Choosing Your Power

Edited Excerpt from Chapter 4 – “Not Good Enough”

If you don’t take that chance – actually risk being better – then you only rob the rest of the world of you and your gift. Instead of wondering who you are to say a certain thing or be a certain way, it’s time to flip that thinking around. …You ARE good enough to share who you are. Dare. Risk. Be!

When I was in graduate school, I found myself wondering about my path. Who am I to be an expert and guide others in their lives? I mean, each person has his or her own life. I found myself shrinking into a routine. It was comfortably uncomfortable. And somehow, I managed to realize that I was letting my box get smaller and smaller. The routine was just that. It didn’t allow for expansion. It didn’t allow for anything new to enter my world. Deep down I knew that if I wanted to be better, I had to embrace my struggles, my frustration, and my comfort levels. I had to really push myself to begin choosing my own power.

Push? Push to choose to be powerful? It was actually recognizing that I needed to choose to BE POWER. My routine was safe, predictable, and boring. It held me in while the world kept evolving at some scary pace. I just wanted to do my work, be judged as “good enough,” get my degree, and get on with my life. I didn’t want to make waves for anyone. And I certainly didn’t want to upset my own little world.

And that was just it. My little world was becoming smaller because I was making it so. I was not acknowledging that I was “good enough” at the moment. Nor was I able to see that I could own the process looking in the mirror each morning and telling myself “today is the day that you are Choosing Your Power.” I allowed the shackles of safety to hold me in. Then something smacked me. Hard.

Hit by a flare of insight, I grabbed a 3X5 card and in bright orange ink, I wrote a four-letter word ending with K on it.

I taped this word on the threshold of my bedroom door so it would be the last thing I read as I exited the safety of my room and the boldest command stuck in my head as I entered the world. My reminder to myself: that four-letter word??

RISK

By reminding myself to take a risk, I was engaging in a contract with myself, one that I encourage you to do for yourself, as well. The contract is simple: Today, I shall do one thing different from the way I used to do it.

I’m not asking you to set the world on fire (not yet, anyway). I’m suggesting that you risk well. Many parents tell their kids to “be safe!” as they set out on their journey for the day. Since my insight in grad school, I’ve stopped wishing anyone that. Instead, my wish for others, including you dear reader, is that you RISK WELL. That doesn’t mean you find the busiest intersection and step out into traffic without regard to stoplights. It means that you find something that is different from what yesterday’s definition of safety for your bubble would have been. Then, push out from it.

…celebrate that you have a choice, for the ability to choose allows for the sense of control in one's life. Actually making a choice is the act of self-empowerment.

Often, the fear of facing choices can be traced back to a particular style of survival while younger. There was a “right” answer that you may have been expected to have had, over and over, in multiple situations. Authority figures would make inquiries of you and, out of fear of being punished – even if the punishment was internal embarrassment – the polar styles of either blurting out anything to get it over with or freezing in search of the “right” answer became a style preference. As one of the only tools of survival, you used it to get through. Because it worked, or at least worked well enough to get you through, as an adult you may have found yourself perpetuating that interactive style with parents, teachers, bosses, and even your chosen partner. The thing is, at this point you’re teaching others how to treat you because of the way you’ve responded in the world.

Don’t let fear kill everything that you know to be possible. Most people delay making difficult personal choices and end up paying a high price for doing so. We, as humans, are driven to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Look at any choice you’ve ever made. Did you feel like you made that choice in order to feel happier or more comfortable? Or, did you feel like you “needed” to make the choice because not doing so would cause you some pain? We get comfortable avoiding pain and end up redefining what true happiness really is.

Remember that we each do the best we can with the tools we have. It's trusting that those tools can be used that becomes difficult. Doing so allows for great personal growth.

[Enjoy the challenge and the rewards that come from Choosing Your Power!]