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Born to Be Me

It seems that throughout life the pressure to perform at our best, to achieve our best, to wear the right clothes, to drive the right car, to attend the right schools, to have the right number of kids…….is enormous and suffocating. I like to refer to it as the Status Quo. It’s that invisible line that is drawn in the sand by a society that judges success and achievement by the pictures they’ve seen in magazines, from shows on TV, or from the highlight reels so often shared on Social Media.

So much “fake news” is circulating these days and the pressure to reside firmly in the “Status Quo” is resounding. We need to be a certain way, hang out with the right people, send our kids to the right schools…It seems like a hamster wheel of living a life for other people as we pretend to be all the right things to the wrong people…you feel?

My truth is that I found more comfort in my skin by striving to live my life being unapologetically me versus trying to be the person that everyone else seemed to think I should be. Seems obvious but my path to this awakening has taken me most of my life to get even just a glimpse of the ease that sits on the other side of the uncomfort of trying to live life on someone else’s terms or ideals.

What I have found is that by committing to a life that is ever evolving, I realize I need to invest time and money in growing myself….ongoing as we never really arrive at a destination of fulfillment. And as I grow, I find myself thinking different, wanting new things, dreaming more, and not really connecting with some of the superficial relationships I have had in the past.

This last piece is one source of major fear for me because I never feel like I wanted to leave anyone behind in my journey to the lifestyle I want to live.

But here is the rub….I’ve learned that as I evolve personally, I attract a different group of people. As I become clear about what I want and what I believe in, I’ve attracted people in my life who believe in similar things. I’ve grown rich in friendships from around the world as our business has expanded into other markets and some of these relationships have grown into the most precious that I have to this day.

How? For me, and most importantly, the people who I can call friends now love me for who I truly am, not for who they think I should be. 100% love ..with all the good things, and all the bad things, they love and accept me for being my “perfectly imperfect self”. And I reciprocate the love right back. We live in a perfectly imperfect world, that’s the beauty in it. Everyone has a story, everyone has something brilliant to offer the world. It may just look a little different than what we would expect.

As my kids grow through their teenage years, I see the same pressures that have been bestowed upon them. Their child like desire to fit in I find takes them away from the beauty of their unique and brilliant selves. Even though both Kari-Lyn and I want to help them see the truth of this game more than anything, we know that they will also need to travel a similar road to self-discovery. A road that will likely only appear when they are ready to see it. Let’s hope the teacher is fair when he/she appears.

As for me, I will continue to be me…the person I was born to be. A person who can be counted on to tell the truth all the time with compassion. A person that believes there is never just one way to achieve. A person who is passionate about helping others live their life’s purpose and to create personal freedom for myself and others. I choose to live my life attracting more and more of the people in the world who want to live in alignment with themselves and be who they we born to be. Born to be unique. Born to be brilliant. Born to evolve. Born to be free.

Are you ready to be?