’t transform your life into exactly what you want. Make the necessary changes and live your dream!!