TAKING MY OWN F-ING ADVICE TUESDAYS

 

This morning as I cleaned the kitchen and made carrot soup I was listening to a podcast. Red Table Talk with the women from the Smith family. They had Brene Brown on and one of the younger women asked a question about comparison, social media, and millennials.

The response from Brene Brown made me hit rewind and grab a pen.

“Ground yourself. Plant your feet and find some purpose. Let go of the notion that you are going to press into your purpose while pleasing people”

 

It stopped me in my tracks. F$%K!

This is where I have found myself in the last 3 years of the great unraveling. The re-invention of … or perhaps the re-membering of who I am. Working through what my purpose is without tying it to pleasing people.

And can we talk about purpose for a minute? It feels like in the age of social media, influencers and people posting fancy snapshots of moments in time there is this added pressure for our purpose to equal our pay cheque.

Now, this next part might be hard to hear but I often challenge people to ask themselves what roots them in gratitude, brings them back to being grounded.

Is it your family? Your job? Your volunteer role? Baking or cooking and sharing it with others? Is it sitting on a board of a startup business and providing direction to entrepreneurs? Is it to be the best mom or dad you can be and help raise the next generation?

Have you considered for a moment that what you do in your work life is not your purpose… and that it is OK. Perhaps the job you do provides the money to pursue what you love?

 

This is the part that ruffles feathers. Perhaps there is a possibility that what you do to bring home a pay cheque is not your purpose. Perhaps it is one of the things I listed above or something else that brings joy. Did you ever think that the job you do brings in money to pursue something else?  Sometimes I think we place all this pressure on ourselves to meet something that isn’t even our own idea of happy, contentment and bliss.

So often we define ourselves by our job, by the title, or the organization we work for.  With what the world has been going through… its own unraveling… so many have found themselves losing all of that and unsure of who they are without it.

I understand that, I was there once. I only saw myself as the job, the organization and title. I didn’t know who I was in the world without that. The universe taught me a tough lesson and I lost of all that, more than once.

 

You know what happened along the way?

I started to realize that no one cared about that but me. No one cared where I worked, what job I had, the title that went with it and they sure didn’t care about how much I was getting paid… but I didn’t know how to be me without any of that.

It takes time, commitment, a team of people to support you and some hard work to take the steps on the Brave Path and I can tell you the work is never done but I have found it is worth it. Mother-freakin worth it!

 

And remember, if you want a partner who will push, pull, encourage, and cheer you on there is always room for you to work with me on redefining your Brave Path.

 

With gratitude,

 

Liz