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Broke — Is It a Choice?

written by Maggie Sale Ostara, PhD

Are you choosing to go broke?

~ > Now I know most of you would say: “No, of course not!”

Yet it amazes me how often I watch people go through all of their savings, go through all of their unemployment, depend on their partner while the work is falling away.  And then they decide to ask for help.  And then they take action.  Maybe.

It does not have to be that way.

You can choose right now to build within you the motivation you need to take action to create the life and the business you want today.

~ > OR You can wait until you lose your job.  You can wait until your spouse loses his or her job.  You can wait until you have to get another job because your business is not sustainable.  Or you can change what you are doing today.  Right now.  Immediately.

In this aisle there is no waiting.

You know why I know?  Because I did this.  I allowed myself to be dependent on my husband’s income for a few years.  It was easy to do:  he was willing, we had a young child, I was growing a new way to do my business.

But then he got laid off, overnight.  He got no severance pay because he was an independent contractor.  And we had no savings.  It was not a pretty picture.

I didn’t even realize until then that I was allowing my own resistance and confusion to control me.  I was just waiting for a disaster to happen.

I realized that when you allow inertia, fear, confusion or uncertainty to control you, you are in fact choosing to go broke.  You are giving your power and authority away to seemingly external circumstances and watching your life-force drain away like rain running down a hill.

That’s what I was doing, and I didn’t even know it!

Now I know that “choosing” is a funny word in this context because you may not realize you are choosing.  You don’t feel empowered so you don’t think you have a choice.  That’s victim consciousness.  I know, you don’t like that word.  I don’t like it either.  Nevertheless it’s accurate.  Because when you perceive yourself as at the mercy of outside forces, you are perceiving the world from the position of a victim.

Now it’s not your “fault” in the sense that it’s not anyone’s “fault.”  “Fault” is not a helpful concept—it leads to guilt and shame too much of the time.  And that’s just more victim and perpetrator paradigm thinking.  But it is your responsibility because you are a powerful creator of your own experience.  That is a spiritual and universal truth.

When you truly take responsibility, you own yourself and your experiences, and you realize that on some level you are choosing what happens.  That does not mean it’s your fault, you are to blame and all that.  By realizing you have choice, you empower yourself.   Forgive yourself for choices you’ve made in the past, consciously or unconsciously, and move forward.

To become empowered, you need to take action.  If you’ve been waiting, then stop waiting.  Do something different.  Allow yourself to become creative.  Allow yourself to become inspired.

Business is a creative process.  You cannot sit and think your way through a creative process.  You have to start, take the next step, then the next and see what happens.  It has to unfold.  You have to have faith.  You have to trust.  You have to go into the unknown boldly, knowing that help is available.  Knowing that what you need is already here and will arrive step by step.  And then it will be.

In this aisle there is no waiting.

~ > What step will you take in your business today that will move you forward?  What fear will you face, what hurdle will you jump as an affirmation of your power and your life-force energy?  Who will you call?  What will you write?  What determination will you make and then take action upon?

Do it now.  There is no other time than now.  Do the marketing.  Make the calls.  Reach out and ask people to work with you.

Do it now.  There is no other time than now.

And so it is.

 

Maggie Sale Ostara, PhD left her prestigious job as the Director of Women’s a Gender Studies at Columbia University when she realized she’s not built to work for anyone else. Since then, Dr. Ostara has become a Certified Human Design Specialist (Level 4), a Certified Clarity Breathwork Practitioner, a highly sought after teacher-mentor, who teaches high-achieving women how to develop their personal sovereignty, to activate their super powers, and to unleash themselves from society’s prescription of success.

She’s the creator of the Soul Signature Self Awareness Project, the Wheel of Power of the Visionary Entrepreneur, and over 20 educational programs focused building soul-inspired businesses that positively impact the world and taking command of your life through personal sovereignty. She’s hosted 5 multi-speaker online conferences, and spoken on over 15 such conferences reaching audiences of over 200,000 participants.

With two decades of experience supporting 20,000+ students and hundreds of clients through her online programs and conferences, Dr. Ostara teaches how to avoid overwhelm and burnout, how to make reliable decisions, how to create a bigger impact with less effort, and how to transform inner liabilities into powerful assets and allies.