Yes! You Can Be Yourself and Succeed
/Guest Post by Katell of Reverie Lane Designs
We are all after success in one shape or another, although the concept means something different for each one of us. Whether in our personal or professional life, on a spiritual or relational level, within or outwardly expressed, we all want to do well and achieve our big goals. That being said, I believe it all starts with identity.
It all starts with what happens inside your heart.
How can you properly give and serve if you don't know what you have to give or the value of what you possess? You cannot! - that's the bottom line. The confusion and frustration in our enterprises and brand development immerses from that blurry place.
We need to find ourselves and embrace it, define and accept what we aren't and finally realize what being true to oneself exactly means.
1) The journey to finding and embracing your individuality - your story /
As any key and pivoting experience, the journey to finding and consequently embracing your individuality is demanding and challenging. Simply put, you've got to do the work and put yourself through the fire to see what comes out of the refining process. I call it a journey because as humans we are always changing and adapting to our environment, emotionally, practically, intellectually and sometimes those changes can make us lose sight of our individuality and play in the comparison game. It really does not need to be this big ah-ah moment or a trip to Tibet.
It is as simple as taking the time to acknowledge your best qualities and your lesser traits. It’s about knowing what you have that others don’t and loving it and highlighting that.
I know it can be tricky to figure out what makes us different but I see it as being thrown into a bag of all blue marbles while being a blue marble yourself. It can make you feel uninteresting and boring, but I can guarantee you there is something that makes you stand out.
First of all let’s talk about your story, the way you arrived in the bag and where you have been before, those certainly vary from the rest. Secondly, assuming another marble has the exact same background and journey, YOU experienced the whole process through YOUR own eyes and have a specific and unique take on it. Lastly, you might have gotten a dent on your way down in the bag which once again adds up to being different from the rest.
All these things added to your personality, shape up a unique package that nobody else has.
Nobody else is you, nobody can say it like you do, nobody else experienced life and accumulated your knowledge like you did.
Know it, embrace it and use it - that’s your story and that’s one little piece of your individuality. Personality is another.
2) We don't all need to be Oprah to build an empire - your personality /
When I first moved to America, I was stuck for days on in our very first little home - a not so well lit apartment - trying to figure out what my place would be in this new life and what I could do with myself. I remember for a quick second there, almost falling into the daytime TV trap, not so much the soap operas but the talk shows and really just The Oprah Show. I wanted to know what everyday people were like, what they enjoyed and what excited them. It's quite entertaining to say the least, and I was fascinated by the fact that one woman, and her team of course, could make people enthusiastically scream so loudly and dream so big. After watching for a while I got worried - how would a girl like me, so not Oprah-like, succeed in this country and this world ultimately?
How could I ‘raise the masses’/ build an empire if I didn’t have this vivacious, outgoing, hyper personality?
I know we aren’t all trying to build an empire per se, but as I said at the start of this article, we are all after some type of success, small or big. Before I continue let me say this: we all love Oprah and think she's awesome. She has built an unbelievable business and empire but she has a specific delivery that we don’t all have. That reality can easily bring the rest of us down or slow us on our road to success. I am here today to tell you that YOU do not need to be Oprah or rather Oprah-like to be personable, to build something successful and leave your mark on a small or even a bigger scale. We are led to believe that bold extroverts are the ones with personality, and reserved introverts are just too boring and uninteresting to ever stand out and leave a trace. FALSE!!
There is room on the success lifeboat for all of us.
We don’t all have to shout ‘you’re going to Australiaaaaa...’ to be noticed and express our unique voice. We can also be the tete-à-tete type, who prefers to do things privately.
It’s about working with what you have and making the best of it.
3) Success is actually closely tangled with being true to yourself - your true success /
At the end of last year I was feeling a bit unsettled and unsatisfied with the place I was as a business owner and as a woman/mother running her own business, which was of course coming from comparing myself to others. I had to take some time to thoroughly search my heart and figure out what that feeling exactly was and what it really meant. What I realized in the end is that what I actually was admiring and desiring from my fellow women entrepreneurs wasn’t so much to have the same story or personality traits as them or even to have their lives and businesses, but to own my own story and my own personality.
To know and embrace who I was and truly operate in my own individuality.
I have learned there is no use building a castle as someone else, sooner or later your audience will feel the distortion, or you will end up unhappy. No matter what result you get with all those personality tests, it always goes back to embracing who you are and what you have to offer. Success in the end isn’t so much simply what you accomplish, but what you accomplish by acknowledging and embracing your individuality. So, yes! Yes, you can and you will truly succeed when you are your true self!!
As Miss Judy Garland said...
Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.
I couldn’t have concluded this message better. You, my friend have all the keys within you to accomplish what you want to accomplish. No need to put on a mask, or become a chameleon and change yourself to please or do like others.
Katell moved from France to the U.S. six years ago to marry her soulmate Jonathan and has been living the American dream ever since. They have two beautiful children, Eli (3) and Lucy (1), and her and her husband are both creative business owners. She is the branding specialist and creator of Reverie Lane Designs, where she assists passionate entrepreneurs expressing their individuality and tell their story through the art of branding. She believes in complex simplicity and the power of creativity in all areas of life. She strives to love and serve her family, her community and her clients with the gifts and purpose with which God has blessed her. You can find Katell on Instagram and Facebook
