The magic of new beginnings
Close your eyes and imagine your own personal garden. A place that is uniquely yours and as beautiful as you can imagine it. See the vivid colors, feel the ground under your feet, the warm sun on your skin and listen to the sounds of life – rustling leaves, humming bees, ripples of water in cute little ponds. This mental image of your garden shall symbolize your life and how wonderful it can be.
Now imagine a place in your garden, which consists of dying plants and spreading weeds. To be able to let new plants flourish the old ones need to give way first. Otherwise, they might wither away without ever developing their full potential. Afterall, you cannot split your resources and expect everything to reach its maximum potential. So imagine how satisfying and joyful it would be to prepare the soil for your new plants and then watch them grow into something wondrous and way better than you could ever imagine.
Playing it safe doesn’t always pay off. Let’s say you also want to start something new, or are already in the process of it, just as I am right now with setting up an art business and starting my first ever blog. But taking a leap of faith to start something new is only half the challenge. Imagine taking a big jump and being stopped shortly and quite abruptly because something is tethering you to the ground. To prevent this from happening, or at least lessening the chance, I want to share some thoughts and remind you of the importance of letting go. I am by far not done leaping, but maybe I can support some of you with the same things that I keep reminding myself of right now:
Let go of old things and trust the magic of new beginnings.
Putting my money, or what’s left of it, where my mouth is
I was dreaming about being able to support myself through my art for quite a while now and decided that it’s finally the time to try and make my dream come true. For me that meant letting go of my old job and not trying to acquire new freelance ui ux projects and thus a safe income. As I am writing this post, I am in the process of setting everything up and trying not to lose my nerves… and my mind.
You may ask yourself how did I get here, if letting go of freelance work and an underpaid agency job was really necessary? To you I say, think about what you want to improve in your life, what you want to achieve with your new mission and if it’s really something completely new or if it could replace something. And don’t cheat yourself as our minds tend to rationalize unpleasant things away into oblivion.
Think about how much time and effort would your goal require? To counter the overwhelming feelings of self doubt, I wrote down my specific goal with all its subgoals. A list of all the things that I have to do and need to be done. I reached out for support from my friends and family. I felt like suddenly there was space for something new and a lot of things came my way. Don’t underestimate the amount of work though, the self manipulating doubts and feelings that may rise again and again, the dedication you need to show every day, except on lazy sundays. But more on that in a future post.
And this brings me to my second conclusion that I am telling myself a lot these days:
Do not give up and be persistent with your new goal.
Believe you can make it, as cliche as it may sound. Tell yourself over and over again that it is possible, because it is. Write down your goal and pin it somewhere where you can see it every day. Don’t do things half assed if you already went through the hardship of letting go of old baggage. If you believe in your goal and are persistent, you will work harder and produce constant results. With every step the self doubts and self questioning will fade away.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
“It’s never too late to become who you want to be. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.”
I am looking forward to hearing from you in the comments. Did one of your leaps result in amazing things? Or are you also leaping right now and hopefully finding some comfort in what I just shared? Also if you want to learn more about me and this blog check out my welcome post!