I am almost always wrong (this helps, really!)

I have a lot of opinions - just ask anyone who knows me! And until recently, I had a lot of firmly held beliefs. I had beliefs about what I was capable of, and how my life would go, and how other people would react to things. I had beliefs about what held me back. And I had beliefs about who I could trust and who I could not. I held these beliefs well into my 50s. I held them for the whole of my adult life. Knowing what I knew gave me security. And yet, in every one of these areas, I was wrong.

I wasn't off slightly - I wasn't just a little mistaken - I was categorically 100% wrong.

Take my career for example. I remember confidently stating that I could never make a living as an artist. I recall telling a friend definitively that I would never be able to teach because I had nothing special to share. I told people I was stuck in my day job because I had bills to pay. And I also categorically KNEW that I would never be able to afford to build a studio in my garden and would therefore always have to work in a cramped, dark space.

I was completely wrong about every one of these things. But, in order to discover that, I had to first break down the beliefs and let them go. Because the firm belief that something is impossible guarantees that it will never happen. When you believe something is impossible, you shut down all the possible routes and close yourself off from ever finding a way through.

Only when I allowed the possibility that I might be mistaken, could the solutions start to present themselves. I'm not talking about woo-woo and witchcraft here - I'm speaking very practically.

Let me explain, because I think this is really important...

One I stopped telling myself that my dreams of being an artist were impossible, I joined a little Facebook group of other artists. This was back when there weren't as many art groups online and one day, I thought "I'd like to run my own group."

So I set up a free Facebook group and started posting and sharing. And people seemed to like my posts, so I set up a blog and wrote more of them. And I attracted a following and it started to occur to me that I had been wrong - I COULD teach. In fact, I seemed to be good at it.

This was a true revelation, although it really shouldn't have come as such a surprise. I had spent many years in training roles within an HR department, so I understood more than I realised about adult learning. And yet when my friend had suggested teaching a year earlier, I had laughed, forgetting all about that valuable experience.

Do you see how the earlier me was shutting down possibilities and actually ignoring reality?

Now the new me was opening up to possibility and so the possibilities kept flowing in. As I wrote my posts and emails, and ran my group, I heard the same word over and over again. That word was "inspiring." People kept telling me that I had inspired them, and so I started to question how and why that was happening.

Once I did that, I saw that it was my fearlessness with paint that inspired people. I didn't take myself too seriously. I didn't get tied in knots when faced with a blank canvas. And I didn't link my self-worth to whether or not I made a good painting. And yet others did all those things and it stopped them from creating.

So I examined my mindset and compared it to theirs, and suddenly the idea for my course arrived, almost fully formed. I knew it would be called "Find Your Joy" and the title of each module popped into my head as if I was downloading files off the internet. It almost felt like someone else must have already created this course because how could it be so complete?

The first time I taught, I offered the course for a low "guinea pig" cost to the people in the Facebook group. 40 brave souls said yes and off I went.

That course has now grown in size and improved in content, but the basic outline remains just as it appeared to me that day.

And that course allowed me to give up that job. (I wasn't stuck after all!) In turn, that allowed me to dedicate more time to painting and soon I was selling all the work I made. And that allowed me to build that garden studio that is now my favourite place in the whole world.

I firmly believe all that was possible for me much earlier - I just wasn't allowing any of the ideas or solutions to come into my head because I was holding so tightly to my limiting beliefs.

Some people talk about "the secret" and "law of attraction" and maybe I believe in those things - but I think they work in quite practical and easy-to-understand ways, which is why I wanted to lay all this out for you.

It's not that we just wish for what we want and then lie on the couch and wait for it to arrive ... it's that we change our mindset to allow in what we want. And when we change our mindset, we start seeing new possibilities and we start taking a few small steps and those small steps lead to the next steps and then the next, and pretty soon, we are further than we ever imagined.

And by the way, knowing this doesn't make you immune to doing the same thing again. I now have new limiting beliefs about my art .... I can't imagine it ever being in a museum or a super high-end gallery for example. I have limiting beliefs in my life too.

But there's a difference now. I know that, whatever I believe, I am most likely wrong. After all, I have a track record! I find this a strangely comforting thought ... those things I am dreading, or those outcomes I think are impossible? I'm most likely wrong about them. The reality is nothing like the ideas in my head.

It reminds me of George Costanza lol

But on a more serious note I do find it very helpful to remind myself just how wrong I have been in the past and to also remind myself just how much opportunity there is in the world if we just let it in.

I'm sharing this because I get emails and DMs all the time from people who are struggling with their own limiting beliefs. If this is you, I hope you take some heart from my story. The things you think are holding you back SEEM true - I know they do. Mine did too. But they're not - most likely there are many things you don't know and many opportunities just waiting for you to see them.

Let's try together this week to let possibility in. Who knows what's waiting for us?

Work Update ....

I shared this painting last week before it was quite finished, so I thought you might like to see the finished result. This is much more loose and imperfect than my usual work but I love it anyway. It's called "Surfacing" and it's 24" x 24". It's not yet for sale as it's the first in a series that might form the basis of a new book.For now I am going to hold on to it - maybe even hang it in my house to remind me of what's possible when I just let go.