Maybe you’re looking to change direction, step up to a new level in your career or business, or have a mission to bring passion project to life. What’s stopping you from making progress? Could it be limiting beliefs or mental blocks? Here are some of the inner obstacles we commonly see in action, plus flower essences and energetic exercises for helping you create a shift in your mindset.

Limiting beliefs are highly skilled at hiding beneath the surface and evading detection, but as a basic rule of thumb, if you have a feeling that something internal is holding you back, then it’s worth exploring and addressing.

The ritual of taking flower essences can be a valuable way to focus your intention on understanding what’s going on for you so you can deal with it, let it go, and shift into a more empowering mindset.

When the issues in question are inhibiting you from taking the next step with your life’s work, three flower essences that you might like to consider are Destiny Calls (which encourages you to move forward on your path, and which is our most popular flower essence for career-related concerns), Treasure Hunter (which is on a mission to remind you that you’re worthy of abundance in all its forms), and Connection Creator (which invites you to create a sense of community around your endeavours).

These three flower essences are often taken simultaneously or as a consecutive series, so they’re available together in our On Purpose Flower Essence Kit.

Read on to learn more about where each of these flower essences fits in, and for some energetic rituals and practices to inspire you to move forward.

1. Fear of not being capable enough

Nothing dampens your momentum and drive more than self-doubt. It’s natural to wonder whether you have what it takes to do justice to your dream, but you can’t let fear of inadequacy act like a brake on your progress.

Instead use these concerns as signposts to help you recognise where you might need to learn new skills or tackle some personal development issues in order to get where you want to be.

For example, worrying that you won’t have the counselling skills to be able to handle every situation your clients or staff bring to you in a new role doesn’t mean you shouldn't strive for it. Instead, take those fears as an indication that you have some things to learn in that area, and look into practical ways to gain that knowledge and experience.

This fear is one of the four core issues that you’re encouraged to explore when working with the energy of the Sydney Red Gum tree – secret ingredient in our Destiny Calls flower essence.

Since self-doubt has such a dampening effect on your energy, also consider personal rituals involving water. For example: when showering, bathing or swimming, visualise the water washing away your fears and doubts and replacing them with a sense of humility and a commitment to learning what you need to know and becoming who you need to be in order to do justice to your dream.

2. Uncertainty about how you'll be successful

We often hear from people who know that they’re being called in a particular direction, but who lack momentum in moving towards their goals because they’re not confident that they’re going to be successful.

If this is the issue you’re facing, the invitation for you is to shift out of an attitude of self-defeat. Instead, make it your intention to create an enduring sense of passion to drive you forward and help you form the conviction that you’ll be successful, even if you don’t yet know how that will happen.

This building of drive and determination is the second of the four core areas that Destiny Calls brings into focus.

Its mission here is to help you feel fired up with purpose and passion, so while focusing on this area, consider incorporating rituals and personal practices that work with the energy of fire. For example, you might like to keep a lit candle on your desk while working on your project, and to visualise its light fueling your determination and your conviction that you’re on the right path.

3. Lack of clarity of vision

If you can't visualise what success will look like, it’s pretty tough to choose the path that will get you there.

On the other hand, having clarity about your ideal outcome helps you draw closer and closer to it, and the more you focus your attention on that outcome the more energetically powerful its magnetic force becomes.

Many of us can’t even imagine what success would look and feel like, which can limit our perception of what’s possible for us and hold us back from making meaningful progress.

At the other end of the spectrum are those people who have SO many different ideas that they don’t truly commit to pursuing any of them.

In both cases, it’s the lack of clarity around the vision that's the stumbling block here, and this is the third of the four core issues that Destiny Calls invites you to explore.

In our experience, connecting with the vision that’s most compelling for you is something that works best when you tune into your creativity, imagination and highest guidance. This is when you want your head in the clouds, building castles in the air, so consider incorporating elements of air into your daily rituals when you’re focused on these aspects of your life’s work. For example, you may decide to take a meditative walk in the wind and encourage it to blow away any limiting thinking or unnecessary and superfluous ideas that you’ve been holding onto.

4. Not knowing what to do next

So, you’ve got a dream or a vision of where you’d like to get to. But are you actually doing anything that will get you there?

If you find yourself procrastinating or too intimidated to take action because you can't make a decision about what you need to do, it's time to stop holding yourself back and get on with it by simply figuring out one initial step you can take to get things moving.

At an energetic level, doing so transforms your plans from an abstract idea into something concrete and real – with its own energy and momentum.

This focus on taking the active steps that helps bring dreams to fruition is the fourth of the core areas that you’re invited to explore and make progress with when working with the Destiny Calls flower essence.

At the same time, consider a focussing ritual that helps you to ground your vision and goal in reality by working with the energy of earth. For instance, you may like to sit or stand with your feet firmly planted on the ground and visualise the earth’s energy lending support to your own. As it does, see every step you take as being imbued with sacred purpose that ripples outward, telegraphing your intentions out into the universe.

5. Fear that you'll be exposed, criticised or ridiculed

Among the most common hurdles people face in their life’s work are fears of being judged harshly by other people.

We’ve noticed that these concerns tend to fall into one or both of two areas.

Firstly, there’s the fear that people who we love and respect will criticise or ridicule our attempts to make change or to step up to a new level, and that they’ll reject us or withdraw their acceptance and support as a consequence.

If this is what’s going on for you, it’s easy to see how you might subconsciously sabotage your chances of success, isn’t it?

To move out of this stalemate, recognise that while you can’t change other people, you do have the strength to know and act on what’s right for you even when others aren’t of the same mind. Make it your intention to to develop the knowing that when you communicate your intentions and motives with compassion, you’ll almost always be able to navigate your relationships in a loving and respectful way.

To support you in these endeavours, consider working with Express Yourself – a flower essence that’s on a mission to help you find your inner truth and communicate it to the world with ease and grace.

In other cases, the fear is not that your loved ones will reject or criticise you, but a fear that you’ll be publicly exposed as being inadequate. This issue is sometimes referred to as Imposter syndrome because it’s characterised by the sense that you’re being fraudulent in some way, and that the penalty for being found out will be shame and humiliation. (Once again, it’s easy to see how this fear could lead to you being subconsciously reluctant to step up in your life’s work!)

If this fear of exposure lies at the bottom of your lack of progress, consider working with the energy of Treasure Hunter (one of the three flower essences in our On Purpose Kit). Its mission is to remind you that you’re worthy of abundance in all its forms – including being recognised and acknowledged for your work and expertise.

6. Feeling isolated and insignificant

Finally, some people feel called to make an impact through their work to a cause that is so big or so important in its impact that that they’re incapable of facing it alone.

Feelings of isolation and futility can easily set in if you're feeling like you're of the belief that your own efforts are too small to make a difference, but in almost every endeavour there are other people who share your passions.

Attracting kindred spirits to your side can be a beautiful way to support yourself with a sense of community and personal connection while also magnifying your impact.

To help you become the kind of person who’s open to reaching out and connecting with others in this way, consider working with Connection Creator flower essence (one of the three flower essences in our On Purpose Kit).