Have you ever had one of those bathroom epiphanies where you lift your head up from the sink and catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror? You reach for the hand towel to pat your face dry only to freeze for 10 seconds because you suddenly notice the person staring back at you. For just a moment, you really see yourself. Not the mouth, nose and fine lines you usually see and sometimes wince at. Instead you lock eyes with yourself, and it’s as if you can see into your soul, right through your eyes.

Those few seconds seem to slow down, and you experience a moment of compassion and think, I know I’m meant for something more. You decide that you are ready to be courageous and push past fear so you can move forward. You even feel this jolt of optimism and strength. After all, you’re tired of playing it safe and taking some action but not making as much progress as you feel you should be making. By the time you’ve made your coffee and set out to start your day, you’ve talked yourself out of it once again. However, this time you recognize this pattern of thinking. You’re just not sure how to stop it. How do you get out of your own way?

For starters, you’ve got to believe in yourself. Sometimes this is hard to do, especially when you don’t see evidence that things are working out, or when you’re not getting any worthwhile results. For instance, you might be consistently showing up on your Instagram and Facebook doing live videos a few times a week, but no one seems to be watching. Maybe you’re spending time posting quality content every week to your email list but getting less than stellar open rates, and worse, more and more unsubscribes.

You think to yourself,

What am I doing wrong? What am I missing?

Spending too much time trying to figure this out only makes you feel like laying low for a while and maybe getting back into learning mode. But there are also those moments when you just feel like throwing in the towel and giving up.

I want to share a profound story with you that I heard. If you’re open to it, what you’re about to read can change the way you see your life.

It’s a story of some elephants that were standing around with only a small string tied to their front leg. A man passing by asked the trainer why these elephants don’t just try to move beyond the length of the string, breaking free. The trainer tells him the reason is they’ve been conditioned since babies to believe the string can hold them there. The elephants don’t realize their own strength.

Similarly, some dogs learn never to go beyond the parameters of the front yard by way of an electric fence. The dogs learn to play within these 4 imaginary walls, never venturing out because they remember the shock they received the last 27 times they tried to break free.

It’s easy to see how these animals are products of their conditioning. They take action or inaction based on what they’ve learned. But it’s much harder to see when we take the same action or inaction day in and day out. Some say they just like to stick with what works or stay in their comfort zones.

Our beliefs are like the string tied around the elephant’s leg. They have no real power, only the power we give them. These beliefs only exist in our minds and, like the elephant, we CAN break free.

We can choose to see our situation differently and stop living from the perspective of our current circumstances. In other words, you don’t have to believe something just because it’s what you see right now and what you know to be true. What if things could be different?

What if you also had those 20k followers on your Instagram and had 3k views on your videos? What if your ideal clients were consistently asking you how they could work with you?

This IS possible. But you’ve got to believe it is first, and that belief requires that you can see and live beyond your current circumstances. That’s when your life changes.

So how do you know when you’re living from your circumstances? You know when you look at your bank account and worry about where the money is going to come from to pay your bills because you’ve only known money to come in from a paycheck. Or when you cringe before hitting send on that email campaign because 7 people unsubscribed the last 3 times your emails went out. Or when you don’t ask people to get on a call and offer your services even though you notice they would benefit from working with you.

In these examples, it’s as if you have that string still tied around your leg, only able to see your current circumstance and argue for your limitations based on what you’ve seen to be true in the past. This is how you get in your own way and hold yourself back.

So how do you believe you can get what you want? You’ve got to be willing to look beyond your present circumstances and venture beyond those 4 imaginary walls of the past.

The past and your experience of it only exists in your mind. Like the string or the electric fence, you can break through. The clients, customers, money and everything else you want is just beyond the “string.”

You see, the opportunity is in the person you happen to overlook because you’re focused on those unsubscribes, so you don’t notice that person who is opening up every one of your emails just waiting for you to tell them how you can help.

Give yourself permission to cut ties with the beliefs and stories in your mind. Only then will you be free. Free to live beyond your circumstances, to live that life of “something more.” Free to be you and free to shine!