Here's a biggie: I just realized that I see myself as a failure. And as long as I continue to do that, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Oh, don't get me wrong -- I have no problem starting things; leaping into relationships and businesses and all sorts of ventures and adventures. But completing them? Not so much. I still have slippers I started knitting in fourth grade. Maroon, cozy and half done. I've never reached my goal weight during any of the 40,000 times I've done Weight Watchers. I finally did get my Master's degree, but that was after walking away just short of one 20 years earlier. Marriage? Well, we know how that worked out. And I am now engaged, but who knows when that date will ever be set.
This is huge.
I've worked it back and it seemed to rest in fourth grade with those slippers. And Mrs. Kelly, our Camp Fire Girls leader. The goal in Camp Fire Girls, as I saw it, was to accumulate as many beads as you can, so that you could have a really cool looking vest, displaying your success. Kinda the equivalent of the Girl Scout badges, but prettier. I remember a discussion on one particular bead that you could get for completing tasks. Perhaps it was because I had abandoned those slippers that it hit such a chord with me. And I am not exactly sure, but there is the potential that I lied about that one in order to get the bead. Perhaps it is time to forgive myself for that one!
So how do I turn this one around? How do I love myself not only for what I have accomplished but for what I have attempted? For just being me? It comes back to a redefinition of success. Instead of success being the completion of my goal (of being the best, brightest, wealthiest, etc.), I'm going to work on living this new definition:
Success is living with my soul in control, heeding its call, trusting the process and releasing all judgments and expectations as to the outcome.
Maybe this lifetime for me is about the adventure. It sure seems like it has been, looking at my life in retrospect. Maybe it's about my starting something, which then leads to something else bigger and better. Maybe it's about my starting something that will inspire someone else to listen to their soul.
There ought to be a bead for that.
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