Life
Don’t Wait for Permission to Chase Your Dreams

Would a race feel fair if there were no starting gun? Imagine you are crouched at the starting line of a race along with all the other runners, and you are all expected to just begin the race whenever you feel like it. That is the world you are in right at this very moment.
Childhood has a way of framing things that makes adulthood rather confusing. When you are a child, there are always beginnings and endings. Each school year begins in September, and ends in May or June. Math class begins at 11:00 am and ends at 12:00 pm, whereupon you go to lunch. The human mind is designed to learn patterns, and learn to expect them. Thus, it comes as something of a shock when, as an adult, one learns that the world is no longer working according to those patterns; there is no starting gun in the race you now run.
You mustn’t wait for the starting gun, you mustn’t wait for permission, you mustn’t wait for the tide to come in or the weather to be perfect, because if you do, you will be waiting forever.
Stop waiting for your turn
One reason so many jerks get ahead is they don’t wait in line. It’s not that being a jerk is a way to become successful; it’s that not waiting for permission is one of the behaviors jerks happen to share with successful people, and thus, often jerks can wind up becoming successful.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
Move out from your comfort zones
Many of the best students at the top universities don’t go anywhere because they adapted perfectly for an environment full of mentorship, structure, and clearly defined goals where everyone wants them to succeed. In the real world, the goalposts are always moving, the field of battle is always covered in fog, and no one will spit on you even if you are on fire.
Surround yourself with hustlers
Another fetter that could be holding you back is the sort of people with whom you surround yourself. Here’s an easy test: Bring some aspect of your creative work to your friends for a critique. If their first instinct is to offer help for making it the best version of what it is, then you have some good friends.
If their first instinct is to disengage with what you actually created, essentially saying what they would have created were they you, then they aren’t really being helpful to you. They’re using your endeavor for them to be creative by proxy. Telling someone their lemonade stand should be an app startup isn’t helpful.
Some of this sort of negativity goes to the pattern recognition circuitry in our brains, designed to memorize what leopards look like in tall grass, and make us paranoid because the paranoid tends to survive. Not your problem. When friends’ negativity becomes your problem, spend less time with them.
You need friends who will buoy you, not sink you. If old friends of yours are negative people, fine. Know that there is a trade off in time spent with them and your ability to pull it together to chase your dreams.
The best time to start is now
Perhaps, in order to get that dream job, you need a specialized degree that will mean years of additional schooling. Let’s say you’re 25 right now. If you start now, you might finish when you are 28. If that seems like a long time, consider how it will feel if you finally pick up your new degree when you are 28, or 33, or 42. The sooner you embrace your dreams, the sooner they will happen, and you’ll spend less time in regret.
Do not fear
Perhaps you fear failure, or more specifically, you fear a kind of failure. If you dream of being a skater, know that all ice skaters fall, both in practice and in the Olympics. The greatest baseball players in history miss 7 out of 10 times they swing the bat. Failure is fine. Failure is part of learning. They have a saying in Silicon Valley: fail fast. The faster you fail, the sooner you will know how to succeed.
Be mentored
Would it feel better if you had a guide? Of course, it would. Know mentors may not be who you expect, or come when you want them to. Some wrangle a mentor early on, but more often than not, people don’t have mentors in the beginning.
You may wonder how your mentor will find you. This is an answer you have to find for yourself, but one thing is clear, they will not find you if you are sitting at home twiddling your thumbs. Baseball scouts find the talented kids who end up in the draft because those kids join teams and play baseball.
Hollywood agents find actors because the actors find their way onto the stage or the screen, and keep coming back until one night, the agent is in the audience. If you don’t do it, and no one sees it, then no one wants it. Your mentor will find you when you have shown you are worth throwing one’s weight behind.
“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the higher part of yourself when sometimes it becomes hidden to your own view.” – Oprah
You should be able to see by now that there’s really nothing between you and setting off in search of your dreams. Remember these steps: Decide what you need to accomplish your dream, and start with the first thing on the list. If the people around you deride your efforts in any way, stop spending time with them.
Get out the door and act on your dream, even on a small scale, even if you aren’t sure it will work. The way you fail will teach you how to succeed. If you succeed enough, a mentor will appear to guide you. From there, you will have much smoother sailing on your way to your life’s dreams. Just don’t ask for permission.
Life
The Imbalanced Problem with Work/Life Balance
Balancing is for your checkbook, gymnastics, and nutrition; not for your people’s work/life ratio.

Balance…it requires an equal distribution of value between two or more subjects to maintain steady composure and equitable proportionality. (more…)

It’s 2023, a new year, new you, right? But how do we start over? How do we make the changes in our lives that we crave so much to see? (more…)
Life
Failing is More Important Than Succeeding
Failure is an integral part of life as life is incomplete without failures.

People often consider failure a stigma. Society often doesn’t respect the people who failed and avoids and criticizes their actions. Failure is an integral part of life as life is incomplete without failures. Not to have endeavored is worse than failing in life as at some stage of your life you regret not having tried in your life. (more…)
Life
5 Indicators of Unresolved Attachment Trauma

Trauma caused during specific stages of a child’s development, known as attachment trauma, can have lasting effects on a person’s sense of safety, security, predictability, and trust. This type of trauma is often the result of abuse, neglect, or inconsistent care from a primary caregiver.
Individuals who have not fully processed attachment trauma may display similar patterns of behavior and physical or psychological symptoms that negatively impact their adult lives, including the choices they make in relationships and business.
Unfortunately, many people may not even be aware that they are struggling with trauma. Research estimates that 6% of the population will experience PTSD in their lifetime, with a majority of males and females having experienced significant trauma.
Unresolved attachment trauma can significantly impair the overall quality of a person’s life, including their ability to form healthy relationships and make positive choices for themselves. One well-known effect of unhealed attachment trauma is the compulsion to repeat past wounds by unconsciously selecting romantic partners who trigger their developmental trauma.
However, there are other less recognized but equally detrimental signs of unprocessed developmental trauma.
Five possible indications of unresolved attachment trauma are:
1. Unconscious Sabotage
Self-sabotage is a common pattern among individuals with unprocessed attachment trauma. This cycle often begins with hurting others, which is then followed by hurting oneself. It is also common for those with attachment trauma to have heightened emotional sensitivity, which can trigger this cycle.
This pattern can manifest in lashing out, shutting down, or impulsive behavior that leads to feelings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing.
Many people with attachment trauma are not aware of their wounds and operate on survival mode, unconsciously testing or challenging the emotional investment of those around them, and pushing them away out of self-preservation and fear of abandonment.
This can lead to a pattern of making poor choices for themselves based on impulsivity.
3. Behaviors That Block Out Trauma
4. A strong need for control
5. Psychological Symptoms That Are Not Explained
What to do next if you’re suffering from emotional attachment trauma?
There are several ways that people can work to overcome emotional attachment trauma:
- Therapy: One of the most effective ways to overcome emotional attachment trauma is through therapy. A therapist can help you process your experiences, understand the impact of your trauma on your life, and develop coping strategies to manage symptoms.
- Support groups: Joining a support group of people who have had similar experiences can be a great way to find validation, empathy, and a sense of community.
- Mindfulness practices: Mindfulness practices such as meditation, pilates, prayer time with God or journaling can help you become more aware of your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, and develop a sense of spiritual connection and self-regulation.
- Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT): This is a type of therapy that is specifically designed to help individuals process and recover from traumatic events.
- Building a safety net: Building a support system of people you trust, who are there for you when you need them, can help you feel more secure and safe in your life.
It’s important to remember that healing from emotional attachment trauma is a process and it may take time. It’s also important to find a therapist who is experienced in treating trauma, who you feel comfortable talking with, and who can help you develop a personalized treatment plan.
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