Do you ever find yourself rationalizing, justifying, and/or selling yourself short? Sometimes we settle for a situation because the idea of changing things up seems exhausting or impossible. Maybe we’re full of doubt, and we question who we are to even think about a different kind of job, relationship, experience, life.

Fear is a perfectly natural feeling we’ll all experience, but it can be incredibly debilitating if we let it boss us around. Feeling paralyzed and powerless is no life at all, because life requires the freedom to move and expand and grow and hope.

This shows up in every facet of our lives, for almost all of us, at one time or another. Stuck in a job that isn’t inspiring because the bills have to be paid; that’s understandable, we all need a roof over our heads and food to eat. Sometimes any job is a gift, but short of that, feeling like your soul and your spark are being crushed in a professional situation without doing anything to change it because you doubt your ability to find something that might make you happy, is sentencing yourself to prison. It’s very hard to do sometimes, but trusting the pull of those things that light you up is always the way to go. Life is pretty short. You really don’t want to spend too much of it tied to a desk staring at a computer screen, unless you’re working on something that gives you a sense of meaning and purpose.

People do this in relationships, too. I hear from so many people who’ve been hurt and disappointed, and have started to harden themselves to the idea of ever finding a true partner. Sometimes when I write about this, people will respond that you don’t need a partner to be happy. I would agree. If you aren’t happy to begin with, no one else can solve that for you, and, not everyone wants to be in a romantic longterm relationship. Some people prefer to be independent, and to have a series of relationships. Being alone and happy is always better than being in a relationship that crushes the light out of you. Being alone and sad is better than that, too.

We have this sense that life is going to happen out in front of us, once we’ve figured all this stuff out. Like life will begin when we find that great job, or person, or move into a house, or get married, or have kids, or lose ten pounds, or set ourselves up so we have enough money to take vacations and enjoy our down time, but it doesn’t work like that. It’s important to really grasp that, or you might rationalize your way into wasting precious time.

Sometimes we have deep doubt about our own worth, and that’s the source of our inaction. I can’t leave this situation, because who else would have me? How could I take care of myself? How could I live with letting other people down? If you’re in something that does not feel like a yes for you, whether it’s personal or professional, the people around you can feel that even if they don’t want to. I don’t know many people who would thank you for staying in something out of fear, guilt, or pity.

Each of us has something beautiful and unique to offer, but the way has to be clear. Your heart can’t open when you betray what’s true for you, and you really don’t want to sell yourself out of living the life you were meant to live.

Wishing you strength, courage and love,

Ally Hamilton

If you like the posts, you can find my books here <3