Getting Honest with Yourself
All amazing creations begin at the bottom. They begin at the surface, where the roots are, where a strong base is built so that we can feel confident about it holding up all the other things we are about to lay on top. I mean, if you think about that even briefly, even if you never thought about it before, it is obvious. It’s not that we can’t create an idea over coffee and run with it, but without really giving the time needed to process how to secure the base, the most important and secure part, the rest really becomes a crap shoot.
Maybe it will hold, maybe it won’t.
I bet many of you listening today can think of instances where the landing spot at the top became the daily fixation, and not surprisingly, one day all of it came crashing down before the top was clearly in focus. And then I am sure the same is true about other instances where you were guided, maybe with just the right amount of support or coffee that day, to settle into your big plans in a slow and steady way. Taking proper precautions with all of your ideas and plans to secure the base, and the heart of something that would grow into something much bigger...
Or maybe, you have no idea what I am talking about, because you still are unable to even look at what holds you back from where you want to be.
Honesty is the topic today because it is critical to where you are in your life, your business, and your world. Whether you are just beginning to build a base to something much larger, or are deep in the weeds of what is already big, you may very well miss out on designing a purposeful life that way you have planned...unless you can get honest. With yourself.
Honesty is critical to where you are in your life, your business and your world.
This overwhelm, this line of questioning you do or don’t do, this acceptance you have for the way your brain spins in circles one minute and endlessly second guesses every decision in the next...is standing in your way. I know you have a running list of who and what is at fault for this, but until you can pause and look honestly within, this battle, the one that is literally keeping you from what you want, will continue to be as it is. In the way.
“Getting your shit together requires a level of honesty you can’t even imagine. There’s nothing easy about learning you are the one that’s been holding you back the whole time.”
Try not to take that personal or in a negative way. I am not implying that you do not have your shit together. But this is about being honest. With yourself! We can hear that quote as an insult, if who we are is someone constantly trying to convince others that we have all of this down pat. All figured out. No chaos, no spiral thinking, no to-do lists left unfinished, all nights filled with hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Yet if we step away from the crowds for a minute. If we back up from all of the worries about who is watching and what others will think, we can acknowledge that at least once a month, once a week, maybe even once a day...your brain quietly yells...can you just get your shit together?
Is it just me?
The morning I beg the coffee pot to make me a hot cup of coffee, whine about it appearing to be broken, convince myself I may have to go back to bed if I can’t have this cup of coffee...only to finally realize that I never put water in the coffee maker.
Yea, days like those!
The Hanukkah night with my boys that was fun until my son cut the plastic ties around his brand new guitar strings with so much pressure that the scissors sliced open his hand...blood literally reaching the kitchen ceiling. The rush to the emergency room. Then the next morning when I left the car running in the driveway, to run in briefly for my son’s script, only to find that left in neutral (accidentally) my car could creep up the driveway, into the garage and finally stop only after slamming into my house.
Yea, days like that.
Days were you can sit and cry and bemoan how hard your life is, or you can get real and say, “I think you need to slow down and get your shit together.”
But getting honest with yourself is not always due to bad days, and things going awry. Sometimes getting honest is simply about looking inward instead of pointing blame out and doing your best to figure out what is actually going on and what you can actually do to change it.
Getting honest with yourself means lowering your shoulders and acknowledging what is hard, what is frustrating, what is out of your comfort zone and then taking a good look at where you could use some support. Getting honest does not mean defeat. It does not mean failure. It is just what is true right now, in this moment. The longer we deny what is true, the longer the moment will last.
The night after the emergency room visit, which was my first emergency room visit ever, not to mention ever as a single parent...I should have asked for help. I might have taken a half day of work the next day just to give myself the space to regroup. The truth was that I was panicked. One minute we enjoying Hanukkah as a family of three and in the next, my 9 year old had fear in his eyes and hands covered in blood. But I couldn’t admit panic because I was too busy being the brave mom that can handle anything. I got this. I got this. I got this. And I did, until I didn’t.
I was too busy worrying about what others might think. That god forbid someone might see that life is actually hard for me too. Then what? Would it change their opinion of me? And then what if it did? I mean, yeah, probably when we are most vulnerable and honest with ourselves and others, opinions do change. But so what? Now at least they will know who I really am. And quite honestly, if my true self doesn’t work for them, so be it. Who needs people in our surrounding circle that only can handle our dressed up, perfect hair and plastered smile look? How is that even helpful?
It’s none of our business what others think anyway :)
Why are you afraid of being honest? What do you think will happen when you reveal what’s true? What will happen when you admit that you are facing challenges that you don’t know how to resolve yet? Sometimes just admitting something as simple as that, opens your mind long enough for a new solution to arrive.
Listen, for what it’s worth, I believe in you. I believe that if you are capable of dreaming up this idea, you are capable of achieving it. But first, you need to get honest with yourself, so you can get honest with others, so you can get the support you need.
Just because you CAN do this on your own, does not mean you should. But you already know that, so we will keep that as one of our secrets for now, until you are all finished holding yourself back.
And remember: If you change one thing, it can change everything.