Day 275: I Don’t Have to Prove Myself Anymore
Invincible. Up to the challenge. Never give up.
Those are words I have always associated with my approach to taking on new things or difficulties that come up.
But I'm starting to rethink that and instead think about what those words have cost me as opposed to what they have brought me.
Being that person has brought me some big wins in life, and it's also taken a lot out of me.
And at this point in my life I've decided I don't have to prove myself to me anymore.
Nobody else was asking me to prove my worth, just me.
Some of this is becoming clear as I type.
I started this because I was thinking about this big repair turned major remodel I'm just finishing.
But as soon as I typed that first line of words, it took me back to my 20's and how fiercely I went after everything I wanted. I had to prove myself on so many levels and I had such a big chip on my shoulder.
I was petite, young, looked younger, was a woman surrounded by men with more experience. All that made my co-workers and male bosses look down their noses at me.
They couldn't figure out how I was so successful with my clients. When I was first in real estate I would sit anyone's open houses because I didn't have my own listings yet. That was how I got clients.
Then when I moved into working at developments, we got whoever walked through the door when it was your turn.
So why was I number one so many of the months, and salesperson of the year. It didn't look good that the only woman would beat them. Winning just made them dislike me more.
So the chip on my shoulder continued to grow along with my need to always be at the top, no matter where I moved or what kind of real estate I was selling.
Then I found A Course in Miracles and something changed. I didn't have that fight in me anymore.
My husband told me he wanted the old me back. The one that never backed down, that was always ready for a confrontation. I took care of all of that so he didn't have to.
But I was done with that part of me and shed it like an old skin. I became kinder and gentler and came to dislike any kind of confrontation.
But the proving part of me still lived underneath it all.
It just became quieter. More acceptable. Easier to disguise as responsibility, competence, loyalty, or being the person who could always get it done.
I proved myself in building my own businesses. Creating the Women's Business Empowerment Summit as an annual event with top speakers wanting to be on my stages, only 3 years after I was sitting in seminars myself.
I proved it with my rental business. Taking on more clients than I needed to and saying yes to all requests.
But this will be my last project of this kind.
I have a feeling it will be my last altogether. But, in case it isn't, I've been running some new rules in my head.
You know you have to do make some changes when you hear yourself using language that you heard from your grandparents.
In the last few days, in my mind, I've said to myself, "This will be the death of me" and "This is going to kill me", more times than I'd like to admit.
As soon as the phrase starts, I stop it before it finishes. But the point is, I'm not happy with the situation I put myself in. I don't want to be doing anything that brings up those sayings.
This project grew in scope after it was started, mostly out of necessity. And it still had a hard deadline I couldn't do anything about. But that deadline was just for the repair.
Yet there was no way around all the other things that got added to it once we got inside the walls and floors.
Then there were hurricanes, two.
So, as I start working at 4:30 in the morning texting my client and still texting at 7:00 at night, I ask myself if I'm being a drama queen, or is this all just too much?
I've decided it's my choice and I say it's too much.
I have that right. I am not an employee. I can choose when to call time. And I'm out.
I get to choose and I also have to own that choice.
In case down the road I want to take on another project, it will look different. This one has taught me a lot. I will have rules and financial consequences for each separate contractor, and no hard deadlines that give no room for unforeseen events, like hurricanes.
We are allowed to change our minds, even if we've been doing something for a long time.
We are allowed to choose ourselves, our sanity, our peace of mind, even if we haven't chosen it before.
And we can make new rules and put significant consequences around them to keep people accountable to their word.
And yes, people will cry and throw tantrums if we've never held them accountable before. That's not our problem anymore.
Because we write the script for our lives. We can write people out the same way we wrote them in. We can move someone into a smaller role if they are no longer fulfilling the prominent role in a way that works for the life we are creating now.
That does not make us cruel.
It means we're no longer abandoning ourselves to keep a role filled by someone who is not honoring it. And it means we're allowed to change the part we have been playing too.
I don't have to be invincible anymore.
I don't have to prove I can take the pressure.
I don't have to keep saying yes to things that make some part of me say, "This will be the death of me."
That language is information. My body heard it. My soul heard it. And now I'm listening.
There was a time when being the one who could push through anything helped me survive, succeed, and build a life.
I can honor that version of me. She got me here. But she doesn't get to decide everything from here.
I get to choose peace now.
I get to choose capacity.
I get to choose rules, consequences, boundaries, and the kind of work that does not require me to disappear inside it.
I get to say, "This is too much."
And that can be the most powerful thing I do.
Today's Gentle Practice
Think about one role you've been proud of playing.
Ask yourself:
What has this role given me, and what has it cost me?
Maybe it helped you survive.
Maybe it helped you succeed.
Maybe it helped you feel valuable, needed, strong, or safe.
Now ask whether it still belongs in the same place in your life.
You don't have to reject the version of you who carried it.
You can thank her.
And you can still choose something different now.
With you,
Lynn
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