Self

What is self?  Who are you?  What is your purpose?

These are all huge questions that don’t have any easy answers.  My thought about who we are is we are the self-talk, the little voice in our heads, and our purpose is to be the best version of ourselves possible.

Unfortunately, that little inner voice tends to be the most negative voice we hear.  Our own self doubt tends to dominate that voice.  The good and bad news is all of those around us, and what we choose to put in our eyes and ears have tremendous influence on what that little voice says.  The shows we watch, the media we consume, the stories we tell ourselves, but it’s not all bad news.  This isn’t a lecture on the evils of media.

The good news is you can influence that voice, and change the stories you tell yourself by not only choosing carefully what you consume, but by spending the time to work on yourself.  Working on yourself is the best and most meaningful work you can do despite what some people say.  Some people think the best work you can do is be a parent, or a mentor, or provide jobs for people.  I would agree, those are all great things, but they aren’t the best.  In fact they aren’t even possible if you don’t start with you.

So how do you influence that voice?  Let me start with something simple.  I believe in you, and I believe you have unlimited potential.

Now to be clear, I’m not saying that if you jump off a cliff, you could spread your arms and fly.  What I am saying is you have the ability to design your life such that if you did decide to jump off that cliff, you could glide among the clouds using the ma-made wings you developed, or be strapped in and bungee down only to spring right back up.

You are enough.  You are all you need, and no, you are not perfect but the good news is no one is.

Why is that good news?  Because perhaps you’ll lower your standards for yourself and others.  You will fail, and that’s OK.  There is a tremendous amount of pressure and there is always the self doubt people have that they fall short in some, or multiple ways.  The fear that other people will judge you for being less that perfect.  Not only that, there are other people will take their own shortcomings and project them onto you.  Some people will be unhappy, and think that everyone should be unhappy like they are.  So they will try to drag people down with them.

Your parents may have not achieved all they wanted to yet, so you feel they put additional burden on you.  Your friends, your lovers, your neighbors, are all dealing with their own baggage from whatever they have gone through on their journey.  But I want you to know you are enough.  You have everything you need to be happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise.  You know what you have to do, so taking the time to do it, is all you need.

So the question now is, if perfection isn’t achievable, how do you measure up?  So I ask you in return: ‘Measure up compared to whom?’

Is it fair to compare your basketball playing ability to an NBA star who has dedicated their life to the pursuit of excellence in the game?  They grew to be 7′ tall and tremendously athletic.  Is that you?  No.  There are natural, and environmental challenges we all face.  Is it fair to measure yourself against LeBron James?  Your parents?  Against your siblings?  Your neighbor?  Your friends?  No.  None of those measuring sticks are what you should use.  Everyone has a different set of gifts.  Whether that’s natural ability, or opportunity, or just plain luck.

Your success should only be measured against your own potential.  Simple as that.

Everyone has a unique ability.  It might be languages, and the ability to communicate well.  It might be the ability to care for others.  It might be the ability to paint, or love, or plant, or inspire others.  It might be the ability to craft better beer than anyone you know.

And on the flip side, there are going to be things you’re not great at.

It might be public speaking, or sky diving, or dealing with conflict.  Whatever you are good at, if you work at it, you can become the best version of you possible.  Whatever you’re not good at, you can also work on if you so choose.  You can face your fears, work on your conflict resolution, and become a better version of you.  Should you expect to play basketball like Lebron James?  No.  Should you expect to reach your fullest potential wherever you choose to focus?  Yes.

But let me ask you a question.  When something happens to you, or you do something, or behave some way and you look back on things, how do you describe yourself and your actions?  Do you describe yourself as a generous person?  Or a person who does dumb things?  Does the voice in your head say ‘I am a crazy person.’  Or ‘I am a risk taker.’  Or I am a lover, not a fighter.’

My real question to you is what comes after these words for you:  “I am…”

I am.  Those are the two most powerful words in the world, because whatever comes after them is how you identify yourself and present yourself to the world.  They shape the stories you tell yourself and your brain will make you act in accordance with those words.  The words make your world.

So choose what comes after ‘I am’ carefully.  I am generous.  I am smart.  I am all of the wonderful things I want to be, and while I am on a journey, and may not be there yet, I am capable of living the life of my dreams.  I am working on it.

Along with ‘I am’ there are others that are almost as powerful.  Should, would, and could.  You have to be careful with these in the stories you tell yourself too.  Each of those words talk about actions that you or others have taken, or will take, and most often are regret related.  I ‘should’ have done this.  If I had the resources I ‘would’ do that.  Don’t you think that person ‘could’ have done a better job?

Each of these things impact stories you tell yourself.  The should, would, and could.  So how do you move beyond them?  You rephrase them in a powerful way by using the ‘yet’ solution.

Taking the previous examples: I should have done this, but I hadn’t learned how to deal with that situation yet.  Now I know how to deal with it next time.  I don’t have the resources to do that thing, yet.  I don’t think that person has learned to do the best job they can, yet, but I’m sure they are on the path.

Everyone is on a journey, and we must give them the benefit of the doubt.  They will make mistakes.  They will make judgement calls based on poor beliefs and misinformation.  They will mess up.  Give them a break, and the most important person you should give a break to is you.

You have to put your own mask on first.

If you’ve ever flown on a plane, there is the safety talk they give at the beginning of the flight.  Should the cabin loose pressure, put your own oxygen mask on first before taking care of others.  I love this metaphor for life.  There are a million things that happen to you, and that happen for you, that happen because of you, and some that happen for no apparent reason at all.

You can’t control any of it.  But what you can control is your reaction to those things.  That’s really it.  Your perspective is everything.  But to have a good perspective on anything, you have to understand yourself, and control your reactions.

Getting angry to stuff that happens is a natural response.  Our ancestors would get hungry, angry, kill things, and feed their family.  Fortunately we have evolved, but not that far.  When someone cuts you off in traffic and you’ve missed breakfast, our natural reaction is not a pleasant one.  You tell yourself stories about how inconsiderate they are, how they almost caused an accident, how they are reckless and dangerous.

But let me ask you a question: What if they were rushing to the hospital because their father was dying?  What if there was an emergency they were going to, or a situation they were fleeing?  Does that change your perception of the event?And perhaps you are a little more forgiving now?  You have no idea what their situation was or is, and yet your reaction is based on your experience and the stories you tell yourself.

Understand that all you can control is your thoughts and actions.  You will have natural reactions, but over time, you can tell yourself different stories that will help, rather than hurt you.

It’s not easy to approach each new situation with a fresh set of eyes that are unique to that person you’re engaging with.  You have experience, and bias, and a long history of interactions.  But the person or situation you are facing is unique.

My challenge to you is bring forward only the lessons and the positive experiences from your past, do your best to apply it in the future, but leave your regrets behind.

In your life you will have success, you will have failure, and you will certainly have a lot of luck.  It’s in our nature to take credit for our successes, blame others for our failures, and circumstances for everything else.  I hope you will take an equal measure of credit and blame for both your wins and your losses, and know that part of both was due to luck.

Remain humble in your outlook and actions. You were lucky to be born where you are, to be in the situation you are in, and to simply be walking this earth.  There is someone, somewhere, who is much worse off than you are and they would trade just about anything to be in your shoes right now.  They might wish for your health, your wealth, or your wisdom.  They might wish for your circumstance, your experience, or your potential.

You are amazing, and unique, but you also must be gracious and understand there are forces at work that sometimes align in your favor, and sometimes align against you.  We are but small specs, on a small spec in the universe.  Where you are today, right now, is only one of many possibilities that could have become your future.  Just think about all the things that had to go right for you to be here, right now, right where you are.  The reason I tell you all of this is so you realize that no matter how smart, or good, or talented you are, I am grateful to be here on this journey with you, and you should be too.

Despite all of this luck and good fortune, we all have moments in our past where we behaved poorly.  Where we made a decision or mistake that resulted in things going badly for ourselves or for others, and it’s potentially a source of regret.

Forgive yourself.  You are your own worst critic.

You are the judge, jury, and executioner in your own mind.  But what you also have to realize is you can also give yourself a pardon.  You have the ability to take that decision, or experience, and view it for what it was.  A mistake.  A learning opportunity.  Hopefully not a mistake you will do again, but understanding you are not perfect.  You are not above making mistakes.

You are going to screw up, and learn from it.  That is part of life.  Part of living.  Part of this amazing journey we’re on.  But it’s easy to beat yourself up over something that happened in the past.  So forgive yourself, and make amends.

You also must realize that sometimes those who were impacted by you and your mistake, may not be ready yet to forgive you yet.  But that’s OK.  That is their burden to bear.  That is their decision to make.  That is not your problem.  Your job is to take from your past all the lessons you can into the future, and leave the burdens behind.  This is easier said than done, especially at first.  But eventually you will get there.

So be kind to yourself.  Love yourself.  Say it out loud: ‘I am amazing.’  because I truly believe with all my heart that you are.