THE WORLD GOT WIDER
By Clay Stafford
For a long time, I believed that anything worth pursuing should come with a clear signal, some sign, momentum, or external confirmation that I was moving in the right direction. I think I was waiting for the circus to come to town. Looking for that exterior confirmation, though, quietly narrowed my world without me even noticing.
I didn’t really understand this belief, this idea that I was essentially performing for others. I didn’t think about it. It wasn’t something I put into words. It just showed up, thoughtlessly, like the morning sun. Unlike the mark of a new day, however, this subconscious belief or need for validation manifested as hesitation, maybe doubt. When no one clapped, no one replied to my desperate phone calls, letters, or emails, or no one offered a word of encouragement or support, I found I slowed down. I started to wait. “Give me a sign,” my needy heart exclaimed. I started second-guessing my map. I equated uncertainty with fear, that I was about to make a mistake.
I don’t know when this thinking began; it may have started in childhood, perhaps reflecting a need for parental approval in a conditionally loved world. The shame is that it shaped my life more than I realized. It made me cautious, even timid, in moments that required courage. Wherever it began and however it grew, this subconscious belief that I needed that validation trained me to seek approval from others rather than to seek direction from within. I couldn’t help but think that when progress was slow, and especially when it stalled, it was proof that I was off track. When I felt something mattered, but yet it demanded so much unapplauded effort, I wondered if I wasn’t forcing something that should not be rather than earning something that should not have to be affirmed.
Somewhere along the way, it hit me. Why? Maturity? God-given insight? Not sure. I know nothing external changed. There were no circus clowns. No breakthrough arrived. But inside me, the moment that my life began to change, the moment that I began to change, was a shift in the limiting belief itself.
Somewhere in my Los Angeles days, I began to notice that the work that mattered most, not only to me, but to others, oddly rarely announced itself. In its inception, in its call to adventure, it made no promises. I didn’t have to wait for the green light to proceed. I didn’t need any person in power to give me some grand confirmation that I had finally found the path. Instead, my life and work began to show up, not with fireworks, but in small, unglamorous ways.
I found I was passionately involved in my work and life when previously I would have told myself to quit. Problems or roadblocks? Instead of avoiding or dismissing them and walking away, I found I started returning to them day after day, living and loving life regardless of who, if anyone, ever noticed. The silence, the fact that no one was even noticing, stopped coming across to me as a warning. The silence became the mental space where my life and work began to live and grow. And from the silence, to my surprise, others began to notice.
“Reassurance” is the key word. I no longer needed it. And when I began to accept this, to believe and live it, subtly, my attention changed. Without needing approval, I began to notice the quiet pull toward specific ideas or desires that were intrinsically my own, not someone else’s to validate. Life started at that moment to be an adventure, even if it was nothing more than showing up, even when nothing was resolved. It didn’t matter. I was living me. I accepted that sometimes understanding comes only after effort, not before. Looking back, I realized that my strongest decisions, the ones that actually changed and transformed my life, were rarely made in moments of confidence. They were made in moments of scared commitment.
With regret, but also with thankfulness for the experience, I realized how much life-energy and opportunity I had wasted, misreading what were, in fact, neutral conditions and neutral exterior feedback. No response didn’t mean that anyone was rejecting me. Resistance didn’t mean I was going in the wrong direction. Slow progress didn’t mean I was a failure or ill-equipped.
Letting go of the belief that I didn’t need external validation for how I wanted to live my life didn’t erase doubt. Don’t get the wrong impression. But what it did was to strip doubt of its authority. Uncertainty stopped being a verdict and became something I could walk alongside. I could live in the present, not the past or the future, and though it might feel uncomfortable to take risks others dared not, doubt was no longer in charge. Living the life I wanted to live became the mantra.
Letting go of that belief, that need for affirmation, didn’t suddenly make my progress in the world easier, but it did make it wider. Possibilities that had always been there came into view, and I was able to accept them without any need for anyone else’s approval. These possibilities that I dared not dream of didn’t change. They were there all the time. I simply stopped requiring permission to see them. Or honor them. Or rather, I realized the only permission I needed to live the life of my dreams on my own terms was mine.
I realized the world doesn’t widen because circumstances change. It widened when I stopped asking permission to dream big dreams. I wasn’t walking with the consent or acceptance of others anymore. I was walking with uncertainty, and noticing I still belonged, not to the whims of others, but to myself. I began writing my life, telling the story I knew should be told, even when I walked alone.
Clay Stafford is a bestselling writer, filmmaker, and founder of the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, Killer Nashville Magazine, and the Killer Nashville University streaming service. Subscribe to his newsletter at https://claystafford.com/.
