I know what it’s like to look in the mirror after a long day and not recognize the person looking back. A few years ago, my life on paper looked pretty fucking sweet. I had a job I excelled at, a home I loved, a solid life partner and a ride-or-die collection of friends and cats.
Every day I got to do things I was good at, and get paid well for it. Every day I was surrounded by people who loved and were rooting for me. By some standards I’d “arrived”, but the problem was, I was a mess inside.
It wasn’t where I arrived to that was eating me alive, it was how I’d arrived. I’d spent pretty much the whole of my life second-guessing myself and deferring to people who were older, wiser, more experienced, more put together, more anything of what I thought I needed to be.
I was an expert in reading the room and adapting who I was in the moment to make sure I had a place in it.
The Problem?
I got so good at being who the world wanted me to be – and being rewarded for it – that I forgot to get to know myself. I forgot to ask myself whether I actually wanted any of the things I had and I was scared to death to look at the things I’d let go of that used to light me up.
I was bone tired.
I was anxious.
I was burned out.
I didn’t feel safe.
I didn’t trust myself.
And despite the super power of feeling all those things and remaining high functioning, I felt like I’d gotten this life completely and utterly wrong. Because if thoughts create things – and I believe they do – then what the HELL had I been thinking?
The kicker is, everything “they” say to do to feel better just made me feel worse.
The hard truth is that I was evaluating my life, my work, my relationships, my HUMANITY by standards that were set for me. Standards I agreed to and never bothered to question.
I never bothered to ask myself what was more meaningful to me. I never bothered to ask myself what was true for me.
I was killing it with every part I played for someone else but bombing in every and anything else that really, truly, organically mattered to me.
Because when we understand who we are in relationship to ourselves when we’re winning, losing or something in between, that’s also when we realize that the standards we are breaking our backs to live up to are just stories we tell ourselves to distract us from the real work of being human.
If you’ve ever had the thought, “I am my own worst enemy” you’re in the right place.
I can help you how to truly know, like & trust yourself, to rewrite the rules of success from the inside out.
Now? I make the rules. My metrics are mine.
I started in small ways and I’m not done yet. Because you can’t undo a lifetime of conditioning in 21 days or 10 Easy Steps and anyone who promises you can is a goddamn liar.
After decades of being whoever had the most power in the room wanted me to be, I started getting to know myself, locating my own source of power and discovering who I actually am, what I want and why.
- I stopped moving through my life on auto-pilot
- I started saying yes when I meant yes and no when I meant no
- I stopped going along to get along and started taking up space
- I discovered the magic of “good enough”
- I quit questioning myself when something a so-called thought leader said rubbed me the wrong way
- I started making faster decisions and stopped tying how good I was to how productive I am
- I learned how to listen when my body needed sleep, my mind needed rest and my soul needed peace and fucking quiet
- I started teaching other overthinkers, overdoers and pretenders how to do these things, too
And since 2019 I’ve been all in on helping others do this work for themselves.