Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Stepping Out of the Box I've Been Putting Myself In

 Yesterday morning, as I was going through my morning routine - meditation, affirmations, gratitude, journaling, to name part of it - I got to thinking about some areas in my life in which I feel stuck, or don't feel like things are quite lining up. Like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle. And it occurred to me that one of the reasons I feel so constrained is that I've been more or less trying to pigeon hole myself, unintentionally of course. 

I've never been a person that easily fit any type of description - and I get that really, nobody fits neatly in to one particular category. But for me, it's been particularly apparent. Growing up, I didn't fit in with the cool kids, but I wasn't especially uncool (I don't think - maybe I was, who knows). I was an athlete, being a gymnast, but I definitely wasn't part of the "sporty" crowd. I worked hard at school, was focused on education and was in the honors and AP classes, but I wasn't part of the geeky or nerdy kids (again, I don't think?). I wasn't popular but I wasn't particular unpopular. I was a little bit of everything, but not quite enough of any one thing. Really the only group I fit in with was my gymnastics team, and even then, only my specific team, because while we were all pretty talented, we weren't hard core - we practiced a ton and worked hard, but we also took off every time it was someone's birthday to do a group trip to Great Adventure or down the shore or some other shenanigans, and our coach understood this. So all of the weigh-ins and cut throat nature and sacrificing life for gymnastics that you hear about (which honestly appalls me), that wasn't us, and it wasn't me. 

I think that to make up for never fitting in, even to the group of people who didn't fit in, I've always tried to find "my thing, my specific place." As a business(es) owner, I add to that the advice of basically everyone in business everywhere that it's all about super niche, finding your specific hook, honing in on that one thing that makes you stand out. It's easy to get sucked into the idea that if we can't streamline everything into one specific title/description/eleven second elevator pitch, we won't succeed. And, as someone with a Master's in Marketing, I get it. People who hire a professional rarely want a "jack of all trades and master of none". They want someone that's specifically trained at what they're looking for. At the same time, I think that trying to force oneself into on label/group/tagline, either in business or life, can be detrimental. 

One of the reasons I love being an entrepreneur is that I don't like being confined by a job title or position description or company red tape or anything of the like that. And I know I'm a person that has a lot of interests, experiences (life, career, educational), and passions. I'm a person who always likes to be learning, exploring, adventuring, finding something new and different. I know I'm a person whose skills involve deeply connecting with others (even as introvert with social anxiety), understanding and empathizing with others, helping others to connect with themselves. And these aren't attributes that can be neatly fit into one particular job title or position. I know I love the travel planning business. I have found deep meaning in yoga and mindfulness, and bringing this to others. I am a writer who recently published my first novel. I am passionate about mental health advocacy and suicide prevention. Yet I've been trying to pare this all down into the equivalent of a one-line "What am I? What do I do?" In my mind, it looks like one of those fan interaction games that you see on the big screen at a baseball game, where the different colored cars are racing along the track, each one pulling ahead for a time and then falling back, and everyone trying to guess which is going to win out. But human journeys aren't a car race graphics for fan entertainment. It's not "this wins, and everything else fades away". And yet that's the tactic I've been trying to apply to myself as of late. And it's why I'm feeling so stuck, so "not quite right". Because that isn't quite right, at least not for me. 

I love travel planning, I have long time clients that I love working with, and helping others to experience travel makes me come alive.  But it hasn't been my full time, storefront business for some time now (and right now it's my no-time business because I'm not booking anything due to COVID). Yoga and integrated wellness (mind, body, spirit) touches me on a deep level, and I am loving exploring where this path is taking me. But I haven't allowed myself to focus on the exploration part, because I've been so focused on trying to quantify it into something that fits nicely into the typical business school business plan. Mental health advocacy and the Spread Hope Project are deeply a part of who I am, but it's unlikely that they'll be a career path in and of their own (thought they do combine nicely with other things I do). And writing, well, I have no goals of being a NY Times Best Selling Author. I write because I love to write and, if it's on my blogs, to share with those who might get something from it. I don't have to choose one thing and eat, sleep, live, breathe it, giving up all else. Quite frankly, that's not me. Confining myself to one set path and staying within the predetermined lines/groups/classifications has never been my thing. And who knows, maybe THAT is my thing. Maybe I'll find some parallel paths, maybe I'll watch interests and passions and skills merge to create something I hadn't imagined, something I couldn't imagine when I was trying so desperately to quantify it and "figure it out right now". 

So for the next little while, I don't know how long, I'm going to allow myself the opportunity to explore. Instead of trying  figure out not only "which car is going to win the race" but exactly which path it will take and what exact time it will finish at and every single twist and turn of the race, I'm going to allow myself to be open. I'm also going to start listening to myself, my inner knowing, my intuition more. It's always been extremely strong for me, but I tend to discredit or discount myself. (Note: this NOT a "I'm not listening to facts/stats/science" statement AT ALL). It might be that I come back to an idea or path or plan that I'd previously had. It might be that I discover a different way to move forward. What I do know is that whatever I do, it will be true to me, and I think that this, more than any marketing strategy or business plan or impressive elevator pitch, is actually what I've been missing. 

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