Like most entrepreneurs, you have probably had a dream of being a business owner for most of your life. From the time you can remember, you had high dreams and even higher hopes of business ownership - - becoming your own boss. If you were like me, you have probably spent many days, on the job, daydreaming about ditching the 9to5. When you thought about being your own boss, you felt as if you could see your life, laid out before you and what you could see made your soul excited. But, like many of us, somewhere along the way, life sidetracked you. You got married, had children, or simply fell into life’s easy pattern of getting an education and getting “that good job”. Through it all, your hopes and dreams simply got put on the “shelf of someday”.
What happened? If you said, “Life happened.”…you got it, life happened. It happened to you, it happened to me and yep, look around, it happened to her and her and her too.
My story…I’ve always wanted to be a business owner. But, I have not always been a business owner. I have been in the United States Navy and I have worked at several, no, quite a few jobs! So, why in the heck did it take me so long to get to where I have always known I wanted to be? Well, I had to be deprogrammed. Yeah, you heard it right, I had to be deprogrammed. Okay, let me explain.
You see, from the moment we are born, the programming begins. From the time the earth’s cool air hits our new born bottoms, we operate within the parameters of our parent’s or caretaker’s program. As we grow, we are programmed with what to eat, what not to eat, how to sit, how to talk, how to dress, and even, who to like and who not to like. Everything about us, for approximately our first 18 years, is the result of someone else’s ideas, hopes, and dreams…for us.
Oh but wait, we just don’t exist in oblivion. Something happens when we move closer to our teenage years. When we become teenagers, we begin to develop confidence in our own thoughts and ideas about what we want, need, and desire; and, we also begin to act on those thoughts and ideas.
As teen girls and boys, we begin to see ourselves more as young ladies and young men, taking much more pride in ourselves and our appearances. Both teen boys and girls begin to develop an attraction for the opposite sex and both teen boys and girls began to desire freedom. Freedom to stay out later and freedom to make our own choices, are very popular request during the teenage years.
If you have ever had the pleasure of raising a teenager, you know, that human creature that knows everything, you can definitely relate to this. When a teenager gets out of line, parents often times will say, “You had better get with the PROGRAM!!” The minute a teenager shows any sign of operating outside of the parental program, they are immediately drawn back in. It is during our teenage years that we first experience pushback on what we want for ourselves or, are forced out of our realm of creativity. I cannot even begin to count how many times I said to my mother and father, “Why are you trying to ruin my life!!!” Don’t get it twisted, parents are not purposely trying to ruin the lives of their children, they are simply trying to instill values in children.
So, we stumble through those teenage years, probably battling with adult authority, more than we are connecting and loving. How many of you remember ever saying this, “Oh, I can’t wait until I’m 18!”? Yeah, I said it myself. But you know what, 18 really doesn’t mean anything. For most of us, we are either, living in a college dorm, have joined the military, or are working and still living at home…with our parents. While turning 18 may give you a little bit more freedom, your mind is still in tune and in sync with your parent’s program.
Now, imagine having to live yourself out of at least 18 years of heavy parental influence. The way you think, what you like, dislike, how you talk, what you wear, and what you believe, all programmed and downloaded into you, as well as your thoughts, ideas, emotions and even insecurities – all because your parents decided that you would live according to how they wanted you to live. So, when you find yourself in your early 30’s using that “good education”, the kind of education your ancestors dreamed of, working that “good job”, don’t get down on yourself. What we have been taught is the secure or right thing to do, may not be the true right thing for each of you, in the long run. But, it is very difficult to step out from that which we have known to be our security.
Time to D E P R O G R A M.
Is it time to do an information dump?
Is it time to upload information into your mind that best suits your hopes, dreams, passions and what you love?
Tell yourself, it’s okay to do what you want to do with your life.
If you have been wanting to start a business, for what feels like all of your life, doing something that makes you happy in your soul and you have been putting your hopes and dreams on the “shelf of someday”, today is the day to reach up high and take your dreams down off of the “shelf of someday”. Today is the day that you begin to understand, embrace and welcome your purpose home. Today is the day you begin to believe in believing again. Today is the day you began to spend your days doing something that you are passionate about. Today is the day you begin your journey to being a successful business owner!