What would your world look like if you ceased to believe in limits?

If you believed anything was possible, how would you feel?  How would you act?

We all carry around baggage, the baggage of believing that the world can only give us so much.

Think of someone you know who sees limitations all around them.  Someone whose negative beliefs about what is possible shape their lives so strongly that they don't bother to discuss their dreams.  "What's the point?" they might say.

Now think of someone who thinks that the world is their oyster.  I've heard this referred to as paranoid optimism - the belief that the world is conspiring to do good for you.  This person dreams big, and takes chances to bring their dreams to life.  Chances are, s/he is more happy and successful than his/her peers.

Now think of your philosophy.  Most of us fall somewhere between the two above examples.

We set dreams and goals that we think are realistic for us.  Then we go about achieving them, with varying degrees of success, depending upon multiple factors.

The real question is, how do you define what is realistic?

Last week, I watched Oprah embrace a woman who she called the ultimate manifester.

This woman, Tererai Trent, grew up in Zimbabwe, where she was married at age 11 to a man who abused her on a daily basis.

Though she loved learning, Tererai was discouraged from going to school with her brothers, men being the traditional breadwinners in Zimbabwe.

She wrote down four dreams and buried them in a piece of tin under a rock.  Her dreams were: moving to America, earning her BA, MA and PhD.

About 20 years later, Tererai lives in America and has completed her BA, MA and is almost finished with her PhD.  Every time she achieves a goal, she travels back to Zimbabwe and checks that goal off of her list.

Tererai, who was a mother a three by age 18, didn't think she could realize her goals until she had a chance meeting with Jo Luck of Heifer International who told her, "if you desire those things, it is achievable."

Jo set Tererai free with those words.  She gave Tererai permission to abandon her limiting beliefs and begin working toward her dreams.

We all have obstacles that stand in our way.  We may have limited resources avaialble to us.  Tererai certainly had limited time and money, and yet she managed to move halfway across the world and make her dreams come true.

The key is to not become your own obstacle.  In order to make you dreams come true:
1. Identify your dreams, and gain clarity about what you want and why you want it,
2. Check you own limiting beliefs about what is possible, and what's in your way.

While time and money are real and pressing concerns for many of us, they are flexible resources.  They can be shifted around, increased and decreased intentionally.

Once you make the commitment to your dreams, wholeheartedly believing they are possible, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.

You will see opportunities that were not visible to you before.  You will have the courage to take risks - large and small - to bring your dreams to life.

So let this blog entry be your Jo Luck wake-up call.  In the words of Pablo Picasso, "everything you can imagine is real."

Dream big, and live the life you were born to live.