I want you to do something for me. I want you to take a piece of paper, and with a pen or pencil, write out – “No one should queue me into my greatness.”
I now want you to sit back and think about all the times in your life both personal and professional when you have sought the validation, acceptance and/or recognition of someone else as the determination of your success.
I don’t know about you, but I was that person. You know the one who would go out of their way to demonstrate themselves worthy of growth, promotion, and success, only to be told that “I wasn’t quite ready” or “I needed to develop a bit more” or “I wasn’t the right fit, but that something would definitely come up for me in the future.” While these statements are far from exhaustive, they reflect the plethora of statements made by those who we felt were in control or held weight in our quest for success in greatness.
Now let’s keep things real. This world is hierarchical. Whether we like it or not, or believe it is the way life should be, we live in a world where power is not evenly distributed. Understanding that this hierarchy plays out in various aspects of our life, what we need to be mindful of is how we permit this way of life to infringe on our OWN capacity to excel and grow.
You see the T.E.A. that I am here to spill, is about how we operate in this world. It’s about the intentionali.t.e.a. by which we set ourselves up for success. It is our recognizable.t.e.a. that no one but us is responsible for setting the precedence for how we step up. It is understanding our capaci.t.e.a. to thrive, not just survive (even in those times we think we can’t). It’s about the possibili.t.e.a’s that come with a mindset that says, ‘I can’t, ‘I will’ and ‘I did’. And it’s the capabili.t.e.a. we possess to script our desired state.
To take empowered action is to consciously emancipate yourself from the shackles held often by the requirement many of us feel we must learn, grow and change based on the standards of others. To take time for THIS T.E.A. means you are ready to chart your own course in a way that you aren’t even willing to create an understanding of the map!
You see, I’m not here to please others. I’m here to make an imprint in this world. I’m not here to make others feel comfortable with who I am. I’m here to live authentically. I’m not here to dim my light so that others can overshadow me. I’m not here to sit in the back, because I came to drive the car! If you sense some bravado in my tone or in the words that are so easily flowing as I write this article, rest assured that that is what I want you to see and feel because there was a time in my life when I scripted every single part of who I was in the name of comfort, acceptance, and recognition.
I say that not because I’m seeking pity. I’ve done my work and taken my empowered action to get to where I am at today. I’m saying what I’m saying because I want today to be the day, the moment, the time where you make a conscious decision to live your life in accordance with your standards (which by the way may be at a higher standard than whomever you’re trying to measure up to!)
Look I’m not saying that we shouldn’t look to those who we believe exemplify or reflect those qualities, skills, persona or even a job that we aspire to attain, to validate the things that we have achieved or to recognize our work. We’re human and therefore validation is both warranted and needed. What I am saying, however, is that our worth, and the things that we have the capacity and capability to do doesn’t solely rest on the recognition and acceptance of others.We must get comfortable with being uncomfortable. We must believe that we are great even if we don’t hear the words uttered by others. Life may not always be predictable, but T.E.A. is!
