Self Awareness…..Ouch!

I had some realizations this week that were really hard pills to swallow! But in the end it made me realize one thing – you MUST know who you are to succeed. And yes, that means the strengths and the weaknesses. It can be like a knife in your heart to discover some weaknesses and then try and strengthen the weakness! For starters, our weaknesses are weaknesses because it relates to an area of life that is hard to overcome otherwise it wouldn’t be a weakness! My realization, although may sound so silly to you, was that “Rome wasn’t built in one day.” I can hear you laughing. Of course I’ve heard that saying before and so has everyone else, but if you are anything like me, you have a ton of ambition, a ton of enthusiasm, a ton of optimism and you pull all those attributes together to create an awesome dream and whatever it takes you are going to get there by Sunday! Then when Sunday comes and you didn’t conquer the world you are so unbelievably deflated and have to start over to get there by next Sunday. Sound familiar?

I’ve been working with a talent management company. This company has been in business for decades and has mastered the art of developing leaders for Fortune 500 companies. They have lots of workshops, assessment centers, interviewing selection tools……basically a ton of ways of figuring out what competencies people have strengths in and what competencies are weaker areas and then putting them through the right workshop to develop those things they are weak in.

I was sitting with one of the Senior Consultants who is a master facilitator for this particular company’s workshops and he said something to me that was quite interesting. We were talking about all the “self-help gurus” out there that are motivating people towards success. He started his conversation with, “Firstly I think all the motivational speakers in self-help are doing nothing but selling lies!” (By the way, he openly admitted that he was a pessimist by nature.) Trying to keep an open mind I asked why he thought that. He simply responded by saying, “Because all they do is get up on stage, tell you how you can do anything you put your mind to and succeed while giving people all kinds of false hope that they really can do it without ever giving people the right kind of information about what it is about ‘them’ in particular that is preventing them from succeeding. That is what we do in here – we show people what their strengths and weaknesses are and then go to work on their weaknesses. Can a motivational speaker give you that?” Pessimistic? You bet! Just to put the record straight, I believe there a MANY motivational speakers and self-help gurus out there that have helped millions of people. I don’t believe they are ALL selling lies. There are many ‘greats’ out there lifting the earths vibration every day with what they do. However, this guy got to me with what he said. Since I believe that you need to keep your mind open to everything and attached to nothing, I deeply pondered his comment. He was right about one thing – you can’t completely succeed unless you know who you are – the whole package, strengths and weaknesses.

Of course given my personality, I went into deep self-reflection. Ouch! It kind of hurt and I realized that in order for me to really succeed the way I want to, I have to take one step at a time. May sound simple to you, but this is a big WOW for me. It isn’t always about going after the big whale; it most often is about going first after the small fish and letting the small fish grow. The path to success is through self-realization. Once you see yourself for who you really are you know WHY things in your life aren’t working. So for me, my BIG success will come one step at a time and taking the proper amount of time to do it.

I have big dreams and big goals. Have I hit all those goals? NO! I want whomever that will ever read this blog to go on a journey with me. I want this blog to be upfront and honest. I want to post things on my journey that are true and inviting for discussion. We are getting so inundated with all the hype these days that it seems that everyone is selling lies. Everyone has to make it ‘look’ like they are bigger than they are in hopes that that will get them the success they need. So although I would like to hide the fact that I’m still working on those goals (since society has taught us well to cover up) , the truth is I still have a long way to go, I also know I have A LOT to offer. So I’m going to take a deep breath and take one step at a time, even if it is painfully small and takes more time than anticipated to take that step before going onto the next step.

I encourage you all to dive into self-awareness and see what you may find. I know that there are GREAT things in there. But if you aren’t where you want to be yet, just like me, then what is it that is holding you back?