How Permission to Live Big Can Free You From Feeling Lost

A couple months later, she found herself abroad, dreaming up the mission of her own company.

“My work is about creating mindset shifts for women to allow them to get into action,” Maxie says. “I consider myself a cheerleader of women by encouraging them, leading them, and helping them.”

Maxie got to where she is today by learning to believe in her own power. She says the stars aligned when she heard that voice in the taxi — that voice telling her to create the space she needed to really think about her purpose.

“I was more ready than I thought (to create my own business), but I was just unwilling to see it because it was such a big life change,” she says.

When she arrived abroad (she choose Bali as the site of her brainstorm), she intentionally focused on figuring out what fulfilled her — asking the tough questions about what she wanted to do and why.

“It was a lot more internal reflection, work, and healing of myself than I actually thought was needed,” Maxie says. “But it was needed in order to give birth to the business.”

“It’s focused on moving away from the ‘big goal’ — this obsession of where we’re supposed to be and where that final destination is — and focusing on building the confidence and self-belief needed to take tiny actions over and over and over again,” she says. “That’s how we find our way.”

Maxie says it helps to ask those big (and slightly scary) questions: Who is your true self? Who do you really want to be? What makes you unique, energized and inspired?

One of her most important questions to ask: Where have you been making yourself small in order to fit in?

Consider the areas of your life where you want to do more and give more — but maybe feel uncomfortable taking up space. Then, give yourself permission to live big — take on the project, lean into the new hobby you love, or, even just take that time you need to think (even if it’s just an afternoon at a coffee shop — because Bali isn’t always an option). Try to melt away some of the “I should” or “I can’t” and follow the highest expression of yourself.

For Maxie, a writing class sparked her initial passion for women’s leadership. “In that class, you got to write about what was most important to you, and I dug into women’s issues, specifically their careers,” Maxie said.

Try to understand the good they see in you — then, see it for yourself. External validation can only take us so far if we don’t give validation to ourselves from ourselves. As Maxie learned, when you give yourself permission to take up space and believe in your power, that’s when amazing things can happen.

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