personal best

Be True to Yourself

When you’re getting an idea of who you are, not the you you’ve been programmed to accept but the you that came to this planet with a clear purpose, message, passion, and mission, you are in the process of defining your unique and individual self and you want to be true to yourself, the you that you are becoming.

You are knowing your truth (which may change periodically as you continue to grow and expand in your own personal evolution), have a desire to achieve your highest and best, want to live a better life, your best life, make the world a better place, and have a strong compulsion to be true to yourself.

“To thine own self be true”
~ Wm Shakespeare

While being true to yourself seems simple enough on the surface, beneath and deep within yourself this sense of congruence can look like so many things depending on where you are on your personal journey.

You know you’re being true to yourself when you’re feeling good about who you are. You really like the you that you are becoming and are starting to love yourself for who you are.

That voice inside your head which badgered you with different forms of negative self-talk is fading away into the dark void as your self-confidence rises to match the acceptance of your divine mission.

Understanding that communication is the key to delivering your own unique message, you are finding new and better ways to express yourself and speak your truth without offending the people you are trying to effectively communicate with.

You’re not having to maintain different personalities for different work, social, friend and family situations. You can represent your self as yourself without having to compromise, impress anyone, or care about what anyone else thinks, and you’re feeling good about it.

You are living a more centered and congruent life and are able to manage life’s situations, circumstances, and unforeseen obstacles which may arise, without the panic or sense of helplessness that you may have once felt in the past.

There is a simple ease for finding places of peace and joy in all things, decision-making comes without confusion or conflict, and you are more able to exercise your daily feats with accuracy, a high level of precision and performance.

All this is true for you when you are being true to yourself.

To be true to yourself you can give up the activities which no longer serve your new, more expanded self.

You no longer feel the need to kowtow to others, so you don’t need to play games anymore. You don’t need to manipulate, fear someone might be trying to manipulate you, or even feel like having to laugh falsely regarding an off-color joke or remark which conflicts with your alignment.

Remember when you felt a sense of guilt or compulsory obligation to agree with someone, or compliment someone who really didn’t deserve it out of fear of not being liked, loved, or regarded as a nice person? You don’t do that anymore.

Misrepresenting or compromising your authentic self is no longer an option, and now, the idea of it seems not only incongruent, but feels like hypocrisy, or lying. In fact, you’re realizing, you can be totally honest, never needing to lie again, not even to spare someone’s feelings, because now you are finding ways to agree to disagree without lying or compromising, without dishonoring someone else’s right to maintain their own opinion, even if it contrasts your own.

Your openness and honesty empower you to be who you are, in all your strength and in your weakness, without having to make apologies if you’re experiencing a moment when you’re not on your game 100 percent. You’re allowed to have a bad day, or a less than peak moment, without having to apologize to yourself or anyone else.

Militaristically forcing yourself to do the things that you need to do to get to where you want to be in a devil-may-care, take no prisoners-type attitude no longer serves you. You are finding new, more positive, ways to find the motivation to do the things that serve you on the way to achieving your highest and best.

You don’t have to compromise your integrity anymore, not when you can be true to yourself.

Don’t Settle for Mediocrity

If you really want to live a better life, your best life, and make the world a better place, you’re going to have stop settling for less than your very best. Mediocrity sucks the life out of your highest potential. Bold determination, dedication and persistence, even when you don’t feel like it, wins the race to achieve your highest and best.

This is the difference between those who live the best lives, and those who settle for what they can get from life.

If you are confronted with a roadblock or obstacle in life, do you turn away, feeling rejected, unworthy, or consider yourself a victim of the system, resigning yourself to utter those “woe is me” lines, “I guess that’s just the way it is.” Do you approach a volunteer project, or any potentially explosive undertaking, by eeking out your bare minimum effort because you just want to get the job done so you can go off to do something else?

If you’re not pushing through, or giving everything you have in everything you do, and laying to waste what you might even have considered to be your limits to achieve new levels of ability and competency you didn’t even know you had, you’re settling for less than your very best.

Oh sure, everyone says, “I want to live a better life,” and, “I want to make the world a better place.” They might even dare to utter the words, “I’d like to have the best things this life has to offer,” but fail to do the work, to take the action to make their life different, it will remain the same, day after day, until the day they die. And that’s okay, because that’s what keeps the sociologically powered money machine running.

Most of us are just eating, working, consuming, sleeping and keeping ourselves so busy participating in distractions and doing nothing meaningful, leading us nowhere and leaving nothing behind.

Is that the life you want to live? Okay. It’s not bad. But if there’s something inside of you that longs for something better then you have to stop. Stop settling for mundane mediocrity and make a stand against just being another sheep in the herd, and do something about it.

Is it scary? Yes. Will it take pushing back when people expect you to just do what you’re told and nothing more? Yes. Will it make you stick out from the other sheep? Yes. And if the other sheep don’t like it, “too ba-a-a-a-d.”

In order to even consider living a different kind of life, a higher level of living, you must want a better life, and the more you want it, the more likely it will be better. You have to have a reason to make your life better that is so profound and meaningful that you will continue to break through the barriers that stand between where you were and where you want to be, no matter what obstacles you are presented with.

Oh, it’s happened to all of us. God gave you an idea an inspiration, a burning desire to do something or to reach out and help others, and you waited, second-guessed yourself, let someone whisper into your ear (probably yourself) about how you’re not good enough, not rich enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough, not healthy enough… on and on, until you’re so knotted up, you couldn’t do anything if you tried.

So, you had been given the vision, the keys, all you had to do was to push through and do the work, but you didn’t, and God gave that idea to someone else. And you saw your gift come brought to fruition by someone else because you didn’t embrace the gift you were given.

Your idea was given to someone who refused the knots, pushed through the barriers and wouldn’t take no for an answer. He or she kept knocking on doors, putting his-or-her-self out there, in difficult situations, every day proclaiming their message until their seed found fertile ground. They were dedicated and committed enough to endure countless objections and thousand of no’s, or “that won’t works,” in order to get to that one, “let’s give it a try.”

People who make it, aren’t just given “it” on a silver platter, they aren’t the lucky ones; they “make it.” With blood, sweat and tears, in the face of any and all fears they might face, they persist. These are the people that make it and they make it, by the sweat of their brow with their own two hands, and nothing can stand in their way.

Oh, they may hit that one big setback, that knocks them off their feet, but they don’t give up. They don’t give up, turn away and walk home in tears. No. They get up, wipe their tears, take a deep breath, and keep going, because for them, there is no going back.

Now, they’re smart about it, they learn on the way. Even if they start out awkwardly all alone they get better, they hone their skills and gather a support system along the way.

Sometimes it takes a village to make a thing so, but it starts with the one. One with an idea, a dream, a message, or a mission… Someone special. Someone who is not going to settle for second best, someone like you, who can see this through to its incredible conclusion.

It’s going to take steadfast nerve, some strategy, assembling a team along the way, and doing the work that needs to be done, making progress every day, whether you like it or not.

Are you going to shy away? Or are ready to do this thing now?

Then do this thing.

Do it with everything you’ve got.

You got this.

Mediocre Personal Best

There comes a time in your life when you look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Is this all there is?”

And you might just find as you contemplate the meaning and quality of your life you’ve allowed yourself to accept. At some point, you may feel incongruency with accepting a life that is mediocre at best and you begin to consider you deserve the best and you will no longer resign yourself to living a mediocre life.

You draw the line in the sand – it stops here – you know your worth and never settle for less.

Society has programmed us to find comfort in mediocrity, to never expect too much from life, commercial products or services, or other people (even those closest to us) for that matter. These low expectations have lulled us into a basic state of trance where complacency is not only acceptable but begins to feel safe, if not good. And for the most part, it’s an effective method of controlling the masses with the least amount of effort, if we can all stay in the haze of confusion feeling as though we’re all in the same soup; until you’re hit with those brief moments when the state breaks down.

Don’t worry. You are surrounded by enough hypnotic stimuli to pull you back into the trance state no matter where you are. If you’re looking at yourself in the mirror, you notice your hair, clothes, other items behind you… If you’re walking or traveling, there’s architecture, signage, cars, other people wearing different apparel… If you’re in the wilderness, there’s the sound of crickets, birds, flora and fauna to focus upon… There are the everyday concerns of life firing synapses in your brain, or your cell phone begs for your attention… and all of these are triggers that snap you back into your state of unconscious consciousness.

When you shift back into the comfortably numb soup you think, “I’m okay enough,” as you get what you settle for and you’ve resigned yourself to being okay with that, too. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Overcoming Mediocrity

Then there are those who for whatever reason, resist returning to the state immediately, prolonging that moment of clarity. If you’re one of these people, the time may have come for you to evolve into a grander version of yourself.

You focus intensely on the inconsistencies of mediocrity and vow to never settle for less. With your undivided attention, you pledge to expect more, give, live and love more, perform better with higher efficiency and increase your quality of life to achieve your personal best.

As you separate yourself from the fog of acceptable compliance you begin to explore the expansiveness of all this life has to offer. Armed with your new sense of clarity you’re beginning to see things are not always as they seem. Your awareness is expanding as you start to take on individual characteristics that are uniquely you as you not only dare to be different but begin to transform and evolve into the new you, affecting every cell of your body and reprogramming your DNA.

All the while you’re attracting and acquiring new skills and abilities (some you were born with) as you explore this emerging frontier being more pliable, open and give it all you got so as not to hinder your expansion and accelerate peak flow.

To be different you refuse to accept mediocrity and never settle for less than your best as you give it all you’ve got to only settle for the best from this point forward because you deserve the best. You know that now.

And for those who continue on their path accepting mediocrity, you realize we’re all just doing the best we can with what we have. When their time comes (and it will) they will realize they don’t have to continually settle for less than the very best this life has to offer. You do not focus on the evolution of others, while you allow them the time and space to find their own way with love and acceptance.

It’s all on you as you begin to cycle and recycle through your ever emerging new personal best.