“I don’t want to be a superstar, I just want to be me.”  This is a quote from a very inspiring Equestrian clip (1.47 min) by PocoZeph.  You can watch it here. It is worth watching!
Now this artist did a great display of who he sees himself to be, but, to display who we are, is much easier than living it out in our life. Right?
Just like the quote above, rarely are we looking to be a superstar, we just want the ability to “just be, me.”  As a person that spent decades of being what others expected, I can tell you that for most of those years, I did not realize I was not being me.
When I turned 60, I had an awaking, and although I had a blessed life, career opportunities, family and friends; I had never pursued the most basic dreams and desires that I held within my heart.  This reality  came to me so hard and so real that I declared my 60th year to be “all about me.” I did not even know what that meant, but I knew I had to change my behavior to permit me, to just be me.
Here are 3 things I have learned from my journey (still in process) to just be me.
1) No, to regret: It took me about a year to not look at my past with regrets or to blame others for me not pursuing my dreams; but that was wrong and fruitless.  The truth is that all of what I did or did not do was me getting to where I needed to be.  I changed my view of the past to realizing that it was  amazing and full of great people, experiences and opportunities, all of which gracefully brought me to the place of realizing I wanted more…more of just me.
2) No, OK’s:   Ok was my response when I did not want to, but felt I had to do or be. The truth was that I defaulted to OK because I did not want deal with the reaction of giving a response someone did not want. I changed my response to either yes or no, only.  To this I added margin between asked and answered. Margin is a term I learned from Michael Hyatt and his life changing Best Year Ever course.  That margin gives me time to “response and not react” to the question or invitation.  As we read in Matthew 5:37, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” This change in my life has allowed me to have time to pursue my dreams and desires.
3) No, to all or nothing: My mind set for years was if I did not have time to do all that I dreamt, I did nothing. The truth was that the all or nothing plan, will always lead me to nothing.  The change I made was to do what I can now, while planning for what I dream of.  Example: I have not had a vacation for over 25 years…yes 25! My dream every year was to go to Hawaii for two weeks.  So this year, I have made plans to take a one week vacation to the Florida Keys in September; and also made plans to save the money and the time for my dream vacation in two years.
If you have the dream of living your life as “just me”, it is my desire to inspire you to start today with one small change, as I did, and to start on your way to being just you.
Go to Facebook or twitter and tell me what one small change you are going to make to be just you, for you. Remember we are not trying to be a superstar, we just want to be me!