You  ever find yourself shelving your life’s mission for what is comfortable? For what is seemingly dutiful? Do you feel you are living someone else’s purpose rather than your own?

It happens to me. It happened today.

I had carved out time this morning to write my blog. To create. Writing, for so many reasons, is tremendously important to me. It allows me to get the thoughts I would like to share with the world down on paper. To clarify and crystallize my perspective. My world view.

Yet, I didn’t do it. I found a whole bunch of “urgent” emails that needed tending to…

It made me realize I am not respecting my commitments to myself. Not respecting the space that I have created to do what is truly important to me. I have been letting other people’s agendas hijack my schedule. Selling myself the illusion of busy and business in lieu of fulfillment.

No more. I am taking back control of my time. My self-respect. My purpose.

It is vitally important to me to help people and organizations to have the courage to be ourselves in this lifetime. And the work begins with me.

To do so on any sort of scale, beyond the one-on-one exchange, requires content. Whether that be video or the written word, it needs to be able to be consumed more than once.

Yet, as important as creating is for me, it also makes me nervous. I get hung up in saying it right. I fear getting criticized or put down for dreaming too big or being too lofty, too esoteric. I put more weight on how it will be received than on the importance of being true to my nature and my gift. 

As well, I am a tremendous salesman to myself of all things I have to do: for the business, for clients, for Jody and the girls, the house, you name it. Randomly attending to things that weren’t all that important before I sat down and put pen to paper.

So subconsciously, and consciously, I am deprioritizing my raison d’être. Oooph…my heart sinks deeply as I type that out. Name it to tame it baby, name it to tame it.

In essence, I am fully and completely disrespecting myself and my gift to the world. Choosing what is known over what is needed.

How about you? 

• If you had no constraints in your life, what would living in line with your life’s purpose look like? 
• What would the dream day look like? 
• What would the dream job look like?
• If you could take one step towards respecting yourself and living in full integrity with what you destined to be, what would “taking back control” look like for you?

Think about it for one second. Soak that feeling in fully. Feel the energy.

How are we serving ourselves and the world when we do that? Easy test. One in which I’ll give you the answer: we aren’t.

We can not give to others what we do not have. So how can we truly respect others if at some deep, inner level, we aren’t respecting ourselves.

Let’s stop the BS. 

Let’s do the work that needs to be done and let our genius shine, unapologetically bright.