We’ve all heard the popular phrases: “be yourself”, “don’t try to copy anyone else”, and “your individuality is what makes you unique”. But what if emulating others is good for you somehow?
Let’s explore how you can use your appreciation of the best in others to bring those qualities into your own expression.
In my client sessions, I’ve seen experiences of breakthrough that have touched me profoundly. I see people realizing that they have now actualized what they once aspired to be in a way they previously believed was impossible. The new rally cry is, “I am who I always longed to be”! I always wanted to be a gifted communicator, an inspiring visionary, or whatever… and suddenly, fast-forward, I realize now I am that person I once wanted to be.
I have found there are four basic ingredients that are conducive to this aspirational realization.
1. Aspiring Even When You Don’t Believe
Seeing what you believe about yourself is a powerful skill. Our minds like limits. It makes the world easier to navigate if we can reduce endless possibility into a simpler model. Particularly in answer to the question “Who am I?”, we assume a model that is more limited than the reality.
We invite people to see their beliefs about what they are and are not capable of and to hold that belief system ever more lightly.
2. Lifting Shame
Often, we are cautious about aspiration because it feels like a “should,” a way to make us judge ourselves as deficient. Not exactly conducive to growth. So much of what we as coaches do with people is to help them lift this kind of shame.
In a really safe place with a friend, I recently had a major experience of shame lifting from me. Quite suddenly–as he asked questions that invited me to peel back layers of pretense–I saw how I was holding myself responsible for bad things happening to someone else. While I could see it wasn’t factually my fault, I felt like it was. I judged myself as if it was. Treated myself as shameful.
In that moment of seeing, I felt this heavy weight lift from me. I can care for a person’s well-being without blaming myself, or anybody else, for their pain. Ever since, it has been so much easier to believe in my own capacity, to want more without there being anything wrong with what is.
3. Saying Yes To The Impossible
Breakthrough moments usually follow some kind of a stretch. There is a difference between setting yourself up for failure and a genuine (sometimes unwitting) step into a creative endeavor bigger or more significant than anything you have done before. Your boss leaves, for example, and you are put into a position you never imagined. Or starting something that has never been done before. Look for an inner compulsion, a “yes” that doesn’t come from “should”. Rather a sense of destiny. Like, this is what I am here for.
Once we find ourselves committed, an obstacle of some kind, an apparent limitation, usually appears not long after. And we keep going. Such a sweet moment to see people succeeding at what they previously believed impossible!
4. Celebrating the Growth.
Sometimes, the greatest gift we can offer another is to help them acknowledge their own growth. Let’s get into the habit of doing this for ourselves and for each other. I am sure, if you think about it, you can see ways–large and small–that you have become the person you always wanted to be. Please enjoy the sweetness of those moments!
Tell me, what do you think about this.
David Lesser