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I Think I Can't! I Think I Can't!

How many times a day do you have that conversation with yourself? There will be various versions of it, like – I am not good enough, I could not possibly do that, who am I to think I could actually do that and succeed, people like me never achieve things like that. It all comes from the 'I think I can't' family.

Start thinking about all of those things that you think you cannot do. I recommend that you write them all down. Have a good look at them. Go through each of the items on the list and work out what it is about each of them that has you think that it is not possible (the limiting belief). Is it money, is it that you think you are not smart enough, that you do not have enough time, that you have children, that people would think it weird if you wanted to do something different to what you are doing now, you don't have the skills? (More things from the 'I can't' family). Generally it is because we feel we are lacking in something, not enough of something – not bold enough, not confident enough, not rich enough, not enough of something else – add in your own words.

It may be true that, right this minute, you cannot do it. But, it is something that, if you changed some of your life circumstances or thought about them in a different way, then it would be possible.

At the time of posting this I have been a primary school teacher for the last 7 years. I love teaching and I love working with children. There came a time, though, that I did not want to do both of those at the same time. I started looking at what else I could do – I looked into being a consultant to support teachers in teaching certain subjects. (I was a subject leader in ICT – how to use technology to enhance children's learning, Emotional Literacy and Physical Education.) But at the time there were not any positions available. As I started to feel more and more caged in by my job, the possibility of not being a classroom teacher seemed further and further away. The more I thought like that the more resigned and cynical I became about being a teacher – that this is what I will now have to do for the rest of my life.

I sat down one day and did what I am asking you to do. From doing that exercise I realised that even though I could see there were other options, like being a consultant. I was still thinking inside my box of limitations.

I then had one of those light bulb moments.

All the time I was still thinking I had to be a teacher, that I had to stay in the education department, that it had to be around something that I was already doing. WOW!! I realised I did not have to be a teacher for the rest of my life, just because that was what I had trained in. I could actually do anything I wanted!!! Well, that opened up a whole new world for me.

I started having fun…

thinking of all the things that I could do, if I wanted to. Don't think for one minute that all of the limiting beliefs weren’t still there – probably louder than ever. I was just not going to listen to them anymore!

I decided that an online business was what I was going to do. Of course the – how can you do that, you don't know anything about it belief came up. I just started taking the actions to make that not true. I researched and studied and researched and studied until I knew some things about running an online business. I then looked around for people that were already successful at what I wanted to do and I started following them, getting their newsletters. I then signed up to some programs and studied under these people.

I am now well on my way to having a very successful online business. I have, just recently, finished my job as a primary school teacher. Don't get me wrong, this did not happen overnight. Some of it has been hard work, working a fulltime job and then working late into the night on my business.

The end result has been well worth it.

You may be thinking that you could not possibly leave your job. In my next post I am going to talk about how simply changing my attitude completely changed my experience of life.

Unless we interrupt what we are doing now, things will just stay the same.

There is already someone out there doing what it is that you want to do, or achieving what it is you want to achieve. Research, find them, study what they are doing, implement it into your own life.

Henry Ford said 'Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right'