“Give Yourself a Chance” is a quote by Des Linden. When I first heard her say this on a podcast it sparked a fire in me that I hadn’t had before. I was at a point in my life that I was over giving to people and had been really angry at myself for a long time about never giving to myself. I realized that day that the only one who could change this for me, was me. No one was coming to rescue me, there would be no knight in shining armor, I would have to do this for myself. Being an over giver my whole life made this a hard concept to wrap my head around. How would I put myself first? And would I even like living that way? The spark of fire said yes so I went for it.

Then came the hard part. I had to start saying no to a lot of people and things, not the most comfortable thing for a recovering people pleaser to do. It probably took me a year to sort through what I had to let go of to open my life up enough to even have time to “Give Yourself a Chance”. For me “Giving Yourself a Chance” was about finding the time to master some riding and training skills I personally wanted for myself. I would need seven days a week and a two to three hour time slot to do this. I found the time and started the plan.

The first year flew by with few hiccups. I was surprised by how much progress I made and gave myself a pat on the back for all the courage it took to “Give Yourself a Chance”. You see I hadn’t been taught to “Give Yourself a Chance” and to do so brought up fear in me, the kind of fear that will turn you around and head you right back down the people pleasing road. At the end of that year people pleasing had now become uncomfortable to me.

But the next year did have hiccups, lots of hiccups;

First Hiccup: In some ways I just wanted to go back to my old life, the life of being surrounded by lots of people and giving my time away to their dreams. My life had gotten very quiet and slow when I made all the changes of the previous year. I wasn’t accustom to this kind of life, not feeling on edge made me feel on edge.

Second Hiccup: I hadn’t gotten far enough with my plan to actually go test it at any shows. So I started to mentally tell myself that I was wasn’t good enough, this was a pipe dream and then I thought, I probably should see if I can drag my old life back to life. Yuck!

Third Hiccup: My training and lessons business by this time had pretty much came to a screeching halt. Actually, it was so slow that by the time I looked up from what I was doing it felt like a screeching halt, but it really wasn’t. This really stopped me in my tracks and made me ask WTF are you doing? Are you ruining your business? Are you saying no too much? Is this really what you want?

The only way I kept going was to read the quote I wrote on the white board every time the above thoughts come up. “Give Yourself a Chance”

Here are a few ways this Quote keeps me going;

1. It gives me breathing room to let my dreams unfold.
2. I get a sense of calm when I take the pressure off achieving and just enjoy the learning.
3. It puts me back in the drivers seat, it’s my plan not someone else’s plan.
4. There may be more to me than I imagine if I just give myself a chance to see.
5. It doesn’t have to be perfect today, let it unfold as nature would.
6. It’s a polite way of saying stop being so hard on yourself.
7. And it’s also the cheerleader and coach I don’t have.
8. It lets me see myself with different eyes.
9. It lets me see other people with different eyes.
10. It lets me see my progress and my horse with different eyes (kind & loving eyes).

Do you have a favorite quote that keeps you going or has changed your life? Please share it in the comments below and thanks for reading my blog ❤️