Today I am grateful for the exact expression of what I need.  I told my boss the truth the other day.  Non-attached, unemotional, but truthful.  I expressed that I needed to take some time off to get my life in order.  Not that there was anything negative, but the fact that I needed time to work on the things I need to work on.  I can’t deal with the interruptions, the constant worry.  While I’m at work I want to be working on my own projects and while I’m working on my own projects I have to deal with interruptions or worries about my 9-5.  My life is by no means falling apart, but it is dealing with some significant neglect.  Habits need to be addressed, the outside needs to match the inside; the short version is that I have a lot of cleaning to do.  Nothing is irreparable but it is messy and it’s causing other issues and preventing me from being who I need to be.  She told me it’s fine, to take the time to do what I need. She actually said that when we start to feel that way it’s time to address it.  So that’s what I’m doing.  I put my time in.

Today I am grateful for clarity.  This is probably the clearest I have been on what needs to be done—and it feels good.  I feel anxious about some of it because I want to start now and I still have to wait a bit, but I’ve noticed that the longer I wait on the things I’m passionate about, the more detailed and direct I am about what needs to be done.  Now, ADD is a pain in the ass and sometimes I forget if I wait too long, but in certain circumstances, my focus becomes a laser.  This time around I know I need to focus on something different—it isn’t solely about me and what I need to get done, it’s about how that work, the work I’m meant to be doing is impacting others.  That is something I need to make time for in my life—and I understand more and more what I’m talking about.  I’ve been making consistent changes and working on adopting the mindset I talk about here, that’s part of the reason I share this journey, it keeps me accountable.  Now I understand how taking the time to focus externally shapes us, and not only understand it, I know what it FEELS like.  We can forget a thought but we remember how we feel.

Today I am grateful for reminders of faith.  I’ve been significantly better with my faith since the beginning of the year.  It wasn’t planned, it just happened that way, but it was a significant impact.  I’m seeing the link between me and my ancestors, the writing, the sharing, the building faith and community.  My great-uncle was a writer and we are privileged to still have his works—and here I am writing as well.  My love of cooking from both sides of the family and knowing the methods they used.  My need to break some of the habits where we put our work first over those in the family who need it, the habit of putting ourselves last, the habit of giving in to what feels good for some semblance of comfort rather than admitting what we want to be doing.  The stifling of challenging emotions for the sake of other people.  There’s all of that and then there’s the consistent voice telling me that I need to take the leap, the cards telling me to take the leap, the timing opening up so I am able to focus on the things I want.  There’s the reminders of the external focus with my business.  Then there’s the reminders of source.  My son watches a family vlog and we haven’t seen it in quite a while so I picked it up the other day when the TV wasn’t working quite right.  This family has always been extremely close and loving, but they have started talking more about faith.  They haven’t done that in the years we’ve been watching them.  So the fact that this comes up now is a sign for me to continue on that path of faith as well.

Today I am grateful for the courage to step out in faith.  So, following the last two gratitudes above, I also feel grateful that I am able to do something about it.  The universe truly does respond when we are clear about what we want.  Things have begun to align in ways I didn’t anticipate and it all happened as soon as I got clear.  Certain things have piqued my interest in ways they haven’t before but they support what I’m feeling.  Like there are certain aspects of faith I’ve been interested in but have been hesitant or afraid to take on are showing up for me all over.  There is no reason to not walk the walk in that regard.  It can’t be any clearer.  So I have no reason to be anything other than courageous and bold.  It has always worked out, even if it wasn’t pretty or the anticipated result it has worked out.  And I’ve been witness to how it works out for those around me when they focus their lives and simply express who they are, when they let go of the façade and actively support the person they are.

Today I am grateful for creativity.  I am grateful not only for the courage to step out in faith but the creativity that comes with it and the way I’ve witnessed people supporting themselves under their own weight on their journey.  These creative surges are leading me somewhere.  There are instances where a thought sticks and I can’t do anything but follow it.  So much of the noise falls away and I work in the most fulfilling ways.  I don’t need to fill my time, I need to produce my time.  We do that by engaging with what we are called to do.  We do that by eliminating clutter, physically and mentally, and doing the work.  I love the entire creative process whether it is with writing, baking, cooking, cleaning/organizing, reading, researching, learning.  I love to build.  I love to make things how I see them in my mind.  I love to dance and sing. I love to play.  And I’ve learned that the first step toward creativity is acknowledging what we love. The next step is to DO what we love.  To become truly skilled and to find purpose and joy, we need to let everything else fall away.  I feel my creative path leading me that way.

Today I am grateful for the means to live the life I do.  My life is by no means extravagant, but we are fortunate to be comfortable.  Money gets tight every now and then, some of that is our own fault, but we are able to support ourselves and keep a roof over our head, food on the table, clothes on our backs, and we have so much more than in terms of material.  Yes, we have our things, the stuff that we’ve accumulated over 23 years together, but we have the things that matter: our health, the love of our friends and family, the ability to relax and rest at night, the ability to take care of ourselves, the ability to share things and provide for others, the ability to support friends, the ability to communicate with friends, the opportunity to have time, and so much more.  None of these things are about excessive anything or showmanship—they are about the things that ground us and allow us to not only be comfortable, but to take the next step in expressing ourselves safely.  That is an unbelievable gift, and it is something I appreciate more than words can say.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“Lace ‘em up every day and pretty soon you win.  Stop listening to other people’s journeys and focus on your own,” David Goggins.  Another reminder to put in the work.  But this isn’t the work of the 9-5, this is about the focus and dedication to our creativity, passion, dreams, and purpose.  When we do the work and it is focused in those areas, we make real progress and create momentum.  We’ve talked many times about focus and energy—energy (intention) flows where focus goes.  So when we learn how adaptable we are, we understand that we are able to do anything.  We spoke earlier this week about another David Goggins quote, “When the mind won’t quite, the body will adapt.”  It doesn’t matter what the goal is as long as we go after it with complete focus.  The bottom line is to do the work.  The mind is what needs to be controlled because once we establish what we want and that we can do the work, then nothing else gets in the way.  The body will adapt, the soul will open up, the steps will be revealed. 

As humans we naturally compare ourselves to others.  It’s engrained in us—we need it for survival to a degree because if someone is doing something that gets them a different result then we want to be able to do the same thing.  From a survival instinct aspect, we need to know as many ways to get out of danger as possible.  It just so happens that we interpret danger as being different.  Aside from societal repercussions of that interpretation, we have become a detriment to ourselves because we don’t take our focus off of what’s happening with other people.  We need to focus on our own house before we can move forward.  Just because we like the way the exterior looks doesn’t mean we know everything about the function inside.  It can look pretty on the outside and be a complete disaster inside.  All we can do is take control of our own story and work on filling those pages.

I know not everyone is ready for a massive overhaul like that and learning to accept where we are in order to get where we want to go can be daunting no matter what.  The overall point from Goggins is that no mater what the goal or destination, we need to do the work.  The beginning always looks the same for all of us: take the first step.  Once we do that and maintain our course, the rest unfolds.  There isn’t really a big trick to this, but as we’ve spoken about, simple doesn’t mean easy.  It is real work to break down old habits and beliefs.  It’s real work to start doing something new.  Shifting our mindset and removing old beliefs not only takes time to reprogram but time to actually believe something new.  It takes learning to let go of discouragement (see the story about the rake of discouragement) and understanding that the process we have to follow may not be what we thought it would be.  Another lesson in letting go—stubborn on the goal, flexible on the how.  Just remember, no matter what it looks like, taking any step forward is a win.  Some days it’s a win to put our shoes on and soon we learn to tie them and then we are running.  Just do the work and we can’t go wrong.

I’ve been struggling for a while with how long I’ve supported others, how long I’ve been the stepping stone for other people to achieve their goals.  I am so grateful that I’ve been able to be that person and help/guide people where they want to be.  It’s a skill to be able to guide people into this world and another to navigate them through it.  The truth is I’ve become more and more disheartened as I continue to push people and elevate them toward their goals and not see much progress in mine.  I have to learn to spend the time offering myself the same time, energy, support, and attention/action that I do for others.  Tabitha Brown talks about our support season and says that sometimes we simply need to be there for others, and that is 100% true.  We are judged by how we help others, especially when we are down or struggling ourselves.  If we can offer support to others, especially/even when we are at our lowest, that speaks to our character.  I will continue to help others and know that at some point my timing will hit and I will be the one lifted to the next level. 

There is a reason we are meant to help each other, we are meant to create a network of support so at some point no one is left out and we are able to help each other whenever we need.  We don’t have to worry about falling—we know that there is some level no matter which way we go whether below, above, or sideways that will catch us from the branches we have created.  Also, the more we help others, the more we learn about ourselves.  The more we have the opportunity to put that creative energy we discussed yesterday to work.  The more we are able to find ways to put our skills and talents to use and the more connections we form with people to build that support network.  It’s so important to show up for others because it teaches us how to show up for ourselves as well.  It isn’t always about winning, it’s about how we all win when we help others.   Even Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about that in his book.  He speaks of the addiction of helping.  There is so much education in helping because we learn the actual skill someone needs help with, how to apply it, how to teach it, that it feels good, that we can be useful.

When we look at support in that context we can reframe how we feel about it.  Learning to support others helps build the frame we need for ourselves.  It proves to us what we are capable of.  It isn’t about what other people are getting or even about fearing the wait—it’s an entirely new experience and opportunity to get creative.  The application of a skill is the only way to progress so the more we are able to support others, the more we are able to support ourselves as well.  The ability to support others is also a gift. At the end of the day we all want support in some form and finding it sometimes means giving it.  We have to become what we want to attract in our lives.  Take the time to do some good for others even if it’s just reaching out and checking in.  Know that the more connections we make, the higher that ladder eventually goes.  Helping others is a great way to silence ego and to level the playing field by bringing opportunity to others.  Sometimes we simply can’t worry about what we get in return, we just need to understand we are meant to share what we have—we are meant to bring good to the world.  Raise up by being a support.

Putting creative energy to work makes all the difference.  I’m on a creative surge at the moment and I can literally feel the energy moving up and down my spine, I feel it flowing through my brain, out of my fingertips as I type this.  When we are in those moments we need to know we are divinely guided and it is our duty to follow the passion and drive we feel.  Be consistent with it and eventually something will come out of it that is solely ours, our purpose.  People don’t need to understand it, hell we don’t even need to understand it in the beginning—we just need to trust and follow that drive.  The more we communicate passionately and clearly about what we do and feel, the clearer the vision becomes.  Creativity isn’t meant to work for us, we are meant to work with it.  This is how goals and dreams come to life.  In trust, in flow, and taking divinely guided action in the right time. There are times we think things are going a certain way and suddenly we have it ripped away from us, or less violently, we start to see the holes in what we thought we knew.  Sometimes we are ahead of where the people we love are and their fear keeps them stuck—so do we stay stuck with them or do we keep moving ahead, dragging them with? Or do we acknowledge that we are no longer compatible?  Or do we have patience and allow them to catch up or find their own paths?

The thing with creative energy is that it shows us where these gaps are—it’s ok to be afraid even if it means possibly losing what we know.  As long as we follow the signs, we will get where we need to go.  It all makes sense in the end.  No, we can’t always bring those we love or all of the things we love with us.  Yes, it can be scary to take steps into what we aren’t familiar with.  But we have to move beyond being scared because finding our purpose (and fulfilling it because that feels even better).  Sometimes those we love won’t understand what we go through.  Keep doing it anyway.  Those who are meant to be with us, the things we are meant to have, the lessons we need to learn come when we keep moving forward.  What we need will always be there and we can never truly lose what is for us.  Sometimes we just need a reminder that we are on the right path. Tabitha Brown shared a video yesterday discussing the story of her late mother and the dimes as signs of her mother’s presence after her passing.  Tabitha has a moment when she talks about not knowing what she is doing but she is simply choosing to be obedient to God and that is because of the signs.  So much of what we do feels strange in the moment.  It doesn’t make sense to us and we don’t know whey we do it, but we know it feels good, we know it feels right.  Follow that creative energy, apply the gifts we have and we will always end up where we need to be.

Always look for the good in people.  Train ourselves to find the good, stop searching for and pointing out the bad.  Focus is key and when we train ourselves to see the good, we learn to see the good around us.  We are all just doing our best with what we know at any given time.  Before I go too far with that, I want to caveat that I am a firm believer that it’s our responsibility to know when we need to do better—that requires the self-awareness we spoke about yesterday.  Yes, I know we are human and will make mistakes, but we need to have the wherewithal to know what those mistakes are and how to do better the next time.  That isn’t about perfectionism, that is an awareness of how our actions can or potentially can impact others.  It’s about how our inaction or allowing ourselves to slip can impact our futures.  Now, with saying that, I go back to the premise that we are all doing our best with what we know.  I totally believe that is true because we can’t do any better or any more than what we know until we get the inkling that there is more to know.  Once we know there is more, once we acknowledge that we CAN do better, it’s our responsibility to DO better. 

That is where people do the most good. When we see the good in them, when we witness the little acts of human kindness that shift the world, when we feel inspired to do more ourselves, these are the things that help light the pathway for others.  It inspires them to do the same, it inspires them to question what more they can do, it inspires them to find themselves so they can help in the most meaningful and purposeful way.  It gives us a source (this is another one of those oasis I spoke about yesterday).  Seeing good and doing good is another form of sustenance.  In many ways we help ourselves when we help others because we have to learn to identify their needs, and that action helps us identify ours.  More than our needs, it helps us identify our capabilities and our capacity to use our resources for good.  That’s when we find purpose—the application of our skills for the betterment of others. 

There are a lot of messed up and disturbing things happening in this world, no one would dispute that.  It’s our job to keep finding the good.  If we continue to focus on the negative, the negative will continue to grow.  The same happens when we focus on the positive, and it takes the same amount of energy regardless of what we focus on—so choose something good.  We feel better, we can do better, and we can help people more when we see the good.  Too much time is spent telling others how they should be, telling them how they are wrong, or proving that we are right.  The truth is that no one is all knowing of the definition of who is right and what is wrong.  The goal isn’t to prove that either way—the goal is to allow space for people to discover what is right or wrong for them.  The goal is to highlight the best features of a person and allow them to shine in their own way.  Again, seeing the good takes no more energy than it does to see the bad, but it returns that energy 10-fold.  We always have the choice, but I know what feels better.  Choose to see the good and move away from anything that doesn’t support that vision.  Help others see good by seeing good in themselves first.  The effort is worth it.

When we know who we are, no one can tell us who we are.  At the end of the day self-awareness is the key to forward momentum.  It’s the key to shutting out the noise and committing to a goal.  It’s the key to discipline and choice and how we spend our energy.  It’s the key to our focus.  In ancient Greece Socrates told people to know thyself and it was inscribed on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi.  It wasn’t just a cute phrase, it was the answer.  Without distraction or others telling us who we are, we intuitively feel that person, we see that person, we are that person-we know who we are.  We spend too much time listening to others telling us who we are—it starts from childhood.  What they don’t tell us is that we have power over our lives.  They don’t tell us that we have the ability to be who we are and that is a gift.  They don’t tell us we don’t need permission or that we can sustain ourselves by being who we are.  They make us think we need approval but as soon as we work in the realm of seeking approval or validation outside of ourselves, we give up our power.  When we validate ourselves, the energy is limitless—when we rely on others, we are limited to what they give us.

Humans are energy vampires.  We like to be near what makes us feel good, we actively seek out comfort, and we actively seek out validation about what we are doing.  It makes us feel less alone, and even if it’s negative attention, the attention feels good for the moment.  The truth is we’ve mistaken what we actually need for what feels good in the moment.  It’s mistaking drinking soda as sustenance when we need water.  When we get our energy from outside of us, we are dehydrating our soul because we are feeding it sugar and syrup instead of nourishing it with what it needs.  We are also limiting the souls ability to find other sources of that energy—there’s more than one oasis on this journey.  See, there is no doubt we need energy, but what we forget is that we need the energy of source.  Once we are aligned with source, we see that we weren’t seeking attention, we were seeking connection (attention is another form of soda).  We weren’t seeking comfort, we were seeking safety.  We weren’t seeking others to validate us, we were trained to seek their approval.  And we weren’t seeking permission, we were seeking purpose (and ways to explore to find that purpose). 

We were seeking sustenance all along and we settle for empty calories. When we know who we are, we know what we need, and we know how to get it.  I’m not saying that we don’t occasionally get distracted—we are human after all.  I’m not saying that we don’t benefit from occasionally giving into that distraction—we all need entertainment at some point, the ability to release steam.  But when we find what nourishes us, it’s harder to stray from the path we know we are meant to follow.  The things we did as a substitute or as immediate gratification no longer feel good.  It feels better when we follow the things that will help us achieve our goal.  It feels better to serve our purpose than someone else’s.  When we know ourselves, when we live in our authenticity and find the flow of source, we show others how to do the same.  Knowing ourselves isn’t selfish—it’s a requirement for the betterment of society as a whole.  We become the light in the dark for someone and soon they do the same and so on and so on until we light up the way for a new paradigm.  So let’s do ourselves a favor and learn to get quiet, hear our intuition, connect with source, and follow our paths.  Face ourselves to hear the truth, and keep going until we believe what we hear.  The more we believe it, the more we can put it into action—and then we will SEE it.  That is the definition of believe it to see it.  Keep going.       

A little bit of reality after celebrating who we are:  We have to learn when we need to stop the pep talk and simply do the work.  I want to echo what we talked about over the last few days how this is simply about shifting focus.  Instead of spending time doing the things we hate, we need to do what we love/what we want to do.  It can be really scary taking this step because in the beginning we often don’t have a way to transition what supported us to what we love doing and getting the same security we have.  We need to be comfortable going without for a time—going without the extras we thought we needed, going without the habits we adopted that got us to our current position.  Using our energy to create the life we love needs to be nurtured as much as the energy we spent living how we currently do, and that energy needs time and care to grow before it can sustain us.  Once we establish it, it will maintain itself, but we have to allow that to develop so that means taking the time to learn to operate in new ways.

For example, I spent a lot of my life planning, learning, reading, writing out what I wanted to do—but then I didn’t do anything about it.  I had pages and pages, books in fact, about things/dreams I had but I never took action on it.  We don’t get where we want to go by wishing it into reality. We have to plan and align with it to get there.  Yes, having imagination and goals is a wonderful thing but they remain as dreams on a page if we don’t do what it takes to make it happen.  With that being said, I realized I wasn’t taking the time to do what I wanted to do.  There were all of these obligations I thought I had and I felt the world would end if I didn’t do that— and then I went to the other extreme and focused so much on not getting stuck doing things I didn’t want to do that I ended up doing nothing.  I committed to nothing because everything felt like someone else’s goal.  When we do nothing, we get nowhere.  The answer is simple: we need to spend time doing what we want to be doing instead of what we don’t want to and we learn how to make the new way a reality.  Don’t allow ourselves to stagnate where we are by doing the same thing every day—change it up and grow by doing something different. 

Today I am grateful for reminders to do things for others.  I try my hardest to help people as much as I can.  I know I can do more, more specifically if I spent time doing more of what I am meant to do to help people, more people would be impacted.  In the mean time most of my days are spent in “the grind” and doing what I was told to do.  So we recently had my son’s birthday party (late due to time constraints, illness, etc.) and we had a bunch of people over.  While setting up, I could see the excitement and anticipation in my son’s face.  He hasn’t had a proper birthday party since he was 3—again, illness and timing make it difficult—but this year I decided no matter what we were going to do something to celebrate him.  Some of his friends brought over a gigantic inflatable slide and I had nerves the entire time they set it up.  As soon as I saw how much fun those kids were having, I completely relaxed.  My son had a blast and that energy solidified for me that it’s ok to let go and allow, especially in the context of kids being kids.  Especially in the context of providing for friends.  Especially in the context of loving people and allowing them to be who they are.  Sometimes that’s the greatest gift we can give people. It doesn’t take much effort and it makes them feel really good—and that’s a gift.

Today I am grateful for reminders to really listen and take the time to get to know people.  It’s said we have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak.  Sometimes I have hard time with that because 1. ADD—if I don’t get it out I will forget what I had to say.  2. I have gotten tired of being talked over and ignored.  3. I get nervous and don’t know how to handle silence or break the habit of proving myself to others/controlling the situation.  But there is no denying that when we take the time to hear people, we learn things.  Sometimes about specific subjects but more often about the person.  That’s how connections are made—and we are creatures who need to connect.  People need to be heard and we never know how much they know or how valuable their story can be until we really take the time to hear them.  We also learn how we can help others and where we fit in when we hear people.  On top of that, people are REALLY interesting when you hear them—and they may surprise you.  We can always learn something. 

Today I am grateful to see where people come from.  We had a lot of fun at my son’s party talking about how our relationships began—we’ve all been with our respective partners for over 10 years in most cases so it was fun to look back and see how those relationships began as well as what we were like as individuals when we were younger.  Hearing these stories put so much in perspective about how we are now as well as how our kids are these little reflections of us.  It also brought new light to how we can support each other and seeing “the other” side of people—the real side of what makes them tick, what they enjoy.  All of the idiosyncrasies that bring us together when we thought we were the only ones who felt or did certain things.  There is so much love in that shared story.   It isn’t always easy to form friendships as adults so I am grateful for the opportunity to connect with people.

Today I am grateful to share my ideas.  This stems directly from connecting with people and sharing stories.  I’ve been tossing an idea around for a few months now about the group of moms that all hang out because our kids are in class/have similar interests and activities.  There is a small group of us that really get along and we deal with very similar stressors in our lives and there is a specific level of support that comes from people sharing the same issues.  When you have to work together to bring a different perspective to find a solution, it bonds you in a different way.  Yes, the relationship started because our kids are friends and we connected with each other, but the more we spoke and the conversation expanded, the more we saw we have in common and that included the need for support on things that certain people just don’t understand.  I finally shared my idea with most of the group and it was well received.  So this is something I plan on implementing as soon as I finish getting my house in order.  I’m excited for what that will bring.

Today I am grateful for actively standing my ground.  I found out there was a request pertaining to one of my departments that was done behind my back.  I took a moment to seethe about it because my ego reacted, but then I took the time to approach one of the individuals involved and ask about it.     Conversations like that aren’t always easy but I kept my cool and explained to this individual that I was telling myself a story that didn’t feel good and I wanted to know what was going on.  I could see she was nervous when I asked her the question but the conversation went well—and I felt better.  I still don’t have all the answers because I haven’t spoken with all parties involved, but it helped.  With some reflection, I know I need to ask myself why I feel the need to prove I know my stuff in this regard and why it matters, especially if I know I’m heading in a different direction.  I think it’s ego, but it’s also the insinuation that I don’t know enough to help about my own system which has a greater implication on my professional life.  If I’m going to be an authority anywhere, then I don’t want people putting out the idea that I don’t know my stuff.  But standing up for myself was a good start and I’m proud to have a challenging conversation.

Today I am grateful for loving myself.  There are still days I don’t understand the level of anger/frustration/loathing I had (and sometimes still have) for myself.  I don’t know where this level of perfectionism came from and the idea that if I wasn’t perfect, I wasn’t worth it.  My parents supported me best when I succeeded, but they never put overt pressure on me to do so.  I took that praise on an subconscious level and thought that was the way to get attention.  There are ways to take care of ourselves and hear ourselves out that remind us of wo we are, but like hearing others, we can offer ourselves the same gift and really listen to what our heart and soul tells us.  We just need to take the time to listen.  When we listen and bring our best to the table, and encourage everyone around us to bring their best, we all win.  A boundary is respecting ourselves enough to walk away from a table that serves poison, or keeping people at a distance who would bring something negative to the conversation.  It’s knowing and constantly reminding that we are good as we are, we bring something relevant as we are and accepting it.  I’m grateful to see how I underestimated myself and didn’t explore my talent enough by lack of focus and I’m grateful to see where I need to focus those talents now and share them.  To create my own authority and to be a resource to people.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

There were a few moments over the last couple of weeks that I genuinely wanted to give up.  I couldn’t see the answers, I felt discouraged in the steps I was taking, unclear in the decisions, and scared that I was stuck.  I felt frustration with my current 9-5 because I’ve been working on branching out and I don’t seem to be making headway.  I told myself that I was no longer marketable because I didn’t have a specific area of focus that stood out above anyone else.  I’ve been a jack of all trades and my attention is constantly split so there is no definitive growth or expertise in any one area.  I cursed myself for my ADD and my inability to pick an area of focus and I got really upset thinking about my employer for inhibiting that growth because they don’t want me to have a single area of focus.  I had to regroup and recognize this is a story I’m telling myself.  Now, as it applies to the current job market and how we find work/market who we are, yes, this is a detriment.  But when it comes to growth and moving forward, the new story I want to tell myself, these multiple talents and ADD can be highly beneficial.

The new story becomes a tale of taking those multiple talents and creating my own life, the life I want to live.  When we love, accept, and market ourselves instead of letting others tell our story or tell us what we are capable of, the entire universe opens up to us and we get to create it.  It’s still a lot of work, taking all of the talents we have and alchemizing them into our identity, something useful and helpful to the world, but it is authentic work, and we know when we are in flow, it doesn’t really feel like work.  Not all of us are meant to have one area of focus, we are meant to combine our gifts in new ways.  We aren’t meant to sell ourselves on who people think we should be, we are meant to be who we are and bring the people who need our talents to us.  That is how we become magnetic.  It’s a matter of programming the mind and to start cherishing instead of disparaging who we are.  All of our talents are a gift and when we embrace that and work with who we are, we make the complex/multi layered/multi faceted aspects of who we are coherent and easy to understand.  All of the pieces fit together to make a picture that others couldn’t see. 

So for all of us out there who struggle because we aren’t “one thing,” this is to help reframe that.  I was never very good at seeing those Magic Eye things from the 90’s, but I knew the image was there.  So the work of putting these pieces together is a bit like that—we have to learn how to see the picture, and then we have to put it together.  Basically we need to shift the focus.  It isn’t about what we can’t do or how we don’t fit in with what others expect of us—all of that may be true.  But when we shift our energies and understand that we’ve created the opening in the chrysalis, the focus is no longer on breaking the chrysalis—we have to learn how to spread those wings and fly.  See the opportunities around us, trust and celebrate who we are.  Stop downplaying and hating who we are and put the energy to honoring all those pieces of ourselves.  Even the ones we are ashamed of.  Have faith and understand our value is inherent and shed light on that.  Love the creativity and break the box created by the habits we were told to adopt that would make us successful.  When we find what makes us happy and shift that creativity to make the life we love, the rest flows to us.  Fly and don’t ever waste time hating who we are.

“Outwork self doubt and face it til you make it,” Kaylor Betts.  This is a great follow up to our discussion about energy, effort, and flow yesterday.  Our ability to push ourselves depends on where we focus that energy.  Whether we doubt or believe, the energy is spent.  Push ourselves beyond what we think we can do and what we think others will think of us and keep going.  It’s uncomfortable to do something new or to put ourselves out there in a way we haven’t done before.  But the more we do it, the more we face it and practice, that new behavior/belief/environment because second nature to us.  We feel more naturel about it.  Then the learning becomes the doing and the doing becomes the being.  Know we can adapt and adopt new behaviors and beliefs with practice, patience, and persistence.  Shut the noise out, even the noise in our own heads and simply practice our steps or the new behavior with patience and persistence and the results will surprise you every time.  Aim high to hit the mark and you WILL hit it every time.

One of the most challenging things to face is ourselves and to confront our “weaknesses”.  Our mind has the power to stop us in our tracks, every time if we let it so this requires the utmost honesty.  We can’t pretend we don’t waste time, we can’t pretend we don’t let ourselves get distracted, we can’t pretend the world is against us every time.  We need to be able to own our part in it because part of the reason why we feel self-doubt is because we know there is a mismatch in what we say we want and what we are doing, coupled with the fear of doing something we haven’t done before.  Most of us aren’t very good at hearing what is being said whether it’s our inner voice or other people—we are looking to respond or make excuses.  But when we sit face to face with ourselves, not only do we need to get honest about what we are hearing, we need to create space to ACTUALLY hear what is being said. Hear those instincts we ignore so well need to be front and center and we have to be willing to listen better, and that means hearing truths we may not want to hear.  Once we know the truth, the action becomes clearer. 

Listening without action doesn’t do us any good.  We end up in the same spot, making plans but repeating the same day over and over again.  When we face ourselves with honesty, we can come up with a plan because we learn to make the distinction between what we thought we wanted (what we were told we wanted) and what we actually want.  We have to address whether or not we’ve really been putting in the energy toward what we say we want.  We have to look at the amount of time and dedication devoted to what we say we want.  Have we really done all we can do?  This most certainly means getting out of our comfort zone.  Push beyond what we think we know, beyond what we think we can do, push beyond the discomfort with radical honesty, and that is where we come out on the other side, happy, healthy, and whole.  Like I spoke about yesterday from David Goggins, the body will adapt to what the mind tells us.  If we think we can make it, we will make it—and we will find ways to make it.  Get control of our thoughts and we get control of our lives.