Last week I mentioned “pretty sparkly stuff” that makes us feel happy! Well, I just received a new BAXTER PLANNER! It’s in my favorite colour and it has all sorts of useful sections, planners, places for notes, goal setting pages, vision boards and of course, inspirational quotes!
When Marius brought it home, I did a happy dance and got to work filling the pages with my thoughts and to-do lists and tracking all kinds of important stuff. This process is important to me for a few reasons. I like to be organized and prepared. I like to have all my notes for a particular topic in one place. I like to write things down – because I’m a visual creature – so I like to track progress of jobs. I break big jobs down into bite size chunks – because I learned years ago that the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time! You might laugh, but it works for me. And anyway, I’d rather attempt to eat an elephant than a frog!
To know your preference – elephants or frogs – highlights an important aspect of life. No one can tell you which one to prefer. You have to decide for yourself. These days, parents are very quick to tell their children that they can be anything in the world. They can be whatever they want to be. No one talks about what this “anything” is or how to become it. No one seems to know the secret or is prepared to share the list from which you can choose what you want to be. How do you decide whether you want to eat a HUGE ELEPHANT or a SMALL but rather ICKY FROG?
You first need to get to know yourself! You need to become familiar with all your quirks, dreams, dislikes, preferences, favorite things, things that make you dance, thing that trigger reactions.
Do you work well in a busy environment or in complete silence? Not sure – then test it out. Look for patterns – do you work well under pressure – so you leave things to the last minute, until the adrenalin kicks in and you are super productive? Do you need approval from others because you lack confidence – or do you already have a solution to your problem, but you need a sounding board to help you work through the process as a big picture to determine if the solution is the best one?
As Norman Vincent Peale says, if you want to get somewhere, YOU need to know WHERE you want to go and WHAT you want TO BE or DO. It is all about YOU!!
So, take the tests, do the assessments, answer the questions in the quiz. I’m dead serious! Start to be mindfully present when you make choices and consider why you made them. Start to create a “profile or vision board” that is just about you. There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to getting to know yourself.
Use pictures or words or colour or paints or music or any other medium that helps you to get back in touch with your “genetic you.” The you that had the potential to be or do anything you set your mind to. The you – before you were told how to behave; how to do certain tasks; how to succeed; how to be accepted; how to be popular. How to be successful. Don’t worry about what others will think. They don’t matter. This is not about posting on social media to get likes or waves or followers. They don’t have to live your life or do your job or run your business.
Get to know this person – they may be shy or fearful to express an opinion. They may have qualities or characteristics that you had long forgotten. Strengths you didn’t know about and weaknesses that aren’t nearly as bad as you thought. Be brave. Be excited to meet your inner you.
Think of yourself as “an ideal or target audience” in a marketing campaign. You want to know everything about yourself so that you know how to talk to this person. You will get to know how this person thinks, their wants and needs. Their hopes and dreams. And eventually, you will uncover the most important treasure of all – you will know what makes this person tick.
When you find the treasure – you will know where you want to go and what it is that you were meant to be or do. Once you know and understand this, you will be able to start filling your own journal or planner with goals and dreams. Things that will make your eyes sparkle when you talk about them.
After all, the things we do and the goals we set, are all about fulfilling our life’s purpose. So, when I ask you “to tell me why you do what you do” – if you know who you are, where you want to be and what you want to do – then why you do it becomes so much easier to communicate.
Until next time,
Candice
