Often the most dangerous obstacles to personal and professional growth and finding your passion are unconscious. Women tend to blame themselves, instead of looking outside to see what may be holding them back. As a woman once told me, “It’s easier to blame yourself than to dig deep.”
So if you’re interested in digging deeper to find your passion, here are some possible leads. Your relationships with important people in your life may be holding you back through what I call invisible strings. Here are six possibilities for those who may be keeping you from finding your passion or advancing your career: your parents, siblings, husband/partner, best friend, boss, and your mother (separately from your parents).
1. Your parents: You may be carrying old luggage from your mother and/or father. Did they send you the message that you were not going to succeed? Did you hear from them that you were “awkward,” “lazy,” or some other label that defined how you’ve come to see yourself? Even if they are long dead, you may still carry these messages about you.
2. Your siblings: Ghosts of your childhood relationships with younger or older siblings can still influence how you see yourself. Images of how they saw you back then can be frozen in time, so you continue to see them and yourself through that old lens.
3. Your husband/partner: The support or lack of support from the important man in your life can greatly influence your freedom to explore the fullest you can be. If he doesn’t support you, you may feel disloyal by going ahead with plans that could blow you away, leaving him behind. Usually this is not a conscious decision. But all too often, women lose their desire for personal or professional growth if their “he” is discouraging.
4. Your best friend: Again, the issue of loyalty comes into play if your best friend isn’t ready to grow up. He can feel that he would leave her behind; you might feel bad talking about exciting things in your life if she’s depressed. And, what is more unfortunate, these feelings can be unconscious, so you may be holding back, without even knowing it.
5. Your boss: OK, even if your boss is an idiot (or you write the best word here), can you afford to fly? You may have to change jobs, but you can often avoid the boss once he realizes what’s holding you back.
Your Mother: Sometimes daughters, adult daughters unconsciously feel betrayed if they are more successful than their mother. This is especially true if your mother is resentful that you have not been able to use her skills or talents in a career. Because the feeling is unconscious, a holding back daughter may not make the connection to her mother’s unfulfilled dreams for herself.
