How to BE who you always were...
As much as it’s CRAZY to say this, a lot of your current business behaviour started out on the playground. For real. Hear me out...
The movies depict it all the time, right? The hierarchy of the school system. No, not the one behind the doors of the staff room - but the one out on the playground, in the changing rooms and the lunch hall. I can’t really describe it better than a survival of the fittest of sorts. Except I know now, it wasn’t the ‘fittest’ who survived. It was either the ones truly able to be who they were created to be without bowing down to peer pressure. Or it was the chameleons - the ones most able to play a role convincingly enough for others to believe.
Despite, the Performing Arts degree I later received, I was not a great chameleon - too many other factors got in the way, the same factors in fact, which caused me not to be able to own who I truly was.
Let’s paint a picture of this playground, shall we?
We’ll start with the quiet and unassuming. They’re not a threat to anyone else and so they’re typically left alone - to their homework, or the comics, or whatever. Next though are the ‘geeks’ and they ARE a threat. Their intelligence and quick wit is rarely matched and so the king and queen bees often mock them so as to ‘put them in their place’, so to speak. These ‘geeks’ are the same ones who go on to start global corporations and change the world by the way (hi, Bill Gates) and that sort of potential is sniffed and squashed out by the others a mile off - even if only subconsciously at 6 or 7 years old.
Just before we’re introduced to these king and queen bees, there’s the ones who hang around them. They’re their friends to a degree. But they’ve also been conditioned to know their place and not to rock the boat. This means they stay in the bee’s ‘good books’ and aren’t subject to isolation - no one likes being lonely. And then there are the queen and king bees - the ones who, because of confidence, or looks, or intimidation (and often a mixture of the three) control the playground, rule the roost, and generally say what goes.
Can you put yourself in that picture? Can you recall who you were growing up in that (let’s face it, pretty cut-throat’) environment? I certainly can...
Before school had as much of a sway as it later did, I’d spend many weekends with my siblings at my grandparent’s house. Perhaps it was because I was the eldest - but I was the bossy one. I’d create games for us to play and activities for us to do. One of my favourites was performing. Performing felt impactful, powerful and fun - all the things I wanted to be. Actually, they’re all of the things I already was - but more on that later. Often reluctantly I’m sure, my brother would join me (and maybe my sister - I’d definitely have tried...but I think she was too small!) and we’d perform songs and plays and who knows what else in front of my parents and my grandparents.
I felt safe, I felt confident, I felt free.
Knowing what I know now, it’s clear to me that I felt this way because I was being who I was created to be - leading from the front, being seen, and doing something which impacted others. Performing just seemed like an obvious way to get there.
Until the playground that is... the playground is where those rules stopped applying and I no longer felt I was able to be who I was. Not fully anyway. If my behaviour at my grandparent’s house was nature, the playground was most certainly a mixture of nurture and choice.
I was not the obviously pretty girl. I had frizzy hair I didn’t know what to do with at the time, and I was yet to have my braces fitted to sort out my few prominent front row of teeth. Although I might have been ‘queen bee’ at my grandparent’s house, I didn’t know how to navigate this new terrain and I found myself playing the role of the ‘hanger on’... the friend of the queen bees, yes, but also so desperate to be liked by everyone (anyone else a recovering people pleaser?) that it meant I’d never be cutthroat enough to make it to the top of the pecking order. There’s SO much more to say on this, but I lived that way for years - in the shadows of who I truly was, unsure of how to step into the light, and feeling that my best solution was simply to keep the most ‘powerful’ sweet by staying small and staying second.
Can you relate? Do you have a ‘grandparent’s house’ memory of who you always were at your core? And a playground memory of who you allowed yourself to become? Yours will be different to mine, but the same question remains...
Who are you allowing yourself to be NOW?
In your life, in your leadership, and in your business?
Are you adopting the position I described of myself in the playground? Small, squashed and filtered. Or that of me at my grandparent’s house? Confident, seen and free.
Just because you’ve been adopting the role of who you ended up becoming for the majority of your life so far (people pleaser, always second best & aiming to keep the peace) doesn’t have anything to do with you NOW stepping into the shoes of the person you always were. Yes, you’ll have to do some work. You’ll have to remind yourself you’re still safe to be you outside of the places that are comfortable, you’ll have to de-condition yourself from the lies you once believed about who you had to be to fit in.
But then you get to do it. You get to simply BE who you always were. You get to be free.In your life, in your leadership, and in your business?
Are you adopting the position I described of myself in the playground? Small, squashed and filtered. Or that of me at my grandparent’s house? Confident, seen and free.
Just because you’ve been adopting the role of who you ended up becoming for the majority of your life so far (people pleaser, always second best & aiming to keep the peace) doesn’t have anything to do with you NOW stepping into the shoes of the person you always were. Yes, you’ll have to do some work. You’ll have to remind yourself you’re still safe to be you outside of the places that are comfortable, you’ll have to de-condition yourself from the lies you once believed about who you had to be to fit in.
But then you get to do it. You get to simply BE who you always were. You get to be free.
The world is waiting for your work.
By the way… If you know you’re ready to finally draw a line in the sand as far as hanging out at hobby status or side hustle goes, I have just the thing. My ‘What’s in Your Hand’ live workshop has been created to empower you with the skillset and mindset you need in order to bring your God-given mission to life using the very gifts, skills & talents you already possess. You’ll walk away with a 4-week action plan and will be ready to get going immediately. To learn more and to register for next week’s workshop, click HERE.