Earlier this year my daughter (26 years old) suggested "Girl Wash Your Face" as a book to read during our vacation which she thought would make for good conversation on our annual mother daughter trip. I made a note, downloaded to my kindle and then went on to read whatever book I had already begun.
Fast forward 6 months and I am with two amazing women I work with and we were discussing what motivates and empowers us. My friend, lets call her Tina suggested a podcast by Rachel Hollis. That names sounds familiar however, not sure why. I get home and the next morning I listen to one of her podcasts and felt so inspired. Later I am chatting with my daughter and suggest the podcast and she reminds me that is the author of the book she had suggested earlier this year.
The point to my rambling on here is sometimes we aren't ready for the teacher or the lesson. Sometimes the teacher has to be presented to us over and over until a light finally goes off and a quiet voice in our head says: "Oh, this sounds familiar maybe I should consider there might be something to this"
Now we are finally getting to the point of my blog post. Somewhere in our past we have learned to make excuses, justification, apologies or just flat out settle for giving less than 100% to ourselves. At some point we decided everything else comes first and that as long as we are there for our family, friends and job we are doing all we can.
Here is the thing, as long as we keep believing the lie we will keep repeating the mistake. We can't give what we don't have. We can't be there for everyone else if we aren't there for ourselves.
Time is not limitless.. tomorrow will eventually be yesterday and with each day that passes you are further training yourself to ignore your own hopes and dreams. I love this quote by Rachel, "Never break a promise to yourself!" Ask yourself, if I could tell myself 5 years ago to do X what would that X be? Now ask yourself if I could get one thing done in the next 5 years what would that be? Now take action. Every day do something towards that goal.
Regrets only happen when we stop trying... I remember a lesson from my grandmother that a regret is only a regret when we realize we have made a mistake and don't do anything to change our course. If you are honest with yourself, breaking a promise to yourself over and over is exactly that. It may not happen tomorrow, yet at some point we will look back and wonder "What If"
You have nothing to lose.,, When you really think about it, effort costs us nothing. I have found countless lists of goals and dreams I have written down and while several have not come true, many have. When I have made a commitment, mapped out a plan and started taking action amazing things have happened. Then there is a setback, doubt slips in and we begin the cycle of excuses all over again.
You have done it before... We all have a success story in our past. Something we overcame we thought we would never get through. Yet here we are and our greatest teacher is our past. Where we have been and what we have seen and how we have responded can teach us what to do differently. If we had a single victory there are many more we can have once we stop lying to ourselves.
You are not worthy... STOP this thinking! We were all meant to shine, to live out our unique purpose... There is a quote from that goes something like "Our greatest regret is to die with our music still in us." We all have a unique view of the world and our paths are all unique to us. Therefore, we hold a gift of something which can inspire others or elevate humanity, find a cure, entertain the world the options are as endless as the unique gifts we have. Yet to bring those to life we must be honest with ourselves. We must find our gift and take action to bring it to life in a way no one else can.
These are my goals for the rest of the year. To try and stop lying to myself. To not write down to workout 5 days and only do 2 because because because. To look within and listen when I lose track of time. Deepak Chopra says "we are living our purpose when time disappears." Yet is there a chance we aren't even aware that is happening?
Please share your stories of why you want to stop lying to yourself.
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