Life can be a tricky ‘thing’ at times. We try to have it all figured out when half the time we don’t have a f%$@ing clue what’s going on or what we’re doing.
But that’s ok… we aren’t supposed to have it all worked out… if we did, why would we be here… we would have nothing left to learn.
What trips up a lot of people is the feeling they should be better off… they should have accomplished more… they should be further ahead or they ‘should’ be a doing a certain thing.
“I should, I should, I should”
SCREW THAT!
Those ‘shoulds’ are simply your way of holding yourself to a standard that you are not aligned to because if you were, you would already be there.
So how about you ease up on yourself a little bit?
How about you don’t get lost down the ‘I should’ rabbit hole?
There is nothing you should be doing other than being yourself. Showing up in the world as you. Living out your purpose.
There is no one you need to be impressing. No ONE standard you need to be living up to. You just need to be you and live according to YOUR standards.
The ones YOU set for yourself. No one else!
My story of ‘I should’ began in 2006 when I began my post-secondary career of going to college and then university.
Before that, I was a young Single Mother trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I mean other than already doing one of the hardest jobs… being a Mom.
One evening during Summer 2005 while sitting on the porch with my daughter a family member said something to me that stuck in my head for years as if it has been branded there.
He said “What are you doing with your life? You’re old and uneducated”… I’m not sure what came before or after that statement, but from the moment he said that I knew I had to prove him wrong.
The fact was I was 26, and according to societal standards by 26 you should already have been to university or college and have a pretty good idea of what you want to do with your life. And if you haven’t well then your “old and uneducated and basically going nowhere”.
What a crock!
But never the less I had to prove him and myself that I was, in fact, an educated, well-adjusted member of society.
So I went and enrolled in college and then university. Graduated with honours and even had my professor encourage me to have my thesis published.
“Getting educated” – CHECK
Next on my list was getting the ‘good’ job. You know the one that pays well and leaves you feeling secure, cuz you know, you will get that pension when you retire and will then be ‘living life’.
Right.
A big realization came approximately three years into my ‘good job with a pension’ while I was driving to work.
I remember it was about 8 am, I was driving down the 401 and stuck in the normal rush of traffic, and I felt my body was ageing ten years by the minute.
I saw a flash of my life if I continued down this road and it was terrifying. I couldn’t do this for the rest of my life. It would kill me. I knew deep down in my soul it was not my purpose. This is not why I was here.
That was the pivotal moment for me when I knew I had to stop trying to prove I was something I wasn’t.
I wasn’t meant to live this life we are told we are supposed to live to be ‘successful’ and happy.
I was done trying it fit into a box I was never meant to fit into.
That was the day I stop buying into the ‘shoulds.’
Screw the ‘shoulds’!
I was done living the life people felt I should. That I felt I ‘should’.
I was ready to start living the life I always wanted but thought was only for other people.
And this was the birth of my entrepreneur journey.
I can now stand confidently in a deeper knowing that I am fully living out my purpose.
I now wake up and get to do what lights me up every single day of the year.
Not because I’m lucky but because I took a long hard look at my life and realized I could never find happiness living a life that was based on me trying to prove something.
I could never be happy living a life filled with things I ‘should’ be doing.
So I began to live a life filled with everything ‘I could’ be doing.
I’m not saying it’s easy going against the norm of what society tells you is the right way. I’m not saying it’s not without its bumps.
But I’ll take those bumps over the ‘shoulds’ any day.
You have one life…
Are you going to choose the ‘I shoulds’ or ‘I coulds’?
Choose wisely.
Lots of love,
