Don’t bother trying because you’ll probably fail.

Don’t get your hopes up.

Be thankful for what you have.

These are just some of the negative lessons I heard on repeat as a kid.

Maybe you did, too – maybe you say them still?

It’s time to learn that believing in potential is not setting yourself up for disappoint.

A story about a girl, a tree, and a dream…

Several years back we built a beautiful deck.

But it was in full sun and totally exposed to neighbouring houses especially from their 2^nd floors.

Full sun might sound dreamy to some but not for me – #RedHeadProblems.

And lack of privacy is just straight up #IntrovertProblems.

We thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if we built the deck around a tree”.

So, we took great care to choose the right tree, researching how much room it would need to breathe and grow as the years went by so that, at full maturity, it would continue to flourish.

When we bought it, it was a stick with a couple of leaves. Probably about 5 ft high.

As the next couple years went by, it grew fast but not fast enough that it yet provided the privacy and sunshade we needed.

I was satisfied. But how could that be? It certainly wasn’t providing what I wanted… yet.

No, the physical part of that dream wasn’t satisfied… but emotionally, I was.  

I could see where it was going. I knew it was just a matter of time before I had a big, beautiful tree in my backyard and time was flying by.

Before I knew it, the moment would arrive. But until then, I would revel in the anticipation and excitement of it. And be thrilled with the progress I saw in my little tree, week by week.

And it is always the same for anything.

You may not be physically experiencing something yet. But that doesn’t mean you can’t emotionally fill up on that feeling before it physically shows up.

Standing in the energy of what it is you desire, will help attract it into the physical.

And if you don’t dream the thing at all, if you stop yourself because you refuse to linger on the idea of how it will feel when it arrives, then you’re never going to receive it.

That tree of mine grew quickly. In fact, in the few years that I was at that house with it, the canopy grew 5x larger than it was supposed to.

And you can’t tell me my belief in its potential had nothing to do with that.

What seeds are you not planting, tending to, refusing to plant?

Time’s passing anyway; why not nurture what you want to see bloom?