“Trying to be all things to all people all of the time is a fool’s game that will, in the end, drain mind, body, and spirit.” – Marcus Buckingham
What happens when we place the expectation upon ourselves to be all things to all people?
- We stop paying attention to those moments in life that strengthen us.
- We put everyone else’s needs before our own.
- We allow our lives to be led by other’s wants.
- We regret choices we have made or didn’t make.
- We take on more and more responsibility to overcompensate for our feelings of regret.
- We lack direction and purpose, feel stuck, unhappy, and weak.
The consequences are simply, YOU FEEL EMPTY and DEPLETED. The pivotal moment arrives and you ask yourself, “What am I doing with my life?” It doesn’t matter if you are in your 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s…it is a painful place to be.
In Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, Marcus Buckingham addresses this very myth; I must be all things to all people. He writes:
“Other people’s expectations of you can be extraordinarily persuasive. And damaging. Not that they want to damage you. It’s just that they have expectations of you, and you are carried along by these expectations, until you come to believe that their expectations are your truth.”
When we stop paying attention to our own voice, emotions and strengths, we give up the most important thing in the World, our own true, authentic self. We merely become marionettes walking through life waiting for someone else to pull the string that directs our next move. That is, until the string breaks.
It is time to reclaim YOU! You don’t have to be all things to all people! Nor do you need to reinvent yourself.
“The secret to living a strong life is not hidden from you. It is not cached in some recessed corner of your personality. It is not “out there” somewhere in the future, in some perfect job you have yet to find or some goal you have yet to reach. Nor it is a random thing, tossed around haphazardly by the fates.” – Marcus Buckingham
You reclaim your life by looking inward, re-examining past successes, acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses, and accepting yourself with love, respect and honor.
To get started, think about a time in your life when you accomplished something that left you feeling positively strong – one of those moments when you were firing on all cylinders and were in the flow. Vividly recreate that moment in your mind. What were you doing? What were you thinking? How did it make you feel? As you recall this moment, what is happening to you? Are you smiling? Perhaps, you let out a slight chuckle. Do you feel more energized? Hopeful?
What you just did was REDISCOVER THE TRUE YOU! Embrace, cherish, and recall moments like these often and you will live a strong, happy and fulfilled life. It is never too late to start!
The POWER of ME
Today, I choose MY life.
Not what you think it should be, want it to be or expect it to be.
Today, I choose ME.
Not who you want me to be, think I should be or expect me to be.
Today, I AM me.
The REAL me!
The me I was BORN to be.
Nobody can TAKE me away from me.
Today is the first step to FREE me.
It is the only step forward to BE.
Without the real me, I am useless.
With the real me, I am LIMITLESS.
I AM ME.
–©2016, Beckie Jorgensen, Certified Strengths Coach
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