It’s not easy being Free...

by Startacus Admin

Part 'call to action' / part mindset' / 'part reality check' - Self Starter Anneka Dalrymple writes about why it's not easy being free...

"It’s not easy being free.

Ever noticed that when you begin to discuss going it alone, flailing your arms around passionately describing ‘making something of yourself’ all surrounding people begin to glaze over and stare into space?

Don’t worry about it.

From school and/or before then we are shaped and moulded to become ‘part of the hive’. All those images in films and on TV of Mum and Dad going out to work. All those lessons discussing ‘what would you like to be when you get older?’.

Do many of these programmes show Mum and Dad at home on the computer? (unless dad is some quirky writer or mad professor). And those lessons you remember cutely announcing your desire to be a marine biologist, do you remember anyone saying they wanted to be an entrepreneur? A business woman? A writer? Anything that was freelance?

No you won’t do.

We are bred to become part of the hive, part of the rat race.

It is OK to want to be part of this.

More importantly, it is OK to want out too.

When you realise you can do anything, you realise that you are your only obstacle.

We listen far too much to the naysayers.

We listen far too much to those who simply can’t see from our perspective.

Once you accept that others thinks differently to you, and that they simply do not have the capacity to believe or desire change you are one step closer. Follow that with accepting that it is OK to believe in change and you’re nearly there.

It isn’t our fault.

We have education that supports academia and misled dreams. We get pushed through a mangle of aged textbooks and lesson plans that simply don’t lend themselves to helping the mind achieve excellence in all its forms. Yes you may have gotten straight into University, but did you really want to go? Do you now realise that a bit of life experience and some job shadowing would have been so much more helpful?

You know in Sweden the average person begins university around 24/25. They are encouraged to leave school and experience life before committing to a degree. I think thats amazing.

I know you will have heard it all before.

“Believe in yourself”

“Be who you want to be”

And so on and so forth. This can get a bit boring but we need this positivity because it comes in tiny drips externally.

I realised that if I didn’t try I was only ever going to fail because I was cheating myself out of the chance to succeed. More importantly I realised that every success story has a beginning that only becomes desirable to naysayers after the success has occured. You only ever read uplifting stories about ‘the businessman who bought a tropical island and ditched his £50,000 a year job’ after he has gone through HELL to get there. After his friends and family will have ditched him and tried to get him committed. You can guarantee that businessman wasn’t sure his plan would succeed during the hard times and you can be sure as anything the friends and family didn’t think it would.

You will specifically find a distinct lack of interest if your freelance desire has no relation to a ‘worthy cause’. This is because there is a stigma attached to being freelance. Automatically people think you are self absorbed and over inflated. Because you think you are ‘too good to work for someone else’. If you are doing it to make money for the needy, people will praise you immediately. But no praise comes from pure freelance desire because there is simply no understanding of it.

As long as YOU understand why this feeling exists and that social conditioning creates workers not queens you will stop feeling held back and start pushing forward.

It is not easy being free, it’s damn hard."

If you like what you see here on Startacus and want to get involved yourself, why not become a member of our growing community by joining for free here!  Or... if you prefer, why not get features like this direct to your inbox by signing up to receive our bi-monthly newsletter. Simply enter your email address and we'll be in touch.

• #mindset
• #call to action
• #

Published on: 13th October 2013