How you interpret feedback, setback, roadblocks and challenges is your choice. It’s a mindset shift to choose the positive outlook. There has to be a mindset shift within you to be able to MeasureIN. You will never change what’s on the outside, without diving deep and transforming on the inside. It is a constant and ongoing process.
My mindset shift has been a slow one directly related to building my business, https://allisontenneyfitness.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ALLISON-ALLISON-0031-1-scaled-1.jpg Fitness. Building it has been full of passion and fun, but also full of emotional triggers that have taught me a lot. Hell, this website alone took over a year…
I maintained an illusion of other people’s expectations for a looooong time. At least I can now laugh when I say I am a “recovering perfectionist.” But it’s true. Perfectionist are really just looking to minimize feelings of unworthiness and shame. That’s what kept me stuck for so long. I kept waiting for the perfect time, the perfect scenario, perfect pictures, perfect blog posts (you get the idea), to present itself to me. But perfect doesn’t exist, and sometime “good” is good enough. Perfectionism is NOT a strength. It’s a cover up of the painful feeling that we are flawed and are therefore not worthy of love and belonging.
I like people to think I have it all together (don’t we all?). Some days I do feel that way, but it’s not all the time. And to pretend that everything is always fine, good, great, awesome, busy…blah, blah, and more blah… leaves me feeling even more empty.
I think we are all guilty of the “imposter syndrome,” that one day someone will figure out that you have been faking it all along (gasp)! Perfectionism and the Imposter Syndrome thrive on the idea that our shame and flaws need to stay hidden. Heaven forbid you don’t keep it together all of the time! When you call it out into the open, and are honest about who you are and what scares you, shame can no longer creep around lurking in the dark corners.
I had to start building my worth from the inside out, and not the other way around. No validation from any outside source will ever be good enough. There will always be someone out there who is trying to discredit you. And for some reason, we buy into it. I know I did. I thought I needed all the certifications, more years of experience…I had to be, well, perfect. But who IS perfect?!? And after TEN YEARS of experience coaching and being in the fitness world, I got to be pretty tired of even trying to measure up. I just couldn’t any more.
So instead of trying to measure up, I got real.
I was tired of waiting for permission from someone else to tell me how qualified I was. The mindset shift happened when I could take a long hard look at my inner perfectionist, and finally see it for what it was: a longing of worthiness. And that must start on the inside. So here I am today, on a road to reclaiming my worthiness, which is inherent and has nothing to do with outside validation. How do you define your value and worthiness? Your worth is reliant on a strong set of core values, and where you stand when those values are challenged.
Stay tuned for next week (Part 2) where we will talk about those core values, how to set them, and stay true to them when things get tough.
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