Stop hiding yourself from the world. How to unshackle your self-limiting beliefs and live with purpose, intention and impact. Annie Gichuru’s personal story of transformation.

Are self-limiting beliefs holding you back? In this blog I’ve shared the wonderful catalyst for my own transformation and the steps I took to unshackle my self-limiting beliefs. 

For those who don’t know me, my name is Annie Gichuru and for a long time I played life safely, making myself invisible and suppressing who I really was. 

As with every transformation, my story includes overcoming and the removal of past baggage. 

So, who am I? I’m a wife to an amazing man who I’ve been married to for over 10 years, I’m a mother to a 7 year old daughter and a 2 year old son who are the inspiration behind my transformation. 

Born and raised in Kenya, I’ve called beautiful Australia home for almost 20 years.

When I first arrived in Australia, I didn’t see many people who looked like me. Although I was living in a multicultural country, the representation of migrant people of colour was not visible to me in mainstream media.

 And despite knowing this imbalance existed, for a long time I did nothing. I had always wanted to work in television but my fear held me back.

 Sadly, bullying from childhood also held me captive in adulthood so I never allowed myself to even imagine that someone like me, Annie Gichuru from Kenya could create a platform that showcased our rich migrant stories of hope and success.

 My self-limiting beliefs were founded on insecurities of fear and seeing myself as a minority. The fear of being visible, seen or heard gripped me (which I know seems quite ironic given the work I do now) but it held me back from living my purpose. 

 My doubts still show up from time to time (yup I’m human) but I’ve learned to listen to the voice that speaks life into me, the voice that speaks purpose into me and I no longer listen to the voice of fear.

Do you think you might be living with self-limiting beliefs too?

Self-limiting beliefs are thoughts that hold you captive and stop you from believing what is possible for your life. 

Some characteristics include:

• Never pursuing your interests and/or soul longings

• Always silencing your inner voice

• Never giving yourself permission to set goals because you don’t believe they are possible

• Suppressing who you really are

The beginning of my transformation began whilst I was on maternity leave as a new mother. During this time, I noticed I was consuming a disproportionate amount of negative, fear-based news stories. These stories filled me with uncertainty and I longed for inspirational stories to balance the negative.

At the time, I wanted programs I could watch with my daughter that would uplift both of us as well as showcase great role models. But positive stories were few and far between and it was this fact that led me to the idea of my documentary series. 

Given my fear of being visible, you can imagine just how terrifying the thought of creating a documentary series was. But for the first time my sense of purpose was stronger than my fears and so I answered the call and the documentary series ‘True Life Stories’ was born.

In the first season of True-Life Stories I created inspiring stories of people living in Perth. The series ran on Foxtel via the Australian Christian Channel (ACCTV) and was also launched on our YouTube Channel -True Life Stories TV now known as Uplifting Studios TV. 

It was an incredibly transformational time for me personally which gave me faith and courage. My voice that had been a mere whisper for so long was forming into a voice of confidence. For the first time my self-limiting thoughts were being rivalled with belief-filled thoughts.

Fast forward to becoming a mother for the second time and a new stirring in my soul had begun. A new sense drawing me to storytelling in a different way. 

I recognised the narrative in the media was still very much imbalanced. Not seeing myself (a migrant woman of colour) represented in the media was something I could no longer deny. From this soul stirring the idea for Season 2 of the documentary series was born.

Season 2 is my way of serving the underrepresented and under-served migrants in Australia.

Australia has given me so much and I feel the need to use my voice for the people I represent. My new goal is to share our stories; stories of success and hope rather than struggle. Stories told by us, not just for us but for the wider Australian community too. 

My hope is that Uplifting Studios will allow our children and future generations to grow up seeing migrant success stories. And that our children will begin to see a narrative depicting not only who they are but who they can be from a lens that is free from stereotypical views.

I want to equip them so they can confidently become a legacy and embody what it means to be a successful person of colour living in Australia knowing full well that success looks different for everyone. 

With this change, the newest generation of migrants will see people in positions of leadership, influence and power who look like them. Children will aspire to be all these things and more. They will no longer be held back by the stereotypical views of who or what migrant people of colour should be.

My commitment to this has become my life work.  It’s my purpose, my drive and my path of impact. To complete my own story of transformation I underwent training and at the end of 2019 I became a trained and qualified Life Coach.

This means that in addition to my storytelling, I’m now supporting women who are ready to unshackle (like I did) self-limiting beliefs and begin to create new positive stories of impact for themselves. 

Now that you have some insight into my story, I want you to consider how life could look for you if you overcame self-limiting beliefs? Imagine the things you could achieve. 

I’ve created a FREE Audio Guide for anyone who no longer wants to live an unfulfilling life. It includes 3 Steps to Unshackle Your Self-Limiting Beliefs. LISTEN NOW

Beautiful friend, I want you to experience a transformation so you can live life with purpose, intention and impact. 

If you want to know more about my life coaching services say hello to me here.

With love,

Annie

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