Stop Playing Small in the Game of Life
Elay Amitay Halevi argues that fear and self-doubt are learned patterns you can unlearn. He walks through concrete moves: face your trauma with compassion, quiet your inner critic, assign yourself worth before you earn it, and jump in before you're ready. Three decisions away from your bigger goals, he says.
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Most people who are capable, healthy human beings living in this modern world are capable of having a big, grand, sexy, fulfilled life. But the only thing that stops them from living that life and the only thing that's keeping them playing small is their false beliefs about what will happen if they go for things, their life or their false beliefs about themselves and what they are worth in this world. So we're gonna zoom it all the way out and we're gonna look at how worthiness, safety, all of these things are just made up. We're gonna dissolve all of that. I'm gonna tell you step by step how you can stop playing small in your life. Maybe you haven't even realized how small you've been playing it. This is the other thing. When you look at your life right now, you might just be getting by and that might seem okay to you, but you will have moments where you see other people living these like dream lives and you just think that's off limits to you. It's not off limits to you. You can live any life that you desire, okay? And if you are desiring certain things, that's a big clue that they're meant for you. But the thing is, you just don't think in terms of big player moves. You, your mind has been conditioned to not cause too much of a stir, to just do small things. Even when you start something, you may even go halfway into it or just half do it because you're not programmed to be thinking in terms of making big moves, making a big impact. And it is because of this, it's because of the fears that you have around doing that and these self worth issues that you think you wouldn't be the one to do that. So let's get into it. Those are the two categories. You have your fears, That's basically fears about how the world will react to you if you stop playing small. And then this side is self worth. I'm gonna invest in a new whiteboard setup, just bear with me. But this basically is the basis of everything. So fears about the world and then self worth, ideas that are limiting you. So let's get into the fears first. Say, for example, you think if you put yourself out there and you start going after your dreams, going after what you want, you know, it might be that people might perceive you more and you open yourself up to more criticism. Or let's say you, you, you're playing small and you're dimming yourself, you're dimming your light because you think that you're like you being vulnerable and Opening yourself up to that kind of authenticity will mean that people will reject you. Maybe you've had past traumas, maybe have things happen to you and you think that if you are authentic, then when people reject you, it's going to just be soul destroying and so many people are going to criticize you, blah, blah, blah. So you essentially your playing small is a defense mechanism. You are trying to stay safe from any potential threats from the world by hiding away and playing small. Okay? So all of these fears that you have, your brain has made them up. So you will not do things to put yourself out there and put yourself in danger of rejection, abandonment, whatever it is that you're afraid of. But, but really it's just a part of your brain that thinks it has to do this to keep you safe from, from the world. Basically, safety is an illusion, okay? Nothing you do or don't do is actually going to make you more safe in this world. Unless, you know, you obviously want to avoid getting involved in like gang crime and stuff, because obviously that's different. But in terms of like being safe from judgment, things like that, like risk is kind of made up, safety is kind of a made up concept. And actually when you zoom out in the grand scheme of things, we're all safe in source consciousness. So where we came from and where we're going back to is safe. It is infinite. It is forever. Our souls are infinite and our souls are forever. And when you realize this, you realize that all these little mortal games that we're playing here on Earth are so irrelevant and there's no actual danger. Like you're not in danger by posting a video on social media. You're not in danger by starting a business. These are just little mortal games. That's what I like to call them. You're playing a little mortal game, but you're actually an infinite soul in a body just having a human experience. And when you come out of this human experience and you go back into the soul realm, the spiritual realm, you realize how silly your false paradigms were around trying to keep you safe when there was no actual threat to begin with. It was all made up, none of it actually matters. And I want you to think when you're on your deathbed, will any of it have mattered? No. Because a lot of the times when you're scared to play it big in life and you're scared to do big things in life, you don't know what you're actually scared of. If you sit down and write down what you're actually scared of, you'll see how silly it is when you take actions to make yourself feel safe. It's actually so pointless and so stupid because all you're doing is hiding yourself away more from shame, showing yourself that you had nothing to be afraid of in the first place. So this is like when you coddle a child and you overprotect a child and you end up making that child scared of the world or like afraid to be out in the world on its own. It thinks the world is a scary place because it's too overprotected and over coddled. And this is how you're treating yourself when you're not allowing yourself to have a big, majestic, wonderful out there expression of yourself that's authentic. You are just coddling yourself. And you're not letting yourself realize that on the other side of all this bullshit fears that you're telling yourself it's not unsafe, it's not scary, it's actually really, really fun. It's actually how you're meant to be living your life. Because the thing is, when you came down as the soul onto this earth, you had just pure consciousness energy, right? And consciousness energy is abundance, love, joy. There's no insecurity, there's no fears, there's no doubts, there's no none of that. So that's all added onto you in your human experience. And you're attaching so much, and you're focusing so much onto these things when they're all an illusion and they're all temporary. And anything that you bring in to try to soothe yourself or to create an illusion of safety, it is just that, it's just an illusion and it's temporary because at the end of the day, everything is temporary. So stop trying to soothe yourself and stop trying to overly control people's perceptions of you and outcomes and play it safe. Playing it safe is killing your soul. It's killing your expression of yourself. It's killing the reason that you came down here onto earth. Because if you have a yearning to do something and your only reason that you're not doing it is because you're scared, that's not a good enough reason. This is meant to be like a cage. So this is you and you're in a cage. I don't know why you look so happy. You're not happy. You're kind of like, oh, this is a cage. This is. That is you when you're playing it small. And that is like this. These walls around you are your fears. And your fears are just coming from all the things that you have experienced since you began this human experience. So maybe you have abandonment trauma from when you were young. Maybe you have rejection trauma. Maybe you were bullied, whatever it is. There's certain incidents of trauma that have kind of dug into you and made you afraid to express yourself fully and to go after things in life that are aligned with you. Because you're scared that if people see the authentic you and see you going for stuff, you'll be shot down, you'll be rejected, whatever it is. So inside this box, you're caged in by all these fears and all these traumas. So the key is to look your traumas in the eye and release them. Accept everything that's happened to you. Because the thing is, the traumas and the things that happen to us when we're here, they're usually not random. They're usually picked by our souls before we come down onto this earth. And they're here to teach you certain lessons so you can have certain blessings. So running from them is literally, essentially you running from your blessings. So sit with your traumas, face your traumas, have compassion for yourself, have forgiveness for everything that has happened to you. Take the lessons and detach and say, okay, that's the past. I'm gonna move forward now because that is how you start to break out of this box of fear that you're living in. And I also want to just bring in this little concept, right? Okay? This is how you're thinking about things, especially if you're playing it small because you're scared of what people will think or you're scared of what people will say. You're believing that it's better in your little box than it is outside your box. But I'm here to tell you because I've been on both sides, okay? The way we act and what we do in the world, we always do, from either getting pleasure or avoiding pain, right? And you're perceiving the pain of putting yourself out there, showing up authentically going after things in life, potentially being judged. You're perceiving that pain as being greater than the pain of hiding away and staying small. But I have news for you. As somebody who has done it and come out the other side, yes, you are scared. At first, yes, it's like falling off the edge of a cliff. But once you jump, the universe catches you, and you find that you don't really care if people criticize you because you feel this overwhelming release, that you're finally just being a true expression of yourself. So that is a false Perception. You think it's going to be so painful to express yourself and for people to judge you, but actually when you do it and it happens, it's not because you're happy in yourself and this is going to tie into self worth. You're happy in yourself that you've just made the jump and you've just started going after what you want in life and what other people say doesn't matter to you anymore. That is the beauty of this. So it's all just a false belief. It's a false perception. I hope you realize at this point this box of your fears and this like part of you that thinks you're gonna be safe by playing small, it's doing nothing. It's literally an illusion. So you can let that go. You're just as safe playing big as you are playing small. You, you can see this in like business, right? So when I started going into my business that I was doing marketing in, it's just as easy to have clients who have really deep pockets, like have clients that can pay you so much more. The service stays the same. It actually gets easier. But you're just thinking that like, just because it's bigger, it's going to be more difficult, it's going to be more stressful. It's not. You just have a false belief. The work you have to do is the same. Like, even though you're playing it small, you're probably still hustling or whatever you're doing. So why not do it at something that's gonna have a greater impact and it's going to align more with you. You're already working so hard to keep yourself safe, so why not work hard at putting yourself out there and living a life of your fucking dreams? So we get that safety is an illusion and you can let all that bullshit go. Okay, so it is safe for you to just do whatever the fuck you want in this world. And as soon as you jump off the cliff, you'll realize that no one's actually judging you, nobody actually cares. And it's way better on the other side. Okay, let's move on from that. So worthiness. Oh yeah, this is the other part. So you may be looking. This feeds back into your trauma. So these are connected. But when you're thinking about yourself and what you can have in this life, you're going to have false beliefs about what you deserve. And these only exist because of what's been programmed into your brain from a young age. And I hope you watched my video on being delusional. Because this will be good background info as to how you can break away from this part. But all you have to do is decide that you are worthy. And I know that sounds delusional, but delusion is really the key to changing your reality. If you can just look at everybody who's ever made an impact, anyone who has had like a lot of success, they're no different to you. They only just decided that they were worthy and then built up the skills that they needed to be successful in whatever they went after. So it's about faith in yourself and skills. That's all you're missing. And that's all that it takes to build self worth. So I'm going to write that down. Yeah, if you think you're not deserving of something, it's just because you're not being delusional enough or you just haven't decided that you are. And also you just don't have the skills yet. But one feeds into the other. I really need you to start calling yourself out on this inner critic bullshit that's going on in your head, right? Whenever you try to do something new or go for something, oh, you're not good enough to do that, oh, no one's gonna believe you. I want you to separate yourself from that fucking inner critic that has become so loud. Because. Because all that inner critic is, is a neural pathway in your mind that you've used for too long. And now it's your habit to be negative on yourself and to doubt yourself. So you need to become very aware of your thoughts, become very aware of what you're thinking about yourself. When you're trying to make big moves, when you're trying to change your life. Become so aware of that critic voice. And I want you to put the voice in a radio and turn the fucking volume down. Turn it down. Say that voice is an illusion. You don't have to believe anything it says. You get to decide because you're not that voice. It's just a part of you. And that voice thinks it's keeping you safe. So you can say, oh my God, thank you so much, but I don't need you to do this for me anymore. Instead you could back me up, that will keep me safe instead. But when that little niggly bullshit comes up, that self doubt, you turn the volume down. You say, no thank you, no thank you. Become so aware of that niggly voice trying to tell you that you can't do it because that's just a habit. That thought pattern is just a habit. And you can break any habit with awareness and action. So that's the second part to this. As soon as you think I can't do it, that's the moment that you need to go and do it. And I know that sounds very like life coach of me, like, oh, just go and do it. Like just do it. But there's only so much self talk, there's only so much affirmations. You have to actually get up off your ass and go try shit before you're ready. Because when you are building self worth, self confidence, self trust and starting to program into your mind that you are somebody who's capable of living a life of your dreams, a big grand life, you become it by doing it. You have to do the actions and you have to stop waiting until you're perfect. Because if you are a little bit insecure, if you do have low self worth, you're going to be looking at everyone around you who's doing what you want to do. And you're going to be waiting for you to be perfect. You're going to be waiting to get your hair done, you're going to be waiting to lose weight, you're going to be waiting to have the perfect setup. But the thing is when you show the universe that you're going to start and you're going to become this person even before you're ready and, and you're going to do the main things that this person would do. So don't get distracted by all this other bullshit. Let's say for example, you want to start a channel, right? I posted my first video on my phone because I said, you know what? This version of me who will be doing YouTube will not let camera equipment like all this other side piece shit, lighting, camera equipment, that's not what's important. The main thing, the main energy that I'm embodying is a YouTuber. And what does a YouTuber do the most? Records, speaks in front of a camera and posts it on YouTube. And so embody the energy of who you are when you're living your big grand sexy life. And just do it without questioning yourself because that is how you build the self worth. That's how you build self confidence when you just jump in and you realize nobody set you on fire for putting yourself out there, the world didn't fall down. And now you realize how much better it is to be acting like this, to be acting in alignment with what you want. You can't build the skills that you need in order to build the self confidence that you are the Person who's living this big life, you can't build the skills unless you actually do the task, do the thing like, walk the walk. So you have to jump in before you're ready, and you have to jump in before you're perfect. You're never going to jump in when you're ready. Just remember me saying that. And the trick is always jumping in, like, right when you're like, I don't think I can do it. Jump in then, because you'll realize that you can do it. And that is the fastest way to build self worth, self confidence, and all that good stuff and make you really, like, instantly rewire your brain and be like, shit, I can do this. I can't have everything that I want. And the more you do this in more areas of your life. So let's say you quit your job and start a business. One area, you decide to run a marathon. Another area, the more you do this in areas of your life where you're doing shit that you never thought was possible for you, where you've always just been too afraid, the more you realize that nothing is off limits for you. And that's why I'm saying this year that I'm so passionate about this, because I used to be like, kept myself in such a little box, and I always had this yearning that there was something bigger for me out there. And it was until I actually just started throwing myself in the deep end that I realized how true it is that nothing is off limits for me. All I have to do is just let go of my fears and show up. So a really big part of this is just rewiring what you link pain to and what you link pleasure to. Because if you've been playing small your whole life, you definitely have a lot of limiting beliefs that were put onto you about small, specifically around your identity and who you are and what you think you can have in this life that were programmed into you by your parents, by society, by your peers. And all it is is programming which you can unprogram. So all these little comments that you heard, especially as you were younger, about money, about work, about whatever, those are wired into you, so you just naturally think some things are bad, some things are good, some things are risky, some things are not. And these things, like you're. You're perceiving things through a lens of. It would be very painful for me to do that because of this, because of the fear, because of whatever. But you need to get so honest with yourself about the fact that that's all just A delusion. It's all just programming. And you can get in there and write all these things down and you can decide what they actually mean. So this goes for everything. Small things to big things. So big things like showing up authentically as yourself, putting yourself out there on social media, how you link pain and pleasure to those things. So it's pleasurable for you to express yourself authentically. It's pleasurable for you to do something that's aligned for you rather than it being painful for you to put yourself out there. You need to recast how you're thinking about things. And for something like that, you're attaching pain to being perceived or being judged. Right? But really what you should be attaching pain to is going your whole life without expressing yourself authentically and without doing what you want to do, just because you're scared of what other people would think, that should be more painful to you in your mind. And you can do that with every little element of every little thing, write them down, zoom it out and get really fucking real with yourself about what's actually painful for you, not for what people have programmed into you. You can flex that muscle and practice that rewiring of your brain through attaching pain and pleasure in your day to day life. And this is actually a big part of building self worth and building self trust is by changing your habits and showing up as the highest version of yourself who has this big life that you want to live, how you do that? Okay, so let's say for example, two people, you have one person who gets up in the morning and they run a 5k every single morning. They link massive amounts of pleasure with getting their 5k run done in the morning. Okay, someone else may link massive amounts of pain with that because they're going to be tired, yada yada yada. But what you're telling yourself about these things is the key. And you can do that with everything. How you're eating, how you interact with people. Like if you're scared that when you talk to someone and you are just unapologetic, authentic, loud, whatever you're scared to be, whatever you're trying to hide away and play small as there's some painful link that you're making with that, there's some reason you're hiding it away. So you need to get into why you think that's going to be painful, break it down and then link massive amounts of pleasure with doing that and, and massive amounts of pain with not doing that, with playing small. When you finally decide to jump in and start making big player moves in your life, right? And you're gonna feel crazy, but it's gonna be worth it. I need you to know the first three, the first two decisions you make are probably gonna be very difficult. Two to three, the beauty of this and what I want you to keep in mind, perspective wise, because you're thinking this big dream life, okay? And you're thinking 100 steps ahead. So you're getting so overwhelmed because all you're thinking about is the amount of work, the amount of change, all of this stuff, and it's very daunting. So you're thinking it's going to be very painful. It's just going to be too much. And you're just getting too scared to go for it because you're just looking too far ahead. You're looking 100 steps ahead. The trick is to look at the steps in front of you. The steps today. What can you do today to be the highest version of yourself? And when you're doing that in the beginning, I want you to know this is kind of a game of momentum. So this is how everything works. I don't even know if you can see that. No, you probably can't. Sorry. My markers are, it says three decisions away. So this is my three decision rule. In my experience, you're only ever three decisions away from building momentum in your life in one one direction or another. So you're here right now. But the next three decisions you make can either take you towards your dreams or further away from your dreams at any moment, at any given time. So that's so empowering to know. Because no matter how far you've fallen, no matter how far away you think you are from your dream life, you're only ever three decisions away from changing your trajectory and getting on the path towards what you want. And the thing is, I know how difficult it is when you're starting on the path. The first couple of decisions going on this new path will be the toughest. So let's take going to the gym. Your first, like getting yourself to the gym for the first time is the hardest one. Second time is difficult, third time is difficult. But after that, after a week, you have momentum and then it becomes habit and then it's no longer difficult. And you can apply that to literally everything. So this applies to how you're showing up in the world, how you're even just making decisions. The first three decisions that you make that push you so far out of this small little comfort zone that you've been in, they're going to be really difficult. And you can predict that they're going to be difficult, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't make them. Because these decisions are going to set everything in motion and they're going to give you momentum towards this new life of yours that's going to be bigger and better than anything you've ever experienced before. You have to have the uncomfortable decisions first before you can have the blessings that follow. But put them into perspective. Yes, they're going to be uncomfortable, but they're going to bring you so many blessings. You just have to get the first few over with. And then you have your momentum, then you're rolling, and then you're just literally enjoying this new path that you're on. Don't listen to anyone who doesn't inspire you. Don't listen to anyone who's not in the position that you want to be in. Because the reason that you're playing small is probably because what you think of your, like, what you think an ideal life is or what you think your life should look like is people. You know, people would tell you that that's stupid. You know, people would tell you that that's delusional and to be realistic. So don't tell those people. Don't tell them. They're just gonna put their bad juju on you. Live your delusions and do not take advice from anybody who's not in a position that you don't want to be in. Why would you do that? You don't want their life, so you don't want their advice. They don't need to understand your path. You are the only one who needs to understand your path and why you do what you do. And this goes back to something I've spoken about a lot, which is to tune back into yourself and stop listening to other people unless it's somebody that inspires you or you look up to. But even then, you know best. You need to be in tune with your mind. You need to be in tune with your soul, and you need to be in tune with your own energy. Because for you to start having a big life full of lots of experiences and blessings and opportunities, you need to have energy inside you. And you can't be sending that energy to everyone and everything around you. And this is a big thing as empaths. A lot of empaths do this. It's a natural inclination to be tuning into other people's energies in order to make yourself feel safe as a learned behavior from childhood. But you need. You need that energy. You cannot keep tuning outwards other people. You can't keep feeding your energy into other people's lives. You need that energy if you're going to live a big life. You need your energy inside yourself. Because that's how you know who you are and what you want when you're in tune with yourself. So spend time every day calling your energy and your power back to yourself. Spend times with your passions, spend time alone with your thoughts and decide what you want to do. And don't go asking people for approval. Just do it. And the more you do that, the more you flex that muscle of just doing what you want to do and not questioning it. You can question it, but you still do it anyway. The more you flex that muscle, the easier it gets and the more you see how much better life is when you do that. And you just live your life on your terms. That's all for this video, guys. Please remember, you have every single thing you need inside you to live the life of your dreams. There is nothing wrong with you. And if you think there is, that's just a false belief and you can change that. I hope this video helped and I will see you in the next one.
