Hello everyone!! I feel like a stranger to this blog thing. I haven't written here in a few years and to be honest, I nearly had forgotten I even had a blog. But alas, here I am and here I am ready to write a new blog post after a long hiatus. And what has compelled me to write a new post is the subject of stifling personal growth and how we ourselves are the worst offenders of this. Society has its fair share of blame in the stifling of personal growth with the endless labels, constant judgment, and never ending shaming of anyone or anything perceived to be abnormal by society's absurd, hypocritical and impossible standards. But, as Eleanor Roosevelt once said "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent". And that's a personal truth we all must come to at some point in life if we are to find ourselves going down the path of personal growth to become the best versions of ourselves we can be.
The first step to this process of walking down this path is to totally and completely erase the word can't from our vocabulary. In my humble opinion, and in my life experiences, there is not a more self destructive, self sabotaging, and self stifling word in the english language than can't. This single word seems so small and insignificant until you realize just how powerful this singular word really is. It stifles our self belief and helps our self doubt grow into something that stifles us in all aspects of life. I hate to use too many quotes in this blog post based on my own independent thoughts but Cam Cameron (one time head coach of IU football and numerous jobs in the NFL) once said "whether you believe you can or you can't, you're right". Once more I will say he is spot on with these words because simply saying I can't is a self fulfilling prophecy that will undercut any and all self belief you may have. And I can say this with one hundred percent clarity based on numerous experiences I've had in my own life. I want to share these experiences of mine with you now to illustrate just how destructive and unproductive a single solitary word brings to individual.
Firstly, when I was in school, I always said I hated math. This is still true to this day. I hate math. It isn't something I'm very good at naturally. I don't have a natural ability to sit down and solve an equation with the ease of some people I know (shout out to my big brother Eric who can literally solve equations over the phone in minutes). I don't have a passion for the subject the way I have for liberal arts. And I really just didn't try at all and settled for just getting by because I told myself I just can't do it. I can't do math. And so I didn't. And that low math grade cost me a lot in my high school academic career as my GPA took a huge hit from that inability to bring home a solid math grade. So let's flash forward to a few years later when I was in college and had to take intermediate algebra. I was intimidated and afraid of this class at first because I told myself once again "I can't do this" and "I can't take this class because I will fail". But I ended up challenging myself to do my very best and put as much effort into this class as I could and see what happened. I would come home and spend hours studying, working problems and working problems again until I finally would get it. I would understand the equations. Turns out when I put the effort and the drive into doing it, I did it. I can do it. I can do it because I did do it. When I brought my final grade home and my grade read A-, that was the proudest moment of my life at that point. I had gotten an A-, me the person who barely passed math in high school, had gotten an A-. And I had grown. I had refused to say I can't do it and because I tried as hard as I could without undercutting myself with the negative I can't talk, I did it. And I grew up. I was on the path to self realization.
So the next example of when I didn't let the word can't stifle me is when I wanted to go on a trip to NYC. I didn't have anyone to go with me. I didn't say "man I can't go because I have nobody to go with me". Instead I booked my trip and went by myself. I didn't let anyone stifle me or hold me back from doing what I really wanted to do. I just went for it. And if I would've let myself say I can't go because I have nobody to go with, I would've missed out on that trip and the people I met during the trip. Travel enriches your soul, expands your worldview, opens your mind and eradicates any and all bigotry or prejudice you may have inside of you. Travel to me is a necessity because when you get bitten by the travel bug, there is no cure to the wanderlust you come down with. And if you allow yourself to stifle your dream of going places simply because you can't find someone to go with you or because you can't because you're too afraid or can't afford it, you'll never end up going anywhere. And you'll regret it. I have gone on many trips and on quite a few of them, I have gone with me, myself and I. I learned a lot from those trips about myself and with each trip, I gained more fierceness and strength and lost more fear and more self doubt. I didn't just say I can go on trips myself, I did it. And I am better for it. I grew. And I was on the path to self realization.
The third example of me overcoming my own self doubts and saying I can't is when I wrote a play. I had wanted to write a play for years. It was a dream of mine because I love the theater and I love writing. But I kept telling myself I can't write a play. I can't because I don't know how. So I didn't write one for years and kept that dream of mine stifled inside underneath fear, insecurity, inferiority and self doubt. Then someone amazing gave me great advice when I asked them what advice they'd have for someone who wanted to write a play for the first time. They told me to "allow yourself to make a mess" and to not let those voices of self doubt we always have about how we can't do it or this will make me look like a bad person and just write what the characters will tell you to write and go back and polish it up later. So I told myself I was going to write a play no matter what. Three days later, I had a finished full length play after never writing one scene of a play before in my life. I told myself I was going to do it, I didn't allow myself to say I can't do this, I ignored the negative voices in my head who said I can't and I'm crazy, and I did it. I wrote a whole play. Since then, I've written two more full length plays and a one act play plus have several more in the pipeline in various stages of completion. The sense of accomplishment I felt after writing the final scene was like nothing else I had experienced, not even when I got that A- in algebra. It was a feeling that was so profound, it made me cry tears of joy. I did it. I had accomplished a goal I had had for years and I did it in spite of my own insecurities and my own attempts to sabotage my success through letting fear win out. I blocked the word can't out of my mind and I did it. And I found personal growth. I was on that path to self realization to where I was born to be.
The last example I will write about here today is how I have found a brand new passion in my life that I never before thought I could do; that is the wonderfulness of cooking. I never knew I could cook. I always just said I can't cook and accepted it as fact. Then about a year ago, I really got into it. It was always the ultimate irony that someone like myself who has spent more than half of my life working in restaurants couldn't cook. I kind of thought there was poetry in that irony being a writer who appreciates good irony. But I had been stifling myself. I kept saying I can't cook when I never even actually bothered to put much effort into it for fear I'd mess up and be a failure. That is insecurity and fear of being inadequate talking. That is where the word can't comes from. The word comes from that dark place inside all of us that tries to hold us back from fulfillment because we aren't afraid of failing, we are actually afraid of succeeding. We seem to be okay with the status quo because that's the safe and easy road. Challenging yourself is scary. Doing things you thought you couldn't do is a terrifying prospect to all of us. We all have deep rooted fears of insecurity and inferiority. So we stifle ourselves by lying to ourselves about why we don't try things we want to try. We keep making excuses for why we don't do things and instead of digging deep inside of ourselves and facing up our greatest fears head on, we lie to ourselves to keep the status quo alive. But with myself just like in every other scenario I've ever challenged myself on, cooking became more than I thought it would ever be. It's now a passion so deep and profound, I am contemplating going to culinary school so I can one day live my dream of owning my own restaurant. I stopped telling myself I can't cook and I tried it. And I did it. And now I love it. I found personal growth through tremendous personal achievement in conquering my own self doubt and fear. And I am now farther along on that path to self realization I have always meant to be on.
And there you have it folks. That's my story on why the word can't needs to be eradicated from your minds. The amount of personal growth you will find if you do this is off the charts and personal fulfillment is just waiting for you on the other side of this obstacle that our own minds and subconscious have put up to keep ourselves stifled, to keep ourselves held back, so that we can play it safe and not ever fully challenge ourselves to be the best versions of us we can be. I've lived a lot of life and I can absolutely attest to the veracity of the saying "whether you believe you can or you can't, you're right". It's a self fulfilling prophecy either way. Choose wisely. Don't look back on your life in fifty years and wonder what if or feel the pang of regret that stifling yourself will bring.
