How’d You Do?
Today’s blog entry marks FIVE months of creating a new post each week. I’ve tried creating a blog at least twice before, and each time, I gave up after just a few entries. This time had to be different, or I would fail again. I must’ve learned something from those first couple attempts because I’m still here. I’m proud of myself!
F.A.I.L.
Maybe you’ve heard the acronym of fail? It’s the First Attempt In Learning. I would have to agree, as far as blogging is concerned.
However, remember last week I challenged you to try to stay off screens for a measly ten minutes each day? I failed. Out of seven days, I completed two. What have I learned? That I need to try harder.
Not being able to follow through on my own challenge has me wondering about it. What is so hard about walking away from screens for ten minutes?
Partially, it’s that my jobs revolve around screens. I’m on a computer about 75% of the day. Even when I’m not working, I’m often on my laptop.
The goal of the challenge was to get us away from screens and focus on our authentic voice. It’s difficult to do because that other nagging voice is often so much louder than the voice we should be listening to. I believe the way to get your authenticity to come forward is to focus on gratitude.
I’m going to be more intentional this week about my free time.
One of those days last week, my authentic voice spoke up loud and clear. Most of the time, when I take a shower, I have music playing and I’m either whistling or attempting to sing. One day, when I wasn’t rushed, I heard my authentic voice telling me to make a TikTok telling people about the no-screens challenge.
My initial response was to push that idea aside.
That’s ridiculous. Aren’t only kids on TikTok? Who’s going to watch me talk about a silly challenge I made up?
Guess which voice that was? Yes - the nagging one that doesn’t want me to try anything new because new is scary and uncomfortable and people might make fun of me.
I recognized which voice was which and decided, what the heck? Maybe I could create a TikTok and get 100 people to watch it. If even 50 of those people took on the challenge, that’s 50 more people listening to their authentic voices and attempting to do what they were put on this earth to do. How cool is that?
Just a Smidge Over That
As of this moment, 861 people have watched at least part of my TikTok. Woohoo! Not one of them has made fun of me. One person I don’t even know saved it in their ‘Favorites’ folder. That’s the power of your authentic voice.
I read something this morning in my Simple Abundance book that really hit home for me. “There’s a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all time this expression is unique,” modern dancer Martha Graham advises us. “And if you block it, it will NEVER exist through any other medium and will be lost.”
Don’t let what you were put on this planet to do be lost. Give your authentic voice the chance to come out and push you into something that’s probably not within your comfort zone. At the very least, you’ll be growing. It’s scary as hell, but I think you’ll find that once you get a taste, or a glimpse, of the person you could become, you’ll continue chasing them down.