This year, let’s toast BE-ing. It’s a new year, a new number, a new beginning. Here’s to more hope, more happiness, more health and more humour for all of us this year.
I have a confession. Last year, I finally threw away the fears that have held, bound and gagged me for the last six years. It’s horrible what happens when we allow our negative thoughts — no matter how small and minor — to terrorize us. We don’t live Life. Fully. Out loud. With Gusto. The way we are meant to.
So, after much internal work (I know, big yawn) I found my way back to the lady I was at 45. Wild, crazy, confident, full of vim and vigor, joyous, and very much ‘out there.’
I’d be lying if I told you that it is super easy.
The physical stuff healed inside 18 months. But clearing away all the mental side effects? THAT took the time and energy. Some days I thought I’d never get to the end of it.
Yet by last October, I was guesting on podcasts talking about personal shame, about what it means to fall down hard and have everything taken away, about losing, finding and reclaiming one’s identity. About how to use the lessons Life throws at us. And how absolutely nothing happens TO us; it always happens FOR us.
Never in a million years did I ever think I would or could talk about business and personal transformation so easily. Never in a million years did I ever think I would or could straddle the two worlds of Main Street and Fringe Avenue. Yet, here we are!
May I ask one thing of you?
Can you make some space in your own thinking about one new idea? That idea is — what would your life be like without fear?
No, I am not talking about this damn pandemic thing. I am talking about the thoughts and feelings we all have when we are confronted with making changes in our world.
The thoughts of not being enough, or being ready. Thoughts of not having enough. The thoughts of making a fool of ourselves, of worrying what others think of us, of worrying we wouldn’t fit in. NONE of that is important.
What is important is knowing you ARE enough, that we are never ready, that we DO have enough, just as we are. That we can’t make fools of ourselves, that no one is watching us and why the hell do we WANT to fit in?
I realize this may read like crazy talk. And I am certainly NOT going to tell you to follow in my footsteps.
What I will say is, we are our OWN worst enemies. And time waits for no One. This is the only life we have. So make the best of it. For your own sake.
And if you’d like a shoulder to cry on or an arm to lean on, while you find your own set of butterfly wings, whether personal or business I am here. For YOU.
Here’s the truth.
A lot of folks are fired up right now. New year, new you. Maybe you’re one of them.
We all know what we have to do to get fit. Or to quit drinking. Or be more visible at work.
We all know exactly what we must do — even to lose our fears.
Yet, the number one reason most goals fail, most of us fail is NOT the know-how part.
The number one reason I failed, we all fail, is this.
I did not, we do not focus on becoming the kind of person we want to become.
BE-coming and BE-ing.
That is the goal we need to focus on. Regularly. BE-coming and BE-ing.
Our biggest risk is not having the mindset and habits of people who regularly do the thing we want in our life.
I learned this lesson the hard way. Last year.
Please don’t do what I did.
Whatever you want for 2022.
Focus on the BE-coming and BE-ing parts. Regularly.
And you will get what you want — or something better.
I promise.