The Audacity to Really Be Who You Are
Where to Begin
What If ...
What if, when you woke up every day, you had that moment of brief confusion and then your life came rushing in and you remembered all the incredible things you were going to do that day. You smiled a small smile to yourself and couldn’t wait to get the day started?
If you are waking up like that, you may be part of a shift that’s happening where women are stepping into their potential. Many millennials are carving out new ways of being because they don’t want the work-until-you-drop lives their parents lived.
At midlife, it’s not too late to take a cue from other generations, or from all the women we see who are stepping out of their comfort zones and into their potential.
What Would It Take To Feel Like That?
Are you close? If you could rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on how much this description reflects where you are now, what would that number be? (You can’t use 7 by the way. Because it’s neutral and doesn’t give you any real information.)
If not, what gets in the way?
Here are the typical blocks:
- I can’t make money at it
- What will people think?
- Not knowing how
- Looking like an idiot
- Needing help, but asking for help makes you feel like a failure
- Not wanting to be vulnerable
- Not knowing where to begin
- Doubting that it can happen for you
- Wanting to know the end before you begin
- Thinking about it, trying to solve it in your head, going over the same things over and over, but never moving forward
- Living on auto-pilot without putting your energy into what you want
- Being too busy
- Waiting for the universe
How many did you check off?
So many of these so-called blocks are grounded in the way we’ve come to think about the world and about ourselves. In coaching, we call these “underlying beliefs” which are thoughts that you think over and over until they become beliefs.
The good news is they’re just beliefs. And if they’re beliefs, you have the power to change them into something that is more useful to you.
When is this going to happen for you?
Sometimes, it’s just realizing that what you have isn’t good enough anymore.
Other times, there’s a life-changing event that makes you question everything.
Maybe it’s a slow shift, a wearing down, a change over time that where you notice that you’ve arrived in a place in your life that is unplanned, undesirable, un-you. At midlife, sometimes, we’re just done with feeling that way.
Sometimes, it’s a progressive knowing that you’re living someone else’s idea for your life – maybe your parents, maybe society’s, maybe money’s idea for you.
Sometimes, you have a flash of knowing, a clarity you never had before (this often happens when you loosen an underlying belief).
Whatever it is, trust that you’re right on time. Even if you don’t consciously know what to do, there is an internal guidance system, your intuition, guiding you forward.
Your desires mean something.
I truly believe that we come into this world encoded with a path or a mission or a reason for being. That’s where our desires come from. Your next step is derived from all the things you’re longing for, interested in, have affinity to. For example, you’re not suddenly going to want to become an astronaut or a carpenter (unless you feel called to those things) out of the blue. It’s going to be something connected to who you are.
Maybe it’s right next to you, calling you. But, you dismiss it because of one of the things on the list above. You say, “not that” because I can’t make any money at it. What else you got Universe? And then you wait. And you lose your intuition and your guidance system. And then you’re lost in the longing and following others’ ideas, society’s ideas, money’s ideas (btw, I’m never advocating that you give up money for your dream. We need money. You can want both and should have both.)
It takes courage to step out of your comfort zone and look at these things. But, what if, all that was holding you back was an underlying belief? And you could change that belief? That’s what most of coaching is, changing those underlying beliefs.
There are many paths to fulfillment.
Clearing up unuseful beliefs is like clearing away a bunch of branches and brush that are blocking a path. Then the sun-dappled path lies before you, and what once felt daunting feels like the sweetness of being yourself on a path you can’t wait to explore.
It’s a big switch from feeling lost to feeling like you’re doing what you’re meant to do. To go from having a deep knowing that you were made for more, to being the kind of person who’s out there in the world, doing the things.