Are You Worth The Effort?

Perhaps this is a question you’ve never asked of yourself.

Our ability to grow and evolve is a choice we get to make for ourselves. Odds are there are already blueprints for the steps we’ll need to take to grow and evolve into whatever it is we decide we want to grow and evolve into. With an endless amount of information surrounding us, what is needed is a willingness to actually take action.

That’s where we can get stuck.

I’ve enthusiastically stood on the threshold of growth many times, both personally and professionally. I’ve had the opportunity, the ability, and I knew what needed to be done. Yet, quite often, I never did.

Looking back on several of those moments in my life, I’ve found a common theme for my inaction. It wasn’t laziness. It wasn’t ignorance. 

It was a matter of worthiness.

There’s a story we always tell ourselves about ourselves. It’s a story of who it is we believe ourselves to be and what we believe is possible for us in our lives. For me, the greatest killer of my growth intentions was a deeply held belief that achieving my growth objective would be inconsistent with the stories I’ve told myself about myself. 

On some deep level I told myself I wasn’t supposed to be what I told myself I wanted to be. So, why foolishly even start? And on those rare occasions when I did actually start, at some point I’d convince myself not to continue.

I wasn’t worthy of what I was seeking.

I wasn’t worth the effort.

That relentless inner voice impacts everything. Goals, careers, relationships, finances. It keeps us where we are, and until we begin to believe we are, in fact, worthy of having and becoming what we want to experience, we are going to stay exactly where we already are.

A new outcome first needs a new story, a new narrative consistent with who it is we want to become and experience. Do we truly believe we are worthy of being in excellent physical shape, of receiving that overdue promotion at work, of having that long-elusive loving and supportive relationship? Because no matter now much we tell ourselves we may want those things, we’ll never have those things if the story we believe about ourselves tells us we’re simply not worthy of having them.

When I find myself well intentioned yet not moving forward in a particular area of my life, I’ve learned to ask myself why I’ve not made any progress. Once I get through the well-worn excuses, I will eventually discover the source of my stagnation is almost always the story of my unworthiness of having what I tell myself I’m willing to work for. It’s only in me questioning the validity of these deeply engrained stories, reinforced by life experience, am I able to create a new space for a new story to be told about what’s possible for me.

No one ever told me we are the ones who get to decide what we are worthy of experiencing in life. But we do. No matter what we may have been told or experienced in life so far. 

We don’t have to keep reliving the life we’ve been living because it’s the only live we’ve ever lived.

What if that was the story your relentless inner voice was constantly whispering in your ear?

What stories are you telling you about what’s possible for you?

You are worthy of attaining the dreams that reside within you.

That’s why they are there.

You are worth the effort.

Ready?