I woke up this morning and wrote this sentence in my sleep. I do that type of thing.
“The more yourself you are, the more things will flow with ease.”
I love waking up to these kinds of sentences. I always feel like super smart things are happening in my dream state.
This theme has been coming up with clients this past week too, so I felt it natural to share as it’s likely coming up in the general collective as well.
Several people have shared with me how they keep trying to run their businesses the way they see other people do it, and they are constantly finding themselves frustrated and burnt out. “Of course, you are burnt out,” I respond, seeing their sweet, tired faces. Pretty much all of my clients are conscious entrepreneurs and creatives and many of their businesses are centered in helping others. They genuinely want to do whatever they can to share their gifts with the world in service to assisting other people. I can see how much they want to create things where the people who are touched by their businesses win, and they also get to win. I’m a big fan of everyone winning. It’s beautiful. But it’s most beautiful for everyone if they are in alignment with who they are here to be!
You see, a person will rarely experience true success—in the sense of deep, personal fulfillment—by following the model of how someone else has done something. For example, let’s say Joan has decided she’s going to be a coach. Awesome. She’s done lots of work on herself, taken all the classes, has a sincere desire to be of assistance to those a few steps behind her on the journey. Amazing. But she just can’t seem to get the clients or make the events work and finds herself overwhelmed by all the tech. And the worst part is—Joan is comparing herself to all the other coaches out there. She’s watching all the social media lives, the promotions, the fancy automated emails, the lead magnets, the promos promising that if you sign up for this course, you’ll make 7 figures in 3 months, etc. She feels like that’s what she needs to do to be “successful” in this industry. So, she undertakes the massive to-do list to get all of this done, and she does it! The big launch happens, but then, crickets. Nothing. No one is contacting her; no one has signed up for the big seminar she worked so hard on. She feels like a failure.
Is Joan a failure???
Not at all. However, Joan is temporarily failing at the most important thing—she is failing at being true to herself by trying to do things the way everyone else does it! If she would just slow down and take some time to really listen to what lights her up and what she enjoys most about her career, and focus her energies on being an absolute master at those things, a lot would shift for her.
One of the biggest mistakes I see people making is trying to be like someone else, then getting exhausted by that, and then feeling like a failure afterwards.
You. Are. Not. Meant. To. Be. Anyone. Other. Than. You.
You are absolutely unique and amazing exactly the way you are. YOU are the special gift that you are here to bring the world. If you spend all your time trying to be someone else, you are depriving the rest of us of you. Not cool. Same goes for all those brilliant, quirky ideas you have that you are being shy about and not doing—you are depriving the rest of the world from experiencing that unique magic. Also, uncool.
And if that isn’t enough to propel you to just be yourself, let’s go with the grace and ease component of this, and I sure hope you want more grace and ease in your world! When you are yourself, truly, truly yourself, and you fully own your super weird, lovely eccentricities and the special way that you do things, you will find that your life will all of a sudden start to have a much easier flow to it. When you move your energy from all that pretending to be this, or do that thing that someone else is doing, all of your energy comes back to you. It’s not dispersed all over the place in some scatter-brained way. Your energy will naturally go into assisting you to be more you. And with all that energy focused in one direction, you will have a lot of natural, organic momentum towards creating a life that is exactly what you want it to be. Ta da! The most profound things are usually the most simple ones.
Don’t believe me? Try it. But there’s one catch—you can’t kinda try it. You’ve gotta be you and really own it.
