While masterminding with one of my personal mentors last night, I was really moved to share a few of my thoughts with you. He was talking about Living in Your Destiny and why so many people choose not to, but choose to simply follow instead of being a leader of their own lives.
When I think of following my Destiny, I think about Playing Big. I grew up in an environment where you were not expected or encouraged to out-perform your parents or your siblings. There was no expectation of us, me and my 5 brothers and sisters, to do anything great or to accomplish anything unique or different. The expectation was to be seen and never heard, to be a follower and never a leader. If we stepped forward at any point and demonstrated our uniqueness, it was considered a direct violation of the family "rules".
Fortunately for me, that model never fit me very well. From early on in life I was considered a dreamer, a rebel, different and definitely not someone who fit in very well. I was always up to something. I wanted to have horses and figured out a way to do it. I wanted to be a dancer and figured out a way to do it. I wanted to write, travel and experience greatness. And yes, I did exactly those things.
It never occured to me that what I was doing was Following My Destiny. What I thought I was doing was Living My Life. But now in hindsight, I find that my Destiny called at every step and every turn of my life. I have seen and experienced things in my life that most others only dream of.
I even managed to marry my soulmate and after 23 years of marriage and 29 years together, I had to say goodbye to him. But he will never be gone because he is such a part of the Destiny I have lived up to this point.
My point here is simple. Sometimes we live our destiny and never realize it. It is easy, flowing and part of our expectation in life. We are constantly moving forward, growing and becoming more of who we truly are.
But other times, we struggle to Find our Destiny. Sometimes we get side-tracked or distracted by adversity. Adversity is the thing that drains us of our dreams, our energy, our focus and our Destiny.
I know this to be true because I have experienced great adversities in my life. What I have learned is we have only two options when adversity shows it's ugly head:
1) We can shrink ourselves to people who live in fear and allow fear to make our decisions and drive our lives.
OR
2) We can Play Big, plow right through them and become the people our Destiny is calling us to be.
Dealing with adversity and only allowing it to be a "bump in the road" is the only way to live your destiny. Life should be easy flowing but it should NEVER be comfortable. When life is comfortable, you risk being stuck and not finding your true self or your true destiny.
I encourage you to play big. To realize that life is about taking chances. Sometimes we fall on our faces and other times we soar. But, we will never soar if we do not take the chance to.
To your unstoppable success...