*This post was created from a video I did on my Facebook page. You can watch the video here, too, if you’d like.
Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be but to find out who we already are and become it. Dr. Wayne Dyer
For a long time, I was trying to be the perfect mom, wife, and leader.
I lead a very large team made up of people from all over the world and felt a lot of pressure especially to be the perfect leader. I did not feel as fulfilled as I knew I could be. I was actually feeling kind of stressed from the pressure and felt that I still wasn’t quite being my true self.
Over the last few years, I’ve really been on a journey with my leadership, learning that changing my head talk and focusing on personal growth is the key to feeling more fulfilled in my work and life.
Rather than leading from a place of “needing to be the perfect leader,” I really wanted to lead from a place of love. As a matter of fact, when I chose the person I enrolled with, it was specifically because she was the opposite of me. I knew she would teach me more about loving other people than anybody else.
I was always so stern and didn’t really love on other people except for my close friends and family.
When I started with doTERRA, not only did I not know a whole heck of a lot about essentials oils, but I actually came to learn later that I didn’t have a whole lot of love for myself.
Since I’ve started doing the work of changing my head talk, I’ve been able to unearth my true self and become much more loving.
As I went through this uncovering process of figuring out who I am at my core, I found that so much of it was covered up with my negative head talk. A lot of which started in my childhood.
I had to protect myself a lot when I was younger. In that protection, I wouldn’t let other people in or show my true feelings because I had learned it wasn’t safe to let people in.
As I’ve learned how to change my head talk, though, I’ve grown so much as a person. And, not just that, but my team grew, my business grew, and my income grew.
This happened as I started to show more of myself and be vulnerable – I tell my team that I’m still working on this myself.
And I’ve realized that as I’ve uncovered the dirt, as my own personal light started to shine, I gave other people permission to do the same.
I have watched people that I coach go from somebody with almost no self-confidence to this bright, shining, amazing leader that I saw in them that they just didn’t see in themselves.
It’s so fun to see that transformation – and it’s not overnight. But it’s people that I’ve partnered with who, frankly, have been willing to do the work that I have done.
One other crucial thing I have learned in this uncovering process is that what I disliked in others is what I really dislike in myself.
I wanted to share that with you because so often we judge other people for things we actually dislike in ourselves.
I remember feeling upset the first time I heard that and thinking that was ridiculous. But since coming to this realization my relationships with difficult people have gotten better.
I just want to encourage you to start paying attention to the things that annoy you in other people. Because chances are, you may have some of those qualities in yourself that you need to be aware of and work on.
That might make you mad – it made me mad.
But my coach helped me to start looking at my response to what they did, instead of the action. And it was such an eye opening experience.
One of the things I teach – and do without fail – is gratitude. It gets me focused in on the positive things in my life. It gets me focused on looking at people in a positive light. Even if they hurt my feelings, now I can see that they are just wounded.
The work has been challenging, but it’s been a really amazing journey learning who I truly am.
I hope this helps you take a step back and start committing to finding your own self.
