Why are you hustling for something that isn’t valuable?
Stop spending time trying to impress people you are not inspired by.
You never need to hustle to prove anything to anyone, and you especially should not waste your time attempting to gain the approval of those who want to bring people down rather than lift them up.
Many people are unpleasable. Serve and collaborate with the ones who bring out more of who you want to be.
The reason you haven’t made space for it
The reason you haven’t made space for it, even though you would like it to be important, is because you are resisting it.
This is why surrender is the ultimate form of power. In order to make space for it, stop resisting it, and surrender to it fully.
If there is something trying to hold you back, try this
If you feel forces attempting to hold you back, do not go to war with them. Your freedom likely lives in your gentleness and forgiveness.
Fighting an unending, un-winnable battle with something or someone that will not change or go away is a distraction to your purpose and helps the opposing force win.
When you forgive it, you get to go free. Devote your energy to what’s yours to accomplish and let the heavy fall away.
Look for support ahead, not behind
As you work to create something new, it is likely that many, if not most, people you know right now have not done what you are doing, don’t share your commitment, or feel confronted by the change you are making. These will likely not be the best people to go to for support, inspiration, wisdom, or accountability. In their disconnection, they may even try to stop you.
Your most reliable source of support is your inner vision and connection to what you know to be true. From there, your work is to find the people who have already been moving down their path of creativity and courage for a while and seek support from them. This is the practice of seeking support from ahead rather than behind.
It’s not your job to get everyone to get it and support yo; that will waste your energy and keep you in proving mode instead of contribution mode. It’s your job to find the few who get it and go.
You’re blocking your guidance if you aren’t…
We are constantly being guided and shown the next step if we are willing to learn.
Suppose we haven’t actually integrated what we know a circumstance, lesson, or relationship had to teach us. In that case, we won’t be available to receive the next level of what’s waiting for us.
Ignorance, stubbornness, and laziness block us from the guidance we can access. What is it time to finally implement today?
Use kindness to keep your clarity
When I get frustrated with other people for not being their best, it is ironic that frustration takes me out of being my best. We become what we judge.
When I am not my best self, I am no longer creating my life, something else is, and I want to be in the driver’s seat. When I can remain kind, I can remain myself and choose from a place of clarity.
The Dictionary app defines kind as “having feelings benefitting our common nature.” Being kind doesn’t mean that I need to over-tolerate a harmful behavior or become complicit; it means I can understand that we all make mistakes as part of our humanity and that I can keep my focus on whatever is most beneficial to myself and others, which will never be frustration or judgment.
Our power lives in our clarity. Our clarity lives in our kindness.
The only shortcut that works
The only real shortcut to getting anywhere “quickly” is going all in.
We waste time when we hold back and disperse our energy. If you want to get somewhere as fast as possible, take the leap, give up the comfort of what you already know, go all in, and enjoy the transformation by fire.
A new approach to what’s best for you
Your job is to in this lifetime is to express your purpose, which is both singular and multifaceted.
As you work to listen inward and discover how to share your gifts, instead of asking yourself what’s best for you, consider asking yourself what it best for your purpose. This may help get your mind out of the way and see possible next steps more cleary,
Your life isn’t really about your preferences, it’s about your purpose. What if you prioritized it?
An entryway to gratitude
If you aren’t yet able to be grateful, start with surrender.
Gratitude is an inner state and not meant to be sourced from the other world. It is meant to bring balance to the challenges of life so we can have the levity to solve them, not cancel out the challenges. When we can surrender to the circumstances that are not ours to change, we may be able to begin to allow our natural loving clarity to emerge.
If gratitude does the feel accessible yet, try total acceptance. What might happen if you stop spending your energy on resisting and reroute it to active surrender?
No one can replace you
Yet you can create a team. You don’t need to do it all by yourself, in fact it’s better when you don’t.
You have a unique, irreplaceable contribution to make, and we all expand when we come together and let our gifts complement each other.
Release yourself from control
The things that are controlling you will never stop trying to contol you- your phone, your google calendar, your doubt, your judgment, someone else’s judgment, fear, your have-to’s, or your should-have’s. Their purpose is to block you. Your purpose is to remain free so you can serve.
Instead of waiting for things to stop controlling you, choose to stop being controlled. It is way easier to remain powerless, yet your fulfillment lives in your willingness to be uncomfortable enough to be who you are meant to be anyway.
Take your attention off of what’s thwarting you and focus on your inner, inherent freedom.
Prioritize your relationship with the unknown
Prioritizing your relationship with the unknown could be the most important thing you do, as everything is unknown.
Much of the subtle (and not-so-subtle) stress we carry around through our days and lives results from our worry about and attempt to control the future. If we can influence outcomes, we will be happy. And, of course, we cannot.
When we tune in, we have preferences that can guide us- the preferences to be happy, healthy, wealthy, connected, and self-expressed, which emerge as part of our true nature. However, we cut off our ability to have these things at a soul level when we believe they can only come from our prescribed circumstances. When we instead allow ourselves to be open to respond to and flow with any outcome as we work towards our preferences, we reconnect our power to receive wisdom, clarity, intelligence, creativity, and maybe even enthusiasm and joy.
We have no idea what the people we see today will say to us. We have no idea who will be in our lives in 5 years. We cannot control what other people or things want, do, or experience. We can only practice releasing our pull to grip to be free to fly.
Pushback is great
The only way you know you are up to something is if you receive pushback.
Mediocrity will attempt to thwart excellence. The status quo will try to stop change. Those filled with hate will work to kill off love.
As you focus on showing up and serving at your next level, let the resistance be a sign that you are on to something important, not a sign you should stop.
When you show up, you will know
So don’t sit out because it doesn’t feel perfect. You will know when you need to know; knowing is a process.
Show up, and you will know what to do.
Things only you can do
Set an authentic goal
Set your appropriate boundaries
Invest in your relationships
Stay connected to your dream
Ask for help
Take a break
Transform your health
If you’ve been waiting for anyone to do one of the the above things for you, no one will because no one can.
Your power lives in your willingness to let of the old and take charge of your freedom to choose.
Why it’s important to be OK with not being OK
If you’re spending your energy on not being OK with something that is happening, you cannot spend your energy focusing on your creative power. This generative, imaginative energy within you catalyzes when you accept and embrace reality, as you free your attention from the heaviness of resistance.
Of course, it is part of our nature to work towards what is possible and want to thrive. Yet, we must embrace the inevitable problems we will encounter along the way, both internal and external.
What if you could release the shoulds and shouldn’ts you have burdened yourself with and reroute your focus to loving contribution?
Learning as freedom
The moment you choose to learn from the situation is the moment you step out of being a victim.
Your learning doesn’t change, dismiss, or condone what happened; it simply allows you to keep growing, which is your nature.
Fail calmly
You can only fail if you are moving forward. And if failure is part of moving forward, then failure is to be celebrated.
The only way failure is actually a failure is if you aren’t using it to get better.
To get unstuck
If you want to feel unstuck, you must be willing to see things in a new way.
If you’ve been stagnant for a while, even after trying different tactics, it’s likely time for a new and uncomfortable belief.
What’s really been keeping you stuck in the old pattern? Taking the time to see the truth can unleash your momentum.
Leadership as service and service through sharing
Leading and managing are not the same thing, and we are all meant to be leaders. Leadership isn’t only about ensuring tasks are complete; it is about providing enough light for others to discover their way.
One essential way to support people in seeing in a new way is sharing your dreams and stories. This practice isn't just about self-expression—it's an act of service. Dreams reflect our highest aspirations, and stories chronicle our journey toward them, complete with all its highs and lows. As leaders, when we communicate our purpose through where we have been and where we desire to go, we do more than only share our goals; we create the human connections that we require to be able to come together and work towards something better.
Authentic sharing goes way beyond simply stating ambitions. It’s uncovering the humanness in each of us that makes us more similar than different. Each of our stories is a vessel of lessons learned, resilience, determination, heartbreak, and growth that help one another see parts of ourselves that we wouldn't be able to see without hearing from one another.
As you lead yourself and others, the ultimate goal of sharing from your heart is not to convince people to go where you're going; it is to help illuminate the way for them to move down the path to their dreams.