Who's really holding you back?!?!

I learned a very interesting and valuable lesson this week....

I may be my worst critic, but being hard on myself is part of what keeps me going; Keeps me moving forward. I have the right to choose my own path, and though I may beat myself up along the way about this or that, it is really because I want to be the best of the best. What ever it is that I decide to do I don't wanna do it half-assed. I am the one with the power to make OR break what happens. I can chose to do or not to do things, to eat or not eat right, to exercise or not to.

I have to be the one that takes responsibility for my actions and I can't let anyone else's opinions come in the way of what I do. My success or lack of it isn't going to affect them, so why do I care what they think. If I am not satisfied with my body, for example, it will show in the way that I carry myself which could cost me a job, and that affects ME and my kid.... not whoever told me that I was already too skinny and needed to put on 10 lbs. likely because it would make THEM feel better about themselves.

I have figured out, and don't know if it has been said before or not, but...

"You can't let someone else make you believe that your dreams are unachievable because they weren't able to achieve theirs".

People wanna give advice to help you "avoid making the same mistakes that they did", but life is full of mistakes, and you learn the lessons that make you grow by making them. Without them there is not growth... no forward motion. I used to say that my biggest fear was a Fear of Failure, but then I heard this,

"To increase your success rate you have to be WILLING to double your failure rate."

What that says to me is that you have to try. You have to be willing to take a chance.... and the thing that I find the most interesting about the word "chance" is the double meaning.... As a verb it means "to risk", but as a noun it means "fate".  I don't think that it is a coincidence that in the same word you get a key to life...

Even fate requires risk.

You can lead an animal to water but you can't make them drink.

You can be prepped, and groomed, and even trained for what you are MEANT to be doing, but unless you actually take what you have learned and apply it to actually doing it then everything you have been through is null and void.  You have to be your OWN motivation. You have to make the decision.

You have to take the chance to do these things and YOU are the only one that can stop yourself from success, and I will say this.....

I REFUSE TO BE THE ONE THAT KILLS

 THE DREAMS I HAVE SPENT MY WHOLE LIFE LIVING FOR.

I WILL take the chance, and though I may fail, I WILL try!

Will You?