At the end of The Wizard of Oz, as Dorothy and her friends celebrate Oz’s freedom from the fear and oppression of the Wicked Witch, Glinda the Good Witch returns to see Dorothy. Dorothy has been lost in this strange land, and although she had wished to run away from home, now finds herself desperate to return to Kansas and be with her family. As Glinda approaches, Dorothy hopes that she has some magic that can help her go home: “Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?” But Glinda does not give her the answer she’s expecting.
Surely, Dorothy and her friends expect Glinda to wave her wand and fix everything, but instead, Glinda tells Dorothy, “You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power.” Dorothy’s friend Scarecrow asks Glinda, “Then why didn’t you tell her before.” And Glinda, in her wisdom, tells them, “Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.”
As Dorothy searches for what she has really learned from her adventure, she realizes “if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”
It’s not a mistake that The Wizard of Oz is one of the world’s most beloved and lasting stories. The wisdom in this scene is profound, and can apply to many aspects of our lives. Today, I’d like to talk about how to discover your own power, as Dorothy does. I will warn you, however, that just as in this scene, there is no magic. But, that’s the good news, too.
Too often, we wait for our lives to change. We have all had experiences where our lives were altered radically “out of nowhere,” of course. Perhaps someone close to you died suddenly, you lost a job, or your home, without warning. In fact, a lot of your life-defining moments, particularly those that occurred when you were a child, are probably these kinds of “external” events. Things that have happened to us, rather than of us. So we can be forgiven for thinking, or hoping, that the reverse is also true: that we will one day wake up and our dreams will happen to us and suddenly unfold. Or that we will magically wake up, finally, feeling like doing all the these we have been putting off.
And sure, good luck comes around, but when we are talking about substantive dreams, goals, and habits, we often freeze ourselves waiting for a magical intervention that just never comes. To be sure, this hope is partially the draw of the fantasies of stories like The Wizard of Oz or Harry Potter, because we want so deeply for magic to be real. But behind the surface charm of magic in these stories, as in Oz, you will find the message that you have the power. Your mistake is not waiting for magic, or wanting it to be true: your mistake is believing you need it.
As Scarecrow suggests, we overlook our power because it seems too easy to believe and we overlook it. When you think about what makes the difference between wanting to do something and doing it, we tend to think the gap is made up of whether or not we “feel like it.” We bring it down to feelings: those magical, mysterious things that come and go, seemingly of their own will. Here is the real secret of your power: the difference between what we want to do and do or do not do, is just doing it (Nike was right all along!). But as Glinda warns, just being told this is not enough to believe. So instead, we keep waiting and hoping, searching and not finding.
Dorothy’s realization, though, is that the answer is in her “own backyard.” Anything that you can’t find within is either not needed, or not real. So how do we find and build our dreams with what we can find in our own backyard?
Take a moment and pretend magic is real and you are holding a magic wand. What would you change in your life and in yourself? Consider this dream version of yourself. What are the things they do that you don’t?
Now, make two lists. The first list is one of simple, practical, everyday things that you want to be doing and either don’t do or are inconsistent with. Perhaps you have a bad habit of leaving dirty dishes in the sink, or you don’t make your bed every morning, making sure your laundry makes it to the basket and not the floor, whatever you can think of. Nothing is too small to be considered here, so whatever you can identify write it down. Self-care items like brushing your hair, washing your face, taking medication consistently, are great items for this list.
On the second list, note the bigger changes you want to make in your life and self. Maybe you want to be fit, or write a book, finish a degree, or start a business. Perhaps you want to stand up for yourself more, or heal and forgive and old wound, or be known as someone who does exactly what they say they’re going to do.
The first step is to put the second list away, for now. We’re only going to deal with the first list. Now, pick one or two small things from this practical list. Commit to doing these items for the next week. That’s all you have to do, just whatever it is, follow through for a week whether you feel like it or not. You have the power.
How do you get through your feelings and “just do it”? This is overcoming magic and discovering your power. Realize that you don’t need to be someone who wants to clean the dishes, or make the bed. You just need to be someone who does clean the dishes, or make the bed. That’s it. It’s that simple.
At the moment, as you approach these small tasks, it can be helpful to pause and remind yourself that you don’t need to feel like doing this in order to follow through. This acknowledges your feeling of resistance and “not feeling like it” and reassures you that it’s okay to feel that way. Sometimes acknowledgment does wonders to release feelings of resistance. Once you do this, carry on anyway. The more you do this, the easier it will be. You’ll notice that some days you will feel like doing it, you will be happy you are finally taking care of these things, and yourself, and you’ll marvel at your ability to really follow through. Other days, you’ll want to slide back into bad habits and will tell yourself that skipping it once will not really make a difference. But just keep at it: acknowledge how you feel and push through. You can slowly add more things from your list as you get the hang of each new habit.
If you’ve got a long list and are feeling like jumping ahead to the bigger things, resist this temptation. The real magic here is that the little things help you do the big things. It is in washing the dishes, and keeping your car clear of garbage that you discover your power to follow through on all things. And as you practice the small items, you make this power real for yourself.
Experience is far more influential that just being told you have this power, though, as Glinda tells us. On those occasions you don’t want to make your bed “just for today” remind yourself that every time you make your bed, regardless of how you feel about it, you make it easier to get out of bed to get to the gym before work. You make it easier to spend an hour a night studying to finish that degree you’ve always wanted. You make it easier to stand up for yourself and tell the truth when you’re afraid. Everything is connected. This power exists in everything.
Realizing you have the power to get yourself to floss every day is finding in “your backyard” the power to follow your dream and do the everyday habits and actions that will make your dream real. Start with the small things and keep building from there. Every 2-3 weeks add another item or two and keep going. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you reconnect with your own power when you realize the magic is you! But, alas, you’re not going to believe me just because I’m telling you this. Give yourself the gift of your own adventure to what’s already within you. Give yourself a chance to discover your own power: release your need to “believe” all this before trying it and just take the leap. Trust the process, follow through, and watch the magic reveal itself in you.
