The desire to be more than what other people tell us we can be — there's something so vital about embracing what we might do or be if we could just drown out the voices and opinions of other people. Truth feels like freedom. If you want more freedom in your life, or wonder what you might do or be if you could follow your own intuition, then keep reading ...
This is a question I get asked a lot: "I want to live the life that's right for me, but I have a hard time drowning out other people's voices. How can I know what's right for me?"
When I quit my magazine editing job I heard a lot of voices saying that I was crazy. "You've spent so much time and money on preparing for this. You're crazy to give up all those perks. You'll go broke." Over and over again, these voices continued to say the same things.
But all of those voices were in my head.
We have this tendency when we're beginning to follow our calling, to spend a lot of time imagining what other people will think or how our choices will impact them.
That part of us is a part we can call our "social self." The social self loves to please and appease. It's thrilled when other people are happy with us ... but it's not so good at helping us be happy with us.
On the flip side, our "essential self" is very good at helping us do what's right for us. It's the part of us that knows what we love, what lights us up, and even how to get us there.
The trick to knowing what's right for YOU, is to know which part of YOU that you're listening to.
Start to identify what part of you is running the show at the moment, and you'll start to live more from your essential self — the part of you that knows what's right for you.
When your social self is more dominant than your essential self:
- Your life feels more like a grind than a great adventure.
- You are stressed and angry more than you are laughing.
- You feel misunderstood more often than you feel understood.
- You find it very difficult to concentrate on what you do, most of the time.
- You rarely do the things you loved to do when you were a kid.
When your essential self is more dominant than your social self:
- Your life feels like a great adventure.
- You laugh often.
- You often feel understood.
- You find it easy to concentrate on what you do, most of the time.
- You often do things you loved to do as a kid.
If you find that your social self is more dominant, then in each moment when you feel stressed or angry, ask yourself this question: "Is it true that I have to do this thing that's causing me anger or stress, or do I just believe I have to?" Then in each moment where you feel misunderstood, ask yourself this question: "Is it true that this person doesn't understand me, or am I not letting them see me for who I really am?" And in each moment where you aren't doing the things you loved to do as a kid, then ask yourself this: "If I knew that activity would enable me to become stronger, more powerful, and create a life more in line with what's right for me (and have fun while I'm doing it!), would I do it?"
Let me share something with you ... each person who says "yes" to their essential self and begins to strengthen that part of them, begins to know what's right for them. That's when they can powerfully transform their trajectory — and even their destiny.
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