Hi guys! Welcome to episode 229 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast!
I don’t know about you but I have this profound interest in discovering things about myself that show me why I do the things I do or why I feel a certain way.
I’ve been reading this book called the laws of human nature. It’s pretty interesting and pretty disturbing at the same time. I guess I don’t want to know that certain kinds of people are out there.
When I think about who I am I sometimes get this feeling that I’m different but then aren’t we all? It seems most of us have this idea that we are different or that we don’t fit in in a way.
It is interesting to me how much has to do with the programming you got growing up. For me, I always kind of felt like an outsider in a way even though that doesn’t fit who I present to the world. I present to the world someone that could fit in anywhere. And I do genuinely like I can, so how can I at the same time I feel like an outsider?
Do you guys ever feel that way? I started thinking why I would feel that way. I grew up in a religion that wouldn’t allow us to be connected to the world outside of the religion even though we went to the same school as other people, we really couldn’t hang out with them outside of school. We didn’t celebrate holidays either so I had to be outside the room whenever any of that was going on. And then, I also didn’t feel truly connected to people inside the religion either. I felt like something was missing from it. No matter how hard I tried or how much I wanted to fit in, I didn’t buy into it all. So I felt like an outsider there too.
And then I started realizing that that isn’t much different from others around me. We all have different things we think about ourselves. And maybe you have a group you feel connected to more so than others but there’s always this feeling of being different in a way.
But we are unique individuals. Of course we are going to have things that set us apart from other people. Every other person. We aren’t robots. Robots are built the same, think the same, do the same things whatever they are programmed to do, they do it. Boring. Humans are very different because they have emotions and thoughts and experiences that make us unique.
So maybe I have been thinking about it wrong. Maybe I should embrace this feeling of being different or unique and not call it being an outsider. When we call someone an outsider or we describe yourself as an outsider, it doesn’t feel good, not to me anyway. It feels better to say I’m unique. If we all feel different or unique in a way, doesn’t that make us similar? Similar in that we are each unique. I like that. Isn’t that nice to know? We have something common with every single human being on the planet. We are each unique. And more than likely we each feel like what makes us different is something to be ashamed of or maybe we think we need to change it to fit in. No. Totally the opposite. If you’re in a group that doesn’t allow you to be unique, that doesn’t like you for you or wants you to change to fit in. No way. That’s shallow thinking from shallow people. They want you to fit in to who they are and who they want you to be. That may feel good for a minute because you feel like you’re part of the group but what else do you have to conform to to be part of that group? That’s a never ending deal. You be you. And embrace you.
If you really think about it. Instead of beating yourself up for the things that make you unique. Celebrate them because that’s a window into your superpower. That thing that makes you unique, that’s yours and no one can take it from you even if they wanted to. We each have a unique to us dna. Totally unique from every other 8 billion people. Crazy. We each have a brain that’s wired in a completely unique way. There’s no other brain wired exactly like ours in 8 billion people. And we each have a lifetime of experiences that are specifically unique to us. That’s pretty cool if you think about it. Those things that we think make us different or make us an outsider those things are actually our super power.
Those experiences that shaped you that you think were hard and isolated you. They built character. Sitting outside the classroom in the hallway alone because I wasn’t allowed to celebrate birthdays built character. It made me strong. I wouldn’t be where I am today without that experience. I could think about it and say woah is me. Poor little Heidi sitting in the hallway or I can think about it and say wow. The strength that built and the character that built shaped me into this person I love and am proud of. You can do that too. Our experiences that we’ve had make us unique. We can club ourselves over the head with them and shame ourselves with them or we can say look what I can do. Look what I can overcome. Look how strong it’s made me. It’s how you tell the story of your past that matters. Tell a new story that empowers you. There are no mistakes. We can build upon every unique thing about us and make it work FOR us not against us. Our uniqueness is what shows us the way to our path. What we have lived and what we innately are good at and what we love doing..you put those together and follow your passion, you’ll be so fulfilled and life will be exciting every day.
Think about it this way. There are 30 million podcasts out there. If I dwelled on that fact alone, starting a podcast would be a daunting thing but knowing that there’s not one other podcast just like mine, not one. My podcast is completely unique. Sure there might be others about mindset and sure they may put an episode out twice a week on Monday and Friday, heck they might even be short like mine. But they aren’t going to have my stories. My thoughts. My unique delivery and quirks. It can’t happen. There’s not another one just like it. And I’m going to attract the exact people that this message is right for. And those other podcasts will do the same. I love knowing that.
So when you sit down and you think about what you want to do, maybe you have a passion for cooking and you have an idea you want to write a cookbook but your thoughts are there are so many already and if you have the thought “it’s already been done” no it hasn’t. Not by you. Not with your specific recipes written in the way you write with your touch. Go Write the cookbook. Start the interview course. Join the toastmasters club. Take that college course. Join that club that you’ve been reading about. You’ll find your people. What makes you unique is what makes you stand out.
We lean towards being hard on ourselves for the mistakes we’ve made or the things that make us different. Our brains do that because we want to always find a way to fit in. We have a human need to fit in. But you do fit in. You fit in with you. You fit in exactly where you’re supposed to fit in and when you stop trying to conform and just start living your passion the right people will come in or stay, maybe they are already there and the wrong ones will fall off. And that’s exactly where you want to be.
You can be unique and still belong. You’ve been doing it your whole life and so have I.
I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days.
