I’m reading Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book Be Useful.  He says, “Look in the mirror. It’s uncomfortable to look ourselves in the eye because the person in the mirror is often a stranger who looks nothing like the person we see when we close our eyes and picture the person we want to be.”  That hit hard.  I have this vision of myself doing the things I love and supporting myself and family, healthy, in shape, put together, someone who takes really good care of myself.  What I see around me is chaos.  I put a lot of things together (like I really started getting my shit together) and was going strong and then I let myself get distracted.  I lost clarity.  I realized that I wasn’t clear to begin with.  Arnold also talks about clear vision and he stats that most people either start specific and create the steps or we start broad and then take steps that get clearer and more specific.  My vision was extremely broad and covered a lot of things that would seem unrelated.  I knew they fit together but I was never sure how.  I can say now that as I continue to walk forward, I do see it clearer, but I let myself get distracted.

When I read that line I realized instantly that it was something that applied to me.  In the beginning of my journey, I wanted to simply exert my power/control over myself and prove that I knew what I was doing with my life.  I wanted to prove that I knew best for myself.  I know now that was all part of proving my worth.  I realized that I skipped some steps in the middle like actually learning about myself, what I liked, what I was good at, and basic things like APPLYING the lessons I was so good at absorbing and regurgitating—absorbing and regurgitating but not doing.  Understanding that we are allowed to form our own goals and dreams made a huge difference in my life because I was under the impression that I needed to do what my parents did—it worked for them, it made them happy to see me that way.  When I started to feel like I needed something different there was a split—I couldn’t differentiate my goals from theirs.  I felt the need for something else but felt like I would disappoint them if I didn’t do it their way. But that version didn’t line up with what I felt inside. I eventually went the other way with that and went through a phase where I was pretty narcissistic and made it all about me so that was another kind of guilt.  But it was all a projection—there was no real action. 

Plans without substance or action to back them up are simply words/thoughts/dreams.  We need to make sure we have the foundation beneath us and the action to support it.  Schwarzenegger also talks about how we can paralyze ourselves when the plan is too big—and I realized that was actually part of my problem.  My grand plan had so many facets to it that I couldn’t do enough to make progress in any particular direction.  I felt like it all needed to be done so I ended up doing nothing.  But the cure for that is to slow down and do one thing to completion.  Schwarzenegger talks about the drive and energy he has—and not everyone has that—but we all have the ability to get specific and take action.  We have the ability to match our dreams with our actions and to align who we are with who we want to be.  Even if it is a really small step, that feels better than pretending we are something we aren’t, or saying we are something we aren’t.  It’s aligning—and remember, the best gift you can give the world is to be your authentic self.  Take the time to find who that is and do what it takes to be that version.