Stop Doubting your Greatness!

One of my favourite quote from a movie is from “Akeelah and the Bee:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us;
It’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

I developed my keen interest in playing various board games such as Scrabble,Monopoly and Chess after watching the Akeelah and the Bee Movie.

Our deepest fear quote is originally from Marianne Williamson, I agree profoundly with the statement.

Never make excuses. Your friends don’t need them and your foes won’t believe them.  – John Wooden   

We give ourselves various excuses/reasons and we talk ourselves out from achieving our greatness by saying things like : I am too young, I am too old, I am too skinny, I am too fat, I am too dark, I am too this I am too that.

General Douglas MacArthur once said,

“Youth is not entirely a time of life; it is a state of mind. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals.… You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.”

We all have it in us like the Marianne Williamson quote emphasized:

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We all have greatness in us, and it is ok to doubt ourselves once in a while, but Doubting yourself continuously would lead to despair and loss of confidence to do whatever you have been put here to do. The key to unleashing your greatness is to act on your goals and aspirations, take it a step at a time.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction. – John F. Kennedy

As John C. Maxwell emphasized in his Book,Good Leaders Ask Great Questions: “If you begin a task with certainties, you will probably end in doubts. But if you are willing to begin with doubts, you will likely end in certainties.”

In the Seasons of Life, Jim Rohn writes:

• Do not doubt yourself, for where doubt resides, confidence cannot.
• Do not neglect yourself, for with neglect comes loss.
• Do not imagine yourself to be less than you are, nor more than you are, but seek always to become all of which you are capable.
• Do not allow yourself to become arrogant or discourteous, for both are characteristics adopted by those who seek to cover their weaknesses.
• Do not spend time regretting the past, but invest that time wisely by preparing a better future. You are a fertile seed of the creator of all things, destined not to lie dormant, but to spring forth from the soil called life, and grow upward toward the unlimited horizons— overcoming all obstacles in the process.
• It is your destiny to tap your talents and to achieve all that of which you believe yourself to be worthy… to love more, anticipate more, overcome more, plan more, attract more, and to enjoy more than you ever dreamed possible. Such is the standard of life awaiting your mental decision and outstretched hand. You are deserving—you are becoming—and you shall succeed.

Doubt is necessarily not a bad thing; it is a sign that you are human. Letting your fear debilitate you would only lead to procrastination and inaction. As American Congregationalist clergyman Henry Ward Beecher asserted: “Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.”

American Author Zig Ziglar is credited with saying: “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” That is so true as we repeatedly give ourselves the permission to be great, the more we would be able to unleash our greatness and potential.

And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

Stop Doubting your Greatness!!! You’ve got this, you are closer than you think.

All the best in your quest to get better, Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.