Do You Have Gremlins, That Prevent You From Following Your Dreams? I Did
Nancy Goldblatt, “The Wardrobe Wizard of Baltimore,” Color 1 Associate
Do you have dreams of things you want to do but your automatic negative thoughts have prevented you from following through?
I call these automatic negative thoughts, gremlins.
For over 10 years I thought about becoming an Image Consultant and my “gremlins,” almost prevented me from following my dream.
Here is the story of how I overcame (my gremlins) those negative beliefs we all have, that prevent us from following our dreams.
Perhaps my story will encourage you to become aware of, and tame the gremlins that are preventing you from following your dreams.
My passion has always been to help people make the most of their strengths and overcome their challenges.
My challenge, since I was a little girl, was feeling self-conscious about my appearance.
I believe this was related to my mother being very critical of herself and me, her oldest daughter. Maybe some of you can relate to this.
The way I dealt with my challenge, was to seek information in self-help books.
I devoured psychology books on self esteem and books on improving how I looked.
In the early 1980’s I thought I found a “pot of gold,” when I learned wearing the right colors could make me appear more attractive and make it easier to shop.
I read about various color analysis systems, but they all seemed too difficult for me to understand and the trainings were expensive and too far away.
The more I read about appearance and its effects on self esteem, the more I thought about becoming an image consultant.
But a little voice inside kept repeating,
“You can’t be an image consultant, because you are not tall, or thin and you don’t look like a model.”
The first time I read Joanna Nicholson’s book “Color Wonderful,” I did not fully understand the Color 1 system of color analysis.
When I took this book out of the library a second time, I read it more thoroughly and the “Color 1 ” approach began making sense to me.
I found a 1-800 number at the end of the book and discovered “Color 1” was located only one hour away from me and a training was scheduled in a few weeks.
This was in 1990. I had been working with psychiatric patients at a half-way house for over 9 years.
Just as I was starting to feel “burnt out,” I got laid off. While I was trying to determine how I could use my skills in a new career, I joined a “Master-Mind Group.”
I had been telling the Master-Mind group about my “ideal career.” I told them,
” I don’t want to just sell makeup, or just be a personal shopper,
I want to do it all.”
I wanted to use all my skills, from my 3 previous careers as a teacher, photographer and social worker to become a “holistic image consultant” and help my clients to learn to love how they looked.
But those little gremlins in my head kept saying to me,
“Who do you think you are. You are short, plump and too old to become an image consultant. How can you help others to love the way they look, when you don’t even love the way you look.”
I felt defeated by my inner gremlins. I decided I would give up my dream of becoming an image consultant. I would not be signing up for the “Color 1” training.
Fortunately, my “Master-Mind” group had been listening to me and they were ready to tame my gremlins.
They reminded me of what I had been telling them.
“The Color 1 training sounds exactly like what you have been telling us you want to do, and you have the time and money to do it now.
If you don’t do it now, when will you do it.“
That last sentence still echos in my head now, when I put off doing something I really want.
“If you don’t do it now, when will you do it.”
My gremlins were outnumbered and the rest is history.
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Wardrobe Wizard doing a makeover at On Purpose Networking, Dec 2010
I encourage you to use your special interests & skills to do your “own thing,” and make your approach to “Image Coaching,” uniquely yours.
I strongly believe you need to educate yourself with some formal training. This will give you a firm foundation to building your Image Coaching business.
What I like about the “Color 1,” training is you get an accurate system of color analysis, as well as lots of trade secrets on how to pull together outfits. You also get access to a line of custom makeup that works with the “Color 1,” system and training in how to market yourself. There is no requirement that you sell makeup if you don’t want to.
Feel free to comment or ask questions, as long as you aren’t spamming me, I will respond.