“What if your new definition of success was authenticity?”

These words from my mentor Cora sent chills down my spine. This was closely followed by the challenge to “turn it off for a week”.
Turn off my need to be always ON, playing a role for whomever I may be speaking too, or whatever group I am in at the time. Turn off the need to be the funny one, the intelligent one, the great mum, the awesome wife. Turn off the need to be on form constantly and to play “Ali”.

I felt a little teary eyed, excited, and like a weight had lifted off my shoulder.
So authenticity huh ? Up until now my definition of success has always been a great marriage, nice house, respect, lots of friends, gorgeous clothes……..and on it goes. I have all those, but funnily enough you still want more.

What if the true meaning of success was looking inward, finding the answers within yourself and being who you truly are?

My definition of success changed today.
Whats yours?

So here’s a confession. I am a control freak. In fact I am such a control freak I try to control my control freakism. If I had it my way I would pre plan every discussion, meeting, encounter and situation so it would go the way I wanted it to. In the past I would imagine upcoming events and discussions and try and envisage every possible scenario or conversation that might occur.

There are plenty of us out there. Outwardly we look very confident and in control, and possibly a wee bit on the bossy side. But I will let you in on a little secret – most of us share the same thing underneath it all.

FEAR

Deep down us control freaks have a very similar fear that we don’t even like to admit to ourselves – that something might happen and we won’t be able to handle it.  So here is what I have been trying lately, and boy it has been working a treat. I have been practicing letting go of control of future situations. Weird huh? It ain’t easy to start with, but it gets better. Here is what you do.

• Imagine a situation that is coming up, and you can feel yourself over analysing
• Literally hand it over to whatever you believe in – God, your inner guidance system, your intuition, the universe, whatever works for you. Say it out loud -” I hand this situation over, knowing it will work out for the best.” (roll with me on this one if it sounds a little hippy)
• Let it go. It will work out for the best and you can handle it.

It was tricky for me at first to believe that I had the inner wisdom or guidance to cope if I stopped  pre planning, but I learned a few things.

• If I am going into a situation without any pre conceived idea of how it must go, I am much more relaxed.
• Often the outcome turns out in a completely different way than I would have imagined if I had forced the situation, but it is actually a better outcome.

I am not saying don’t be necessarily prepared by the way. If you have a presentation coming up, or a job interview etc - do the preparation you need and be as up to date on information as you need to be. Then hand it over and don’t try to force the outcome.

Weird? Wacky? I don’t think so. Give it a go a couple of times when you notice yourself desperately trying to control an upcoming situation, and see what happens.

You can handle it.

cheers

Ali