Tag: wisdom
-
The Only Way to Form Meaningful Relationships with People Who Get You
“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.” ~Jim Morrison
When I left my full-time position at an ad agency and ventured out on my own, I had a clear goal in mind—to connect with like-minded people who align with my highest good. As far as how I was going to do that, I had little clue.
My life was full of relationships built from forced, sometimes toxic circumstances where we found each other out of need or convenience. I am grateful for each of those people because they were there when I needed them most, but there was always a part of me that felt unknown or misunderstood. They did not speak my language.
After a couple of decades of those experiences, it became natural to think that no one understood who I was, and no one ever would.
Being an idealist, I’ve always believed in true heart-to-heart connections with other human beings as the most fundamental component of strong relationships, above cultural backgrounds, titles, properties, or romance.
Most of the people around me, however, seem to pursue relationships to either avoid being alone or to create financial security, without the desire to form a deeper connection with others. Perhaps they don’t believe in the type of connection I know exists and think of it as a fantasy. In the past, I was often criticized as being naive and impractical.
My idealistic nature often shows up in work environments, too, unguarded and without an agenda, while I watch others focus only on their own goals.
I’ve always cared about coworkers as well as clients, and I’ve been enthusiastic about creating great designs to help them succeed. Those efforts were often seen as an agenda to get promoted, even perceived as a threat at times by supervisors fearing I was after their job. So, I finally gave into conformity and kept these idealisms to myself and pretended I had the same drives as everyone else.
I wanted to be perceived as professional, to have friends, and to live every day drama-free, so I showed the world just enough of me in order to fit in comfortably.
It is no wonder, in hindsight, I never met anyone who truly got me, because no one really knew about the existence of that part of me. And if I ever mustered enough courage to share those deep thoughts and visions, the slightest pause in our conversation or a split-second blank stare would scare me back into my shell all over again.
Interestingly enough, after my “release” into the ocean (as I like to call it) from the corporate pond, and since taking full advantage of my freedom to work with whomever I choose, I find myself attracting more and more like-minded people. Whenever I marvel at the miraculous synchronicities, I begin to realize more and more why that is…
I unknowingly started to come out of my shell and show the world all that I am.
I was no longer met with judging eyes, passive-aggressive statements, and indirect criticisms that conditioned me to refrain from expressing myself in ways that I wanted to. Without having to deal with constant judgment and negativity, I naturally opened up and let my walls down.
I spent the three-month grace period I granted myself following the leave nurturing feelings of self-appreciation and comfort and self-reflecting. What kind of relationships did I want moving forward? And what type of professional relationships would I want to build for my long-term success? The answer from deep within brought tears to my eyes—whatever business endeavors awaited, I always wanted to be as happy as I was right then.
This morning, on an introductory Zoom call with a client who came to us for marketing and PR services, I had déjà vu listening to her echoing my own recent experiences.
She is a veteran in her industry, well-educated across all subjects, has a rich cultural background, and is already a highly successful entrepreneur; yet she expressed discomfort in telling her personal story because she felt she would be seen as weird and unrelatable, at the same time wondering how her unique perspective and her desire to better the world could come across to the right clients.
I immediately felt my pulse a little stronger, blood flowing, and wasted no time in sharing what I had just gone through.
I gave her the following advice in hopes she would be encouraged to share all that she is with the world and build the clientele she truly desires. I got my confirmation immediately when her eyes lit up and her wonderfully mischievous childhood stories began to flow out naturally and comfortably… (Joy!)
Your “weirdness” is your uniqueness.
Since I’ve allowed myself to be more authentic, I’ve crossed paths with many people who share the same fear of being seen as “weird.”
Many of us carry this heavy weight, the shame we felt perhaps from a young age of being judged, reprimanded, or made fun of, just for being ourselves. We then spent decades trying to fit in, prove we were “normal,” and worthy of love and respect. We diminished all the amazing qualities that make up exactly who we are as unique individuals.
If you ever feel the need to hide your history, struggles, or emotions to appear “normal” to the rest of the world, consider this: You are actually depriving the world of getting to know you.
What if the world needs your unique personality? What if the world is waiting to hear your personal story? Every single one of your qualities, even those some may consider “weird,” is a contribution to who you have become and what you have to offer the world.
If you have read this far, you most likely have a desire to be known, to be acknowledged, and you are likely already sharing pieces of yourself with others, at least on a surface level. I encourage you to gently peel off another layer and share a deeper part of yourself. Because not doing so will keep you wondering and feeling caged.
Like-minded people are trying to find you, too.
Finding people who click with you can seem like a challenge, even if you lead a dynamic and interesting life and/or have a rich inner world.
As I get older, I value deep connections more and more because I enjoy getting into a state of flow over effortless, meaningful conversations. I spent many frustrating years trying to figure out how exactly to meet the right kind of people, but it had never occurred to me they were looking for me, too. And I hadn’t made it easy for them to connect with me.
When I met new people, I stuck with superficial conversations because, again, I didn’t want to be perceived as “weird” and be rejected. When I formed a friendship, I tried to maintain it the same way I had earned it, by not being who I truly am. Needless to say, those relationships were unfulfilling and short-lived.
Sharing who you are authentically in each present moment not only helps connect you to those similar to you but also filters the relationships that are incompatible from the get-go. By bringing your inner world to light, you acknowledge your own uniqueness and allow others to fully see you, thereby making a connection with you.
The more you let other people in, the deeper the connections you will form.
The levels of connection you can create with another person can be exhilarating but also a little intimidating. Relationships can form from a fun-loving, surface-level interaction into something that touches the most intimate parts of your souls. But you have to be willing to risk discomfort and rejection in order to find the right people.
If you are tired of superficial relationships that bear little fulfillment and want deeper connections you can build on, then your only option is to be brave, open up about your inner world, and let other people in.
How deep the connections are will depend on how vulnerable you allow yourself to become and whether or not others reciprocate. Not everyone will, and that’s okay. It’s worth opening up to people who’ll reject you to find the one who won’t.
Conversely, you need to be prepared to reciprocate just the same when someone else trusts you enough to show you their inner world. While this may take some courage to build up to, it’s also well worth the risk.
-
How I Created Opportunities in a World Full of Obstacles
“I really want to, but I can’t because [add semi-valid reason here].”
That’s a template sentence to let yourself off the hook.
It’s not copyrighted, so feel free to use it any time you want to let go of your dreams and not feel bad about it.
Honestly, it hurts me every time I hear someone say it. I see it for what it is—an excuse.
Every single one of us has ambitions, hopes, dreams, and goals. We fantasize about them on our commutes to work and before we sleep. We talk about how we will one day achieve them, but when it comes time to put them to action, we use that template sentence.
I had every reason to use the template sentence. I live in a third-world country in the Middle East. We suffer from a lack of water, electricity, security, and opportunities—especially for girls.
In the Western world, if you want to learn a new skill, you sign up for a training course, get a book, find articles online, or join a club. It’s different here. Here, we don’t have training courses, libraries, or clubs, and the internet is slower than a snail crawling through peanut butter.
During my teen years, I felt stuck in my life. I wanted to learn so many things and achieve my wildest dreams, yet I couldn’t. How was I supposed to impact people when I would only leave the house to go to school on the weekdays and grocery shopping on the weekends?
I read stories of kids my age winning science fairs and inventing devices to solve the world’s leading issues. Yet, there I was, wasting my time at home, waiting five minutes for a single webpage to load.
I had always imagined what my life would be like, and this is not what I had pictured. Time was passing me by, and my talents and ambitions were going to waste.
I wanted to have an impact, but I couldn’t because I didn’t have the opportunities to learn and gain experience and feedback. (Notice the template sentence.)
This way of thinking was eating away at my soul. Day after day, I found myself sinking into a pit of misery. I would spend my days lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. There was nothing I could do to change my life, so why try?
One day, I had had enough. I had been lying in bed for days. It had been years since anything amazing had happened to me. I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t accept the fact that this would be my life. There was an itch under my skin to make my life worth living.
“Life is too short to waste it moping about the hand of cards life had served me,” I thought. I didn’t care what it would take. I would do whatever I could to get myself out of the hole I was in.
I decided to use the resources I had to create the future I dreamed. “Bloom where you are planted” became my life motto. What I had access to at the time was the internet.
In order to get out of the country I was in, I concluded that I’d need a scholarship. I set my mind on getting the Japanese Monbusho Scholarship. I found blogs, articles, and books online to become fluent in Japanese. I practiced day in and day out. I tried a plethora of different methods to learn new words and perfect my grammar. In a few months, I was able to hold a simple conversation in Japanese.
I also realized that I would need money. I wasn’t allowed to go out and get a job. This was an obstacle I had trouble accepting. I tried to convince my parents to let me work, but they refused for my safety. My mother introduced me to the concept of passive income and showed me blogs that were making six figures every month!
I set out to build a hedgehog care website. Every day, after school, I would research hedgehogs and write detailed articles about how to feed them, groom them, play with them, and anything else one would need to know. I went on like this for 3 years, studying Japanese and writing about hedgehogs.
I’m sure you’re expecting a spirit-lifting ending where I travel to Japan and live off my flourishing website. That’s not how this story ends.
I didn’t get the scholarship. The fact is, I didn’t even get the chance to apply. I ended up studying in my third-world country. I was crushed. I didn’t want to, but it was either study here or not study at all. Unwilling to accept the facts, I started an online university the next year. I now study at two universities simultaneously.
As for the hedgehog website, it made me a total of $60 for the three years of work I put into it.
I can stand here and tell you that I tried, but it didn’t work out. That’d be a lie. It did work out—just not the way I expected.
I’m not in Japan, but I know how to speak Japanese and have met many interesting people along the way. I learned from them and gained experience just as I hoped I one day would. And instead of one major, I now have two, both of which I enjoy learning about.
My hedgehog website didn’t succeed, but I created a new one that’s even better with the expertise I gained. I interact with my readers often, helping them find ways they can live their dreams. I love hearing their stories and learning how I helped them build better habits or make their goals a reality.
I still live in the same country I did before. I still have to wait five minutes for a webpage to load. However, I know that even though the obstacles are always there—and always will be—they have nothing to do with happiness, fulfillment, success, peace, and satisfaction. Some people have it better than others, and some have it worse, but every single person, regardless of circumstance, can control their mindset.
I didn’t let my obstacles stand in my way, and I created my own opportunities when I found none. In an instant, anyone can decide to embrace the cards they’ve been dealt and create their own unique way to shuffle, redistribute, alter, or mold them into a winning hand.
-
The Relief of Letting Go and Living Fully Despite My Anxiety
“We only live once, Snoopy.” ~Charlie Brown
“Wrong. We only die once. We live every day.” ~Snoopy
I am an anxious person. I haven’t always been though. When I had my first child, fourteen years ago, it was the week after my father died. My son was born and went right to the NICU where he spent the first fourteen days of his life. In that moment, I changed. I’d already had one miscarriage. I couldn’t lose anyone else.
Man, life is fragile. I spent the next decade making sure he played on the swings at the park, but not too high since he could fall and break his neck. We always took him to the river or the lake, but no swimming. There are amoebas in the water. (Funny and crazy, I know.)
I now have two children who are fourteen and nine. Just a couple weeks ago, we went to the zoo. I had to talk about not leaning on the railings; you could fall in an enclosure. I am exhausted. The worry never ends.
I am a mom, a wife, a daughter, anxious, neurotic, controlling, and scared. I never meant to be that helicopter mom. I had great ideas about how I would parent my kids. My husband and I always talked about how we would raise teenagers and what their curfews would be, but being in the middle of it, I’m terrified. I live in a constant state of panic and fear.
I constantly worry I’m having a heart attack or a stroke. I worry my kids will die. I worry I will die.
During the early months of the Covid-19 lockdown, we completely shut off from the world. Guess what? We all got Covid-19, except my nine-year-old. My elderly mother (who lives with us) got it too. I even sanitized groceries. We have no clue how we got it. We are all fine. Thank goodness. I know not everyone is as lucky.
Every pain or sniffle is a worst-case scenario. Have you ever seen the movie My Girl? I am totally Veda Sultenfuss.
It took several years, trips to the emergency room, shaky relationships, and a whole lot of self-discovery to figure it out. My lack of confidence, yet another sad part of anxiety, made me think I wasn’t enough. It caused my divorce. Thankfully, we are remarried. He sees me, he sees the moments I am fun and carefree, and he helps me work through my anxiety. Old Bob Ross reruns help too.
So, what is the lesson here? I am not in control of a single thing. (Mind blown, I know.) Life is full of terrible things, wonderful things, heartache, tears, laughter, death of parents, even children. It’s all those moments in between that make life worth living.
If we hide because of fear, we miss out on those moments. We miss out on a chance to save a memory we could pull out of our little brain file when we’re seventy-three and watching the snowfall on Christmas morning when all our kids are grown up.
It’s really scary, letting go. It’s like walking on a tightrope. You see what could happen, but you just walk, because you know you’re not fully living if you sit out, and at the end of that walk, you realize how fast it went by. Either way, it will go by. It’s up to you how you spend that walk. Frank Sinatra says it best, that’s life.
-
Why We Often Fail When We Set Big Goals and What Actually Works
“You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” ~James Clear
If you pull up any popular motivational video today, you’ll probably hear things like “Set big goals!” and “Aim high and don’t stop until you get there!”
After watching a video like this, you may get inspired and start mapping out your plan to leave the 99% in the dust.
And typically, because you’re riding a wave of motivation, you’ll write out these monstrous, Mount-Everest-like goals. These goals paint a picture of your life that is so exciting that you can’t wait to wake up and get to work the next morning. But when you roll out of bed and take a look at the goals you set the day before, reality hits you like a truck.
Instead of being motivated to take action, you feel a massive wall of internal resistance. You want to take action. You know you need to take action. But for some reason you just can’t force yourself to muster up the discipline necessary to make progress.
So instead, you choose the path of least resistance. You retreat to the comfortable and the familiar, and then decide that you’re going to wait “just one more day.” One day turns into two, two days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months.
But luckily, time heals all wounds, and six months later you get another surge of motivation and try it all over again. This is where most people find themselves in life—stuck on the self-improvement hamster wheel.
How do you stop this vicious cycle? What’s the best way to facilitate lifestyle changes that you actually stick to?
How Big Goals Ruined My Life
When I was a sophomore in high school, I had ambitions to become an NBA basketball player. Despite the fact that I was 5 feet 6 inches tall, had below average quickness, and could barely jump over a stack of books, I was determined to prove everyone wrong.
At this point, I didn’t have my driver’s license yet, so my wonderful mother would get up at 4:30 a.m. and drive me to my school gym early enough to get up shots before class. To make a long story short, I was cut from the team a few months into my sophomore year, and my NBA aspirations died right then and there.
When I was a freshman in college, my focus had shifted to day trading the stock market. Once again, I had complete confidence that I was going to turn day trading into a full-time income. And once again, I was wrong. The $1,000 I had deposited into my Robinhood account disappeared in about two months, leaving me with no financial flexibility to invest into my dream of becoming a full-time day trader.
During my sophomore year of college, I made the biggest decision I had ever made in my life up to that point. Despite having good grades, I decided to drop out of school and start my own marketing agency. Let me tell you, that phone call with my parents is undoubtedly the most emotional conversation I’ve ever had in my life.
I even distinctly remember my own cousin telling me, “I think that you’re going to regret this decision for the rest of your life.” Still, I was unbothered, because I knew in my heart that I needed to give this a shot. A month after telling my parents I wanted to drop out of school, I was on a flight back home to California.
Yet again, I found myself in a familiar spot—just a kid following his heart with some colossal goals.
Filled with passion and drive, I set myself a goal to build the agency to $50,000/month in revenue by the following year. To reach that goal, I committed to at least two hours per day of prospecting, and another two hours of educating myself on the real estate marketing industry.
By now, I think you can see where this is going. For fifteen months, I worked at trying to achieve my goals, but the highest monthly revenue target I was able to achieve was a measly $6,000/month. Despite desperately wanting to taste wealth and success, I had failed yet again.
It was at this point in my life where I really took a step back and engaged in deep reflection. After all, I had just been following the wisdom that successful people had been preaching for decades—set big goals and don’t stop working until you accomplish them.
Was it me that was a failure or was it my system? Why is it that so many people including me continually set big goals that they never accomplish? Pondering these questions drove me to explore the world of self-development.
The Power of Identity
I had always been passionate about self-improvement, but I had never really delved into the science and research behind what actually facilitates true behavior change. My research eventually led me to reach two life-changing conclusions:
- Setting big goals does more harm than good for people who want to change their lives.
- True behavior change occurs when you commit to small, seemingly insignificant shifts in your daily behavior.
After spending hundreds of hours combing through research on habits, behavior change, and neuroscience, I finally had the “aha” moment that shifted my entire perspective on life. The fatal problem with setting big goals is that they focus on the outcomes we want to achieve as opposed to the type of person we want to become.
The most powerful force in the human body is the desire to be consistent with who we’ve been in the past. Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last, which is why big goals are often so hard to accomplish.
You may have a goal to build a million-dollar business, but if your identity is that of someone who procrastinates on important work, it’s unlikely you’re ever going to hit that goal. You may have a goal to lose weight, but if your identity is consistent with someone who eats fast food regularly and lives a sedentary lifestyle, you’ll continue to be pulled toward actions that sabotage your weight-loss goals.
You may have some new goals, but you still haven’t changed who you are. I wanted to build a marketing agency even though I was the type of person who procrastinated and refused to get out of my comfort zone. It was the inability to change those underlying beliefs that ultimately led to my failure.
How to Achieve Your Biggest Goals by Thinking Small
If big goals aren’t the answer, then what is? The key is to focus on who you want to be as opposed to the outcomes you want to achieve. You need to become the type of person who can reach the standards you have set for yourself.
Your identity emerges out of your daily habits. You don’t come out of the womb with a preset identity. Whoever you are right now is a direct result of the daily habits that you’ve developed up to this point.
In order to start forming new beliefs about yourself, you need to start building new habits. The formula for changing your identity is a simple two-step process:
- Figure out the type of person that you want to become
- Commit to small changes that align with your ideal self
First off, you have to decide what kind of person you want to be. When setting goals, most people are guided by the question “What do I want to achieve?” Instead, try asking yourself, “Who is the type of person that can get the kind of outcomes I want?”
Instead of setting a goal to lose fifty pounds, ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that can lose fifty pounds?” Instead of setting a goal to build a million-dollar business, ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that can build a million-dollar business?”
The beauty of focusing on identity change is that your success is no longer tied to arbitrary targets. Let’s say that you set a goal to lose fifty pounds in six months. As you pursue this goal, you start walking every day and improve your diet. At the end of six months, you step on the scale and you’ve lost thirty-seven pounds.
Did you achieve your goal? Nope, you’re thirteen pounds short. However, what if your goal was simply to become a healthy individual? Did you achieve that goal? Absolutely!
Once you’ve figured out what kind of person you want to become, the next step is to commit to small shifts in your daily behavior. Too often we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. This is the principle that guided my life for nineteen years.
Through constant trial and error, I’ve realized that true behavior change is the product of small, incremental changes compounded over time. We tend to dismiss the effectiveness of small actions because they don’t make an immediate impact.
If you walk for two minutes per day for a week, you’re not going to see the number on the scale move much. If you meditate for sixty seconds for a few days in a row, you’re not going to turn into the Dalai Lama. However, what you will do is to give your brain concrete evidence that you’re a different person.
James Clear puts this beautifully when he says, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you want to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does evidence of your new identity.”
Once you’ve nailed down your desired identity, come up with a daily habit that you can perform no matter how you feel. When you set big goals, your brain tricks you into thinking that the present level of motivation you feel will carry over to when it’s time to take action. By focusing on shrinking your daily targets, you’re taking motivation and willpower out of the equation.
Here’s a few practical examples of this concept in action:
- Meditating for ten minutes per day becomes meditating for sixty seconds per day
- Walking for thirty minutes per day becomes walking for two minutes per day
- Reading for thirty minutes per day becomes reading one page
- Journaling for fifteen minutes every night becomes writing one sentence
- Writing 1,000 words per day becomes writing fifty words per day
It really doesn’t matter how successful you are right now, all that matters is that you’re on the right path. Once these small habits are solidified into your daily life, you’ll have mastered the art of showing up and acting in alignment with your desired identity.
Since your brain now has some new evidence, you’ll be able to stretch yourself and gradually aim higher. That’s the true power of small habits. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the positive effects of your habits multiply as they become a part of who you are.
So, the next time you get motivated to change your life, forget setting huge goals. If you do this, the power of your identity will loom large over you and prevent you from taking action. Harness the power of small, incremental change.
Have the courage to set the bar low enough and aim at targets that you can actually hit on a daily basis. Solidify this small habit into your life, and then do the same thing with another habit. And then another. And then another.
Soon enough, you’ll become someone unrecognizable.
-
Why “Find Your Purpose” is Bad Advice and What to Do Instead
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” ~Pablo Picasso
I was fifty-two when I found my purpose. I wasn’t even looking. It literally just smacked me upside the head. That’s a funny thing about life. It throws things your way, and you either grab them and run with them or you turn a blind eye and walk on by.
I used to turn a blind eye. I don’t anymore. These days I’m taking in all that life tosses my way. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
How My Purpose Found Me
I had just left an abusive relationship and declared bankruptcy. You could say my life was a complete mess. I had also just hit rock bottom and was starting the grueling climb out. It was frustrating and exhausting.
During my healing and self-discovery journey I did something that changed the entire course of my life. I started volunteering at a homeless shelter.
I’ll be honest with you, I did that for two reasons. One was selfish. The other, humanitarian (and sincere).
I desperately needed to take my mind off all my problems, and I figured the only way to do that was to surround myself with people whose problems were way bigger than mine. And it worked. But something else happened.
I fell in love with the homeless people I met and found a deep sense of purpose. Phew! I sure didn’t see that coming.
I then made it my mission to do more of that. Help people, all people, even animals. I just wanted to help everyone and everything anyway I could, as often as I could.
I had found my purpose, and that was to do my part to make the world a better place.
I Never Understood the Meaning of “Find Your Purpose”
I honestly thought that phrase was overrated and overused.
It seems to suggest purpose is something outside ourselves that we miraculously stumble upon someday. “Oh, did you hear? Mary found her purpose today.”
And it also creates a lot of stress and pressure to hurry up and figure it out. “I’m still looking for my purpose, and I’m frustrated that I’m having such a hard time with this.”
I couldn’t understand why everyone was desperately seeking their purpose. I was just trying to navigate life the best way I knew how in order to have inner peace and be happy, while others were searching for this holy grail.
I questioned myself. Should I be looking for this too? Do I need to find it before I die? Will my life be incomplete if I don’t? Will I die with regret then?
I was confused. What’s the big deal about finding your purpose? It was starting to freak me out.
My Aha Moment
After my first night at the homeless shelter, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to do that for the rest of my life. Just give and serve and make people happy. I wanted to turn frowns upside down and get hugs and make people’s lives better, any way I could.
Did I finally discover my purpose without even realizing it? Was this what everyone was talking about?
I assumed it was. I assumed that this was it! I’d found my purpose and now my life was complete. Or was it?
I was puzzled by something.
Isn’t This Everyone’s Purpose?
I couldn’t understand why me serving homeless people and helping humans and critters in any way I could was some special purpose.
Shouldn’t we all be doing that? As humans sharing the same planet in the galaxy, shouldn’t we all be doing our part to help other human beings (and critters)?
It’s more than that, though. It’s so much bigger than that. It’s about finding joy and peace in knowing you did your part to make the world a better place.
That’s what the definition of purpose should be.
Stop Looking for Your Purpose
Maybe we should just ditch the word purpose and replace it with something that doesn’t sound so foreboding. Maybe instead of saying, “I’m trying to find my purpose in life” we should try saying, “I’m doing my part to make the world a better place.”
It just has a nicer ring to it.
There’s so much anger, hurt, hatred, and frustration in the world today. The world needs more love. People need more love. When we see things and people through the eyes of love and compassion something magical happens.
We understand, we don’t judge, we feel for each other, and it brings us all one step closer to having inner peace and joy.
So how can you make the world a better place?
What special gift, talent, or skill do you have that you can offer the world?
It doesn’t have to be what you do for a living, though that’s clearly the ideal, since we spend so much time at our jobs. Maybe it starts as something you do on the side and grows over time. Or maybe it doesn’t, but maybe having something that fills you up will help make your 9-5 more tolerable.
The important thing is that you find some way to help people that leverages your unique passions and interests. Then even if you don’t love your job, you’ll feel a sense of meaning, and you’ll feel good about yourself and the difference you’re making.
Maybe you love animals and can volunteer at a shelter.
Maybe you make people feel good about themselves by simply sharing kind words to strangers.
Or maybe you’re passionate about knitting or sewing or singing and you can find ways to use those talents to brighten other people’s lives. I mean, the possibilities are endless.
We need to do more things that spread joy, hope, and love to the people around us, even if it’s something small. Sometimes it’s the smallest acts that have the biggest impact.
If you’re stressing about the fact that you are getting older and haven’t found your purpose yet, stop. It’s overrated. Instead, find ways to serve and in turn, inspire others to serve.
It’s not about finding your purpose. It’s about living your life to the fullest and knowing at the end of the day that you did your very best to make someone else’s day brighter and better. It’s about doing that every day until you die. That’s a life well-lived. And if you want to call that your purpose, so be it.
-
Where Our Inner Critic Comes from and How to Tame It
“Your inner critic is simply a part of you that needs more self-love.” ~Amy Leigh Mercee
We all have that critical and judgmental inner voice that tells us we’re not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, etc.
It tells us we don’t do anything right. It calls us stupid. It compares us to other people and speaks harshly about ourselves and our bodies. It tells us all the things we did or said “wrong” after communicating or connecting with someone.
Sometimes it projects criticism outward onto others so we can feel better about ourselves. Other times we try to suppress our inner critic through overachieving, being busy, and accumulating more and more things.
Sometimes it’s a protective mechanism that’s trying to keep us focused on our self-judgments so we won’t be authentic, because, if we are, we may be rejected and not get the love and acceptance we want.
But, by doing this, we’re creating even more pain and suffering because we’re disconnecting from and rejecting our own essence.
Just ignoring the critical voice doesn’t always make it go away. It may initially, but soon enough it will resurface if we haven’t healed/embraced our hurts, traumas, and wounds and shifted our internal patterning, which is where it comes from.
Have you ever heard the expression “What we resist persists?” Have you ever told an angry person to “just calm down” or a screaming child to stop crying? Does it work? Not when our energy is in a heightened state.
Why is someone angry? Why is a child screaming and crying? Because there’s something going on internally that’s creating how they’re behaving. There’s often an unmet need or pain that’s asking for attention.
Thinking a more positive thought to compensate can sometimes work, but sometimes it just creates an inner debate and mistrust in ourselves because deep inside we don’t believe what we’re saying.
As children, many of us were taught to suppress those “bad” feelings because if we expressed them, we may have been or were punished. Welcome to the beginning of the critical voice; it’s often a frightened part of us that’s wounded and asking for attention. It wants to be seen, heard, and understood.
My dad used to get really frustrated with me and constantly told me, “Damn it, Deb, you never do anything right.” Hearing that many times left an imprint in my subconscious. I started living with that interpretation of myself, and the critical voice kept me “in check” with being this way.
For me, the critical voice was my dad’s voice as well as the deep shame I was feeling for making mistakes and not doing things the “right way.”
I was holding in suppressed anger, sadness, guilt, unforgiveness, resentment, traumas, and pain that I tried to keep hidden with a smile on my face, but eventually it turned into a shame-based identity.
My inner voice criticized me whenever I fell short or wasn’t perfect according to society or my family’s expectations.
Just like when we’re triggered by another person, our critical voice is asking for our attention and guiding us to what needs healing, resolving, forgiving, understanding, compassion, and unconditional love.
When it comes to the surface, we’re experiencing an automatic regression; it’s a part of us that’s frozen in time. It’s a reflection of our unhealed wounds, which created ideas of not being enough or that something’s wrong with us. Basically, it’s a trance of unworthiness.
When we’re in a trance of unworthiness, we try to soothe ourselves with addictive behaviors. It’s hard to relax because we think we need to do something to be better and prove ourselves, so not doing anything, resting, isn’t safe.
When we’re in a trance of unworthiness, it’s hard to be intimate with others. Deep inside we think there’s something wrong with us, so we don’t get close because they may find out and leave. This keeps us from being authentic because we don’t feel okay with who we are.
Deep down I felt unworthy, unlovable, and undeserving, and the critical voice showed me what I was feeling and believing. I didn’t feel safe in life or in my body. How could I? I was living with so much hurt, pain, and shame inside.
The critical voice is often stronger for those of us with unhealed wounds and who are hard on ourselves, and it tries to get us with shame and guilt. We’re always looking at ourselves as the “good self” or “bad self,” and if we’re identified with a “bad self,” we’ll act in accordance with that in all areas of our life.
If we’ve become identified with the critical voice, it’s who we think we are; it just seems normal. And when we start to be more kind and loving, it doesn’t seem right because our identity becomes threatened and our system registers that as danger.
That happened for me. Eventually I became identified with being a “bad girl” who’s critical and hard on herself, and, even when I started being a little kinder, more compassionate, and more loving, I felt an angst in my body. It wasn’t familiar, and even deeper, it wasn’t okay for me to be this way. My survival was at stake, so I would automatically go back to self-criticizing and judging, without conscious awareness.
The critical voice didn’t only speak to me harshly; it also told me to do self-abusive things like cutting my wrists and face, starving my body or eating lots of sweets, and exercising for hours like a mad woman to get rid of the food I ate, whether it was a carrot or sweets, because I felt guilty.
Even after twenty-three years of going in and out of hospitals and treatment centers, taking medication, and doing traditional therapy, nothing ever changed; the critical voice had a hold on me.
It was a powerful force, and when I tried to stop it, it would get louder. It thought it was protecting me in a backwards sort of way; if it hurt me first, no one else would be able to do so.
When people used to say to me, “Debra, you just need to love yourself,” I looked at them like they were crazy. I had no concept of what that even meant because I had no experience of it.
What I’ve come to see with myself and those I assist in their healing is that the more we keep our deep hurts, traumas, anger, guilt, shame, and pain hidden, the more the critical voice chimes in.
And, for some, like me, it seems overpowering, so we try to find relief through smoking, drinking, eating, or being busy, and/or we experience severe depression, anxiety, or self-harming.
When we’re consumed by the critical voice, we’re disconnected from our true essence, and when we’re disconnected from our true essence, the love within, we feel a sense of separation; we don’t feel safe with ourselves or others, and we don’t feel lovable for who we are, as we are.
This is why many people can change, be happy for a day, but then go back to their critical and/or judgmental ways. Our automatic programming, stemming from our core beliefs, kicks in. It’s just like an addiction, and in a sense it is.
We can try meditating, deep breathing, and positive thinking, but, unless we address the underlying cause, we’re likely to keep thinking the thoughts our internal patterning dictates. They come from a part of us that doesn’t feel loved or safe.
So, what do we do when the critical voice comes to visit?
What do we do when it’s what we’re used to, and it just happens automatically?
What do we do when we don’t know how to be with ourselves and how we’re feeling in a kind and compassionate way?
What do we do when we have no concept of what it even means to experience self-love or ease in our bodies?
First off, please don’t blame yourself for how you’re being. Awareness isn’t about judgment; it’s about kindness, compassion, and love.
Working with and healing our traumas, where the critical voice was formed, is key in shifting our internal energy patterning. Many people call this inner child healing and/or shadow working.
This is a soft and gentle process of moving through the layers of trauma with compassion and love and making peace with our protector parts.
Through inner child healing, we can shift and transform that “negative” patterning and how the energy is flowing in our body. We can help that part of us that’s frightened, hurting, and maybe feeling separate have a new and true understanding so we can feel loved and safe in our bodies.
When we pause and take a deep breath when we first hear or sense the critical voice, it allows our nervous systems to reset and helps us come back to the present moment; this allows space for compassion, healing, and investigation.
Why do I believe that?
Where did I learn that?
Is it true?
How does my higher self see this and me?
Does the critical voice totally go away? No, it may still chime in; it’s part of being human. But once we realize where it’s coming from and heal/shift that energy pattern, more love can flow through, and we can experience our truth. When we learn how to be our own loving parent and meet the needs our caregivers didn’t meet when we were children, the critical voice often softens.
Remember, the critical voice is just a scared part of us who really wants attention, love, and a way to feel safe. When we no longer take it personally, when we’re no longer attached to it as our identity, we can offer ourselves compassion, understanding, love, truth, and whatever else we’re needing.
Life can be messy, and our thoughts can be too. This isn’t about perfection; this is about experiencing a deeper connection with our loving essence.
There’s a sweet and tender spirit that lives within you. This spirit is your deepest truth. This spirit is the essence of you. You’re naturally lovable, valuable, and worthy. You’re a gift to humanity. So please be kind, gentle, loving, and caring with yourself.
-
If You’re Trapped Under a Pile of “Should” and Tired of Feeling Unhappy
“Stop shoulding on yourself.” ~Albert Ellis
I was buried under a pile of shoulds for the first thirty-two years of my life. Some of those shoulds were put on me by the adults in my life, some were heaped on because I am a middle child, but most were self-imposed thanks to cultural and peer influence.
“You should get straight A’s, Jill.”
“You shouldn’t worry so much, Jill.”
“You should be married by now, Jill.”
“You should get your Master’s degree.”
I could go on forever. The pile was high, and I was slowly suffocating from the crushing weight on my soul.
What’s so significant about age thirty-two? It’s when I decided to divorce my husband of eighteen months (after a big ole Catholic wedding) and ask my parents for money to pay the attorney’s retainer. This is a gal with a great childhood, MBA, and a darned good catch for a husband.
From the outside, our life looked charmed and full of potential. We’d just purchased our first home, were trying to start a family (despite suffering two miscarriages) and were building our careers. What no one else saw was the debilitating mountain of consumer debt, manipulative behavior, and my intuition’s activated alarm system… sounding off in reaction to the life I’d built and was, for all intents and purposes, stuck in.
My intuition was done with the low-level warnings. She was sick and tired of being ignored, so she sounded the big one—an alarm that demanded action instead of lip service. I still tried challenging her; what she had presented me with was asinine.
“But I can’t divorce him. We just got married. What will everyone think? I’m so embarrassed. I should have made better choices. How did I end up here? I did everything right, right? I should suck it up and stick it out; that’s what good Catholics do. This is kind of what life is, I guess… kinda sad, but it seems to work for most everyone else. Ugh, I wanted this… now I’m, what, changing my mind?”
The alarm was not going to shut off until I sat long enough with those notions to yield honest answers. That was some tough sh*t to sit in. And even tougher to plod through. But it was better than being buried under it.
This was my first lesson in “There’s only one way out of this mess.” There’s no express lane, no backroad, no direct flight. This ride resembled the covered wagon kind. Bumpy, hot, dirty, and uncomfortable as hell.
I relented, listened, and tapped into the hidden reserve of courage I didn’t know existed within me.
The time had come to quit living according to the “should standard” everyone else around me had subscribed to. The time had come to accept this curated life was not the one that would yield happiness for me. The time had come to turn up the volume on this newfound voice and assert to myself (and everyone else) that I was cutting my losses and trusting my inner compass.
The time had come to stop shoulding myself.
Shoulds were my grocery list, my roadmap for life. How was I going to do this adult thing without my instructions???
I’d already managed to clear a huge should—hello, divorce—and after that, with every should I challenged, another paradigm crumbled. I began to notice shoulds all over the place. After that, my awareness of intention got keener, and I could sniff out the subtle shoulds like a bloodhound.
SHOULD: When are you having kids?
CHOICE: I do not want to have children. (Remember I miscarried twice with my first husband. I was checking boxes on my adulting grocery list. Honesty yielded clarity.)
SHOULD: He’s too old for you and he has four boys of his own.
CHOICE: He is my person. His sons deserve to see their father in a healthy, happy relationship. I can show them love in a new, different way.
SHOULD: You’re making great money in your job. Why walk away from your amazing 401(k) and great benefits to risk starting your own business?
CHOICE: I want to build a life I’m not desperate to take a vacation from. I want to live, serve others, and know when I’m at the end of my life that I chose it and made the most of it.
Deleting the word “should” is a big first leap in taking ownership of your life. By altering your vocabulary in a simple way, you naturally become mindful of the words you put in its place. Instead of “I should….” substitute with “I choose to….” Instead of “You should…” try “Have you considered…?”
Keep track of every time you say or hear “should” in a day. Then spend time with each one and get toddler with yourself. Ask why. Ask it again.
Who says you have to get married or have kids or work a job you hate that looks good on paper? Who says you have to look a certain way or do certain things with your free time that don’t appeal to you? Why are you restless in your life? What idea keeps popping up, begging for your attention? Are you living your truth? What’s in the way? What pile of shoulds are you buried under?
I get it. We’ve been programmed by our culture and our family traditions to follow the path, stay on course, climb the ladder to success! It’s the only way to be happy, they say. It’s the only way we’ll be proud of you, they insinuate.
We’ve been indoctrinated with this thought pattern and belief system, and it seems impossible that we have the power to choose otherwise. We have the opportunity, the autonomy, the choice to rewire our iOS and make it what is ideal for ourselves.
Overwhelm is natural; the antidote is to start small. Find one piece of low-hanging fruit, take a bite, and taste how sweet it is. For example, say no to an invite if you’d rather spend your time doing something else. Allow yourself to do nothing instead of telling yourself you should be doing something productive. Or let yourself feel whatever you feel instead of telling yourself you should be positive.
Feel how nourishing it is to choose yourself. Experience satiety in your soul. Release restlessness and replace it with intention guided by your intuition.
Do that and you’ll never should again. Or maybe you will—who says you should be perfect? At the very least you’ll think twice before letting should control you, and you’ll be a lot happier as a result!
-
How I Developed Self-Worth After Being Sexually Harassed and Fired
“Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.” ~Unknown
In my early twenties, I was a food and beverage manager at a nice hotel in Portland, Maine. About a month after I started working there, they hired our department director, a man twice my age whom I would report to.
At the end of his first week, we went out for a “get to know each other” drink at a loud and busy bar. As we drank and chatted, he was physically very close to me. I told myself it was because of the noise.
His knees were against mine as we chatted facing each other on barstools. It made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t do anything about it. He put his hand on my thigh as we talked. I pretended it didn’t bother me.
He leaned in very close to my face and ear as he talked about himself and told me how attractive I was. He led me through doorways with his hand gently on the small of my back.
There was more of this over the next few months. More of him stepping on and just over that invisible line. More of me acting as though I was okay with it and convincing myself that I was.
A few months after that night, he and I were in a position to fire a male employee who had several complaints against him for not doing his work.
The morning before the firing, Human Resources pulled me into their office to tell me that this employee had lodged a complaint about my boss and me. He had said that he knew we were going to fire him, and he believed it was because my boss and I were having an affair. His “proof” was that he saw us at the bar that Friday night and saw us “kissing.” There was even a line cook who backed up his story.
A few days later, both of these employees admitted that they didn’t exactly see us kissing, they just saw us talking very closely together, and it looked intimate.
HR dropped the complaint but no longer felt comfortable with firing this employee, so he stayed on. A few weeks later after a busy event that went poorly due to being understaffed, I was taken into the CEO’s office, and I was fired.
The male employee continued working there. My male boss continued working there. The male employee was promoted to take my now vacant position. My male boss was promoted to work at a larger resort at a tropical destination.
These two events—being accused of having an affair with my married older boss, and subsequently being fired for an event that I wasn’t even in charge of staffing—were the two lowest points of my professional career.
I honestly rarely think back to this time in my life, but I also recently realized that I never talk about this experience because of my embarrassment that I let this happen without objection.
What This Story is Really About
I didn’t think that my boss would hurt me. I wasn’t even worried that I would lose my job if I pushed back. I was afraid that if I acted like someone who was bothered by his comments, I would be seen as a lame, no fun, boring, stuck-up prude.
I subconsciously believed that my worthiness as a person was determined by people who were cooler than me, more successful than me, smarter than me, or more liked than me.
I believe that had I told my boss “no,” he would have listened. I’d gotten to know him over several months, and while he was egotistical, dim-witted, and selfish, I think he would have respected my boundaries had I set them. I just never did.
There are a lot of layers to this story. Far too many to cover in one post.
But the reason for writing this today is to share what I was so ashamed of. I was ashamed that young, twenty-something me was so insecure and so afraid of rejection that her people-pleasing led to allowing this man to touch her and act inappropriately.
She was so afraid that if she set a boundary and said “no” she would be seen as too emotional, weak, and a complainer. She would become “less than.”
I’ll restate that there are a lot of layers to this; from the patriarchal system at this business (and society as a whole), to the abuse of men in power, to mixed messages at high school where girls were not allowed to wear certain clothes because the boys would get distracted, to a lack of examples through the 90s/early 2000’s of what it looks like for a young woman to stand up for herself in a situation like this, and far beyond.
But the part of the story I want to focus on right now is my insecurity. This is the part of the story that I had the most shame and regret about, because this was not an isolated incident for me.
Insecurity was a Trend Throughout My Life
People-pleasing was a huge problem for me in several areas of my life for many years. It’s something that held me back from so much.
- I didn’t leave a long relationship that I’d dreamt of ending for fear that I would disappoint our families.
- I let people walk all over me, interrupt me while I spoke, and tell me what I should think.
- In my late twenties I remember being home alone, again, crying that I had no one who would want to spend time with me or go somewhere with me, feeling sad and lonely, when in reality I was just too scared and embarrassed to pick up the phone and ask, for fear of rejection.
I wasted so many years and felt a lot of pain, and a whole lot of nothing happened as I was stuck. Stuck feeling worthless, unlikable, and unknowing how to “please” my way out of it.
I spent years numbing how uncomfortable my insecurity made me feel by smoking a lot of pot. I avoided what I came to realize were my triggers by staying home or finding excuses to leave early if I did go out. I blamed everyone else for how they made me feel. I compared myself to everyone and constantly fell short.
Until eventually, I realized the cause for all this pain and discomfort was believing my worth was based on what other people thought of me.
The Emotional Toolbox That Saved Me
If I could go back in time to give myself one thing, it would be the emotional toolbox that I’ve collected over the years so that I could stop living to please other people, because I know now that I am inherently worthy.
By my thirties I found myself on a journey to lift the veil of insecurity that hid me from my real self. This wall I’d inadvertently built to protect myself was keeping me from seeing who I really was beneath my fear and anxiety.
Once I found the courage to start tearing down that wall and opening myself to the vulnerability necessary to truly connect with the real me, I was able to discern between who I am and what I do. I learned to stop judging myself. I learned my true value. And I liked what I saw.
Finding My Core Values
I came to realize that it’s hard to feel worthy when you don’t really like yourself. And it’s even harder to genuinely like yourself if you don’t truly know yourself. Figuring out my core values was a crucial part of the puzzle.
Core values are the beliefs, principles, ideals, and traits that are most important to you. They represent what you stand for, what you’re committed to, and how you want to operate in the world.
Knowing your core values is like having a brighter flashlight to get through the woods at night. It shines a light on the path ahead—a path that aligns with your true self—so that you can show up in the world and to challenging situations as the person you want to be.
It helps you decide in any given scenario if you want to be funny or compassionate, direct or easy-going, decisive or open-minded. These aren’t easy decisions to make, but knowing how you want to be in this world helps you make the decisions that best align with your authentic self.
And when you truly know yourself and act intentionally and authentically in tune with your values (as best as you can) a magical thing happens: You connect with your own inherent worthiness.
For me, I came to realize that I am a compassionate, kind, courageous, funny, well-balanced woman constantly in pursuit of purposeful growth. I like that person. She’s cool. I’d hang out with her.
More importantly, I believe she is a good person deserving of respect. Which means I don’t need to accept situations that cross my boundaries. I have a right to speak up when something makes me uncomfortable.
So how do you want to be? Which of your principles and qualities matter most to you? And what would you do or change if you chose to let those principles and qualities guide you?
Connecting With Others About My Shame
Shame breeds in the darkness. We don’t normally speak up about the things that we feel embarrassed about. And that leads to us feeling isolated and alone with how we feel.
Whether it’s reading stories online, talking with friends, joining a support group, going to therapy, or working with a coach, share and listen. A vital component of self-compassion is learning to connect over our shared experiences. And it takes self-compassion to respect and believe in our own self-worth, especially when confronted with our inner critic.
By sharing my feelings of insecurity, I learned that a beautiful friend of mine also felt ugly. I thought, “Wow, if someone that gorgeous could think of herself as anything less than, my thinking might be wrong too.” I found out that even talented celebrities from Lady Gaga to Arianna Huffington to Maya Angelou have all felt insecure about their abilities. That somehow gave me permission to feel the way that I did, which was the first step in letting it go.
Who can you connect with? If you’re not sure, or you aren’t at a place yet in your journey to feel comfortable doing that, perhaps start by reading stories online.
Coaching Myself Through Insecurity
Alas, I am only human. Therefore, I still fall victim to moments of insecurity and feel tempted to let other people dictate my worth. Knowing that purposeful growth is important to me, I know that the work continues, and I’m willing to do it.
So I coach myself through those challenging times when I say something stupid and worry about being judged or I come across someone who is similar to me, but more successful and fear that means I’m not good enough. I’ll ask myself questions as a way of stepping out of self-judgment mode, and into an open and curious mindset. These are questions like:
- If my good friend was experiencing this, how would I motivate her?
- Did I do the best I could with what I had?
- If the universe gave me this experience for a reason, what lesson am I supposed to be learning so that I can turn this into a meaningful experience?
- What uncomfortable thing am I avoiding? Am I willing to be uncomfortable in order to go after what I want?
Or I’ll break out the motivational phrases that remind me of my capabilities or worthiness like:
- I can do hard things.
- My worthiness is not determined by other people’s opinions.
- This is just one moment in time, and it will pass.
- Even though this is difficult, I’m willing to do it.
- I forgive myself for making a mistake. I’ve learned from it and will do better next time.
Tools like these are simple, but priceless. They gave me my life. And I can say now without hesitation, I like myself, I love myself, I love my life, I’m worthy as hell, and I’m my own best friend. That’s how I want to live my life.
Because of this, I have the confidence to speak my truth with courage, and I have the confidence to live authentically and unapologetically myself. And the number one person I’m most concerned with pleasing is myself.
