Unshackling Yourself from The Identity You Think Others Attribute to You
Honestly... Why do we do this to ourselves?
“What if I fail horribly? What if I'm awful at It? What if people have a laugh at my expense?”
I think most of us deliberate far too much about choices in life we perceive to have some reputational consequences tied to them. We often let the opinions we believe others hold about who or what we should be dictate whether or not we’re willing to make a change or take some new leap in our lives. Half the time, those “opinions” we’re allowing to limit us are imagined. The other half of the time, they remain less important than doing “the thing” we believe to be the next step towards our best life.
“… It’s a just a concept. It shouldn’t control you.“
It may be helpful to keep these few ideas in mind as you weigh whether or not to take that new path that intrigues you, but may feel like a stretch or too “out of character” for you:
Most people are too busy with their own lives to judge you as intently as you think they will.
The road to getting better at anything is paved with persistent, incremental failure, so look at failure as an expected, joyous part of the process.
Just because you might not be great at something at first doesn’t mean you should avoid it. If anything, it may mean the opposite. Life occurs outside your comfort zone.
You don’t need to be limited by the identity you think others attribute to you. That identity is just a concept. It shouldn’t control you. The only constant in life is change, so OWN IT. Embrace continual growth and change as your identity. It’s a path few choose to walk, but it’s a beautiful one, just waiting to be explored.
It’s in that spirit of liberation and empowerment that I send you off into your weekend with a little poem you may be familiar with. I hope it brightens your Friday in some small way.
The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
Have a wonderful weekend my friends.