Yesterday we talked about putting in the work and moving forward consistently—don’t let anything get in the way.  I really started thinking though, how is that people are built differently?  Yes, we all know we have physical differences, but what is that makes every lump of grey matter in each person function a different way?  What is that driver?  Reading Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick, I see how early on she knew what she wanted and how she went after it.  There is something different there, not just in the determined recognition of self, but in the ability to refuse to go after anything else.  When I was a kid I waited for permission for everything—I wanted bigger and I wanted to do things, but I waited.  The dreams were always put on the back burner because my family rooted itself in reality.  I felt things I wanted but I never really considered doing anything about them until I was older, until it was the right time—a time determined by my family.  How is that some people, before they are barely even in school, are able to articulate and go after what they want while others spend a lifetime waiting?  Is it the right support?  Is it because they are better at it?  Are they better at expressing it?  Is it because people see something in them?  Maybe it’s a combination of all of it.   

The major difference I see is how they spend their time.  I ask if I would ever be able to do that, to really go after what I wanted.  I know what I’m capable of because I see what I’ve achieved.  I know I can yield a different result with different focus.  I see the routine so chokingly familiar and know that there comes a time we simply have to do something else.  Right now the days seem to be ticking away—I can’t believe that we are already done with the first week of 2024.  This first week started off with a bang in so many ways.  Work issues, personal issues and both of those categories are areas of focus for me this year.  The focus is to shed what no longer serves in everything in my life.  I often wonder if I had been built differently with less fear to simply go after the things I wanted earlier in life, if I would struggle to adopt and adapt to what I say I want.  My professional and personal life wouldn’t be an area of concern because I would have learned the skills I needed to go after what I wanted a long time ago—and this life would look very different.  This isn’t to lament anything, this is simply a matter of Sliding Doors, how one decision can impact someone’s life forever.  One thing I know for sure this early in the game is that if I want to move forward, I need to do the work. 

Doing the work means putting aside any concern about what people think about me or how they perceive me or how I can make them happy.  This isn’t about sacrificing myself for others any longer for the sake of being accepted one day and shut out the next.  As we’ve talked about before, the seeking of validation from external sources only depletes us further because we are subject to the value other people place on us.  When we know our inherent worth, when we understand the way the universe functions (when we see our purpose we are meant to go after it even if it doesn’t make sense—and we are supposed to share that gift), then we know our worth comes from within.  Learning to shut out other people’s voices allows us to work on ourselves so we can develop our belief and our skills.  Yes, we are all built differently, we all feel differently, we are attracted to different things.  That is the beauty of life.  What is significant to us and what lights us up may not be the same for someone else but it’s able to ignite the path for someone else.  The things that make us tick differently make the entire world spin.  Accept and embrace it and watch how much further we can get.  Be grateful how different we are and do the work of building our own stories.