Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Start Where You Are


Today is the day to dust off your retirement dreams. Begin by writing down what you imagined doing in retirement. Don’t edit. Crazy ideas are the most fun to bring to life. They provide the chapters in your life story that your children and grandchildren will talk about for years.

Now take a close look at your list. Is there a dream that seem impossible to achieve or improbable at best? Is there a big divide between where you are and where you want to be? When the gap appears impassible, it’s easier and more comfortable to dismiss your big ideas and try to convince yourself they’re no longer important to you. Before you do this, let me tell you something about camels.

Being married to a veterinarian contributes to knowing some unusual, interesting facts about animals. One is that camels won’t step over something if they can’t see the bottom. The Catskill Game Farm built a trench 18 inches wide and 24 inches deep, similar to a moat but without water, to confine the camels. There was no fence. No need for a fence. The camels believed the ditch was un-crossable. If they had tested this limiting belief, they could have easily stepped over the 18-inch divide and been set free.

Is there something keeping you from living the life you imagined in retirement? Is there a limiting belief that needs to be challenged?

Like camels, we view the gap between where we are and where we want to be as impassible, which keeps us from stepping over into a dream or goal we had for this stage of life. To move toward our dreams we need to start where we are. Don’t wait until everything is perfect. Don’t wait for a bridge to be built across the moat.

Take the first smallest step, and find out that you can.

Copyright 2019. Patrice Jenkins. All Rights Reserved.

No comments: