If I asked you to “tell me a little about yourself”, what would you say? Where would you start? I’m going to take a wild guess. Well, my name is (your name) and I work as “x”.Whatever it is about that question, so many people go straight to the job that they do as if it was written on their birth certificate.“Mary Jackson, born on June 12th, coming into the world to work as a teacher”. Ends. “Paul Johnson, born on June 12th, coming into the world to design houses”. Ends. If I was bumped into you at a bus stop and you were open to having a conversation, I would ask you to tell me about you. Tell me about your life so far. Tell me about what excites you. Tell me what one change you would love to see in the world, that you think would have the biggest impact. Tell me about your fondest memories, and why they mean so much to you. When you tell me a little those answers I may get a feel for the essence of your being. Telling me what job you do just tells me that you have a job, that I could make assumptions around - but it still doesn’t tell me much about YOU. Let’s go again. “Tell me about what you are really good at?”“What are your strengths?”“What comes naturally to you?”Hesitation…“Well…”I can almost see the words running through your head…“I better keep the head down and not blow my own trumpet too much here…”Something else that sometimes comes with having an irish birth certificate. Born with all the abilities, strengths and potential to live an abundantly successful life and a little trumpet so that we can share our stories, our wins, our learnings. Our happiness! Let other people see and get a feeling that it is possible for them too. Unfortunately, there is “T&Cs” in there for many of us. In big massive letters.“Use freely once you are not hooting any louder than anyone else around you”Do you see where I am going here? In the past three years I have worked with some incredibly gifted people, who didn’t know they were gifted. I have worked with creative people, who didn’t even realise they were creative. I have worked with confident people who didn’t think they had any reason to be confident.I might never get to meet you, I may never get to have a conversation with you. If you have read this far I’m going to make a fair assumption that deep down you know you have more in you. No matter how well you’re doing currently, or how far “behind” you may think you are - did you feel a little something stir inside of you?Well, I can’t sit with you right now. I can’t help you see what is already there. But I can challenge you. Pen.Paper. Space.Take these three questions, and over the course of a week fill them in as more answers come to you. Tell me about what you are really good at?What are your strengths?What comes naturally to you?*Sometimes the things that come naturally to us, the things that we find easy - we can make the mistake of not putting a value on them.Go through the questions above. Take time. Call your closest friends and ask them for their honest thoughts. Talk to your parents, your siblings and get a clearer picture of what those closest to you see, that maybe you don’t see for yourself?I was giving a talk on “Showing up as your authentic self for authentic success” last week. I made the point that when we look to our past, we can often look to the things we didn’t succeed at, the times when things didn’t work out. I portrayed this as “looking over our left shoulder”. Our vision appears like it’s 20/20 when we’re searching for our own failings and shortcomings. Now, if you look over your right shoulder at your past, but this time look with 20/20 vision for what you have already achieved. Down to the smallest and most minute little success’. Initially vision will be a little blurry - but give it time and like when you walk around a corner into a really bright light, your eyes will adjust!For every single one of us. Nobody gets left out here. We ALREADY, before we go looking for proof in our future actions, have plenty of success’ and evidence of our innate gifts and strengths. I told myself a story for a long time that I wasn’t creative. It was a strong story and I’m aware of how it became so strong. It was blinding. I have since “remembered” that I won a poetry competition in 4th class. I came 3rd in a Credit Union art competition. I have wrote fictional stories in school that the teacher read out to the class. We sometimes dismiss the talents we had when we were younger. If there were skills you had when you were younger, I guarantee you that it’s still in there. You just need to dust it down a little and give your hidden talents a chance to breath. The extra joy and energy it can bring to your life is priceless. You have the 3 questions for yourself earlier on in this piece. Here is the last one.
If you are feeling like you’re playing small, you’ve spent enough time “fitting in” and you know there is more in you but you’re confused over how to get clarity and confidence in moving forward, feel free to drop me an email thomas@tmclifecoach.com.
