Your Ego is Holding You Back From What Matters

When I can learn to transform failure, inadequacy, upset things that didn't go well and I can transform them into a positive direction. Guess what that does to my worth? My sense of value, my sense of competency goes up. But if you're always striving for new W's and avoiding and abandoning L's, it's why you won't feel worth. Because you couldn't transform anything. If you don't give yourself grace about the losses in life, I promise you, you will never feel good about the wins. A lot of people who achieve great things in life, they operated from what I call the deficiency drive. So they feel either deficient internally or something externally was deficient and they're rebelling against it. But either way something was not right or is not right and they're fighting against it to prove value or to prove them wrong. They're fighting to prove value because internally there's deficiency or to prove they're wrong, which is rebellion. But there's a fight and it's always a fight. And if you're always in the fight, there's always a win, there's always a loss, there's always a win, there's always a loss, there's always a win, there's always a loss season after season. There's W's and L's, W's and L's, Ws and L's, W's and l's. But if you prove your value all the time with the wins, but you don't simultaneously release the pressure on the losses, you're still going to explode. Does that make sense? See, self acceptance is the release valve for high achievers. The release of pressure so that we can maintain a better flow in the future that's appropriate. And self acceptance is very operational like that for people. We could say it's just a spiritual thing, but I don't like when people just kick it into that bucket because then it becomes too woo woo for them. And what I've learned over a period of time is like, I need you to understand self acceptance is vital for your ability to flow. If you don't give yourself grace about the losses in life, I promise you, you will never feel good about the wins. Acceptance with the losses. What that means is you can look back to those circumstances where you lost, where you failed, where you didn't do the expectation, where you didn't meet your own standards, where you're upset with yourself. And in that moment when you look back and you should always look back at losses, it's okay in the moment. You have a day, you had a couple losses, you had a couple fails, it's okay. Debrief it, look at it, don't wait years to get to self acceptance. Self acceptance granting grace. That should be a weekly thing. A weekly thing. If not daily for some people, right? If not daily for some people. For me it's a weekly practice where I look back and I go, where this week did I just let myself down? Where this week did I feel like I didn't measure up? Where this week did I lack the skill or the capability? Where this week did it feel like a loss or a hardship and I didn't do a good job? Where this week did I break integrity? And in no way am I going to enter those conversations in my head self critical. Instead I'm trying to gain awareness because I want those to be things that I'm aware of. I don't want those things to be unconscious stacking up in self hatred. See, you got to bring your awareness to what doesn't go well in life as well. Not run from it and most importantly, not shame it. Instead, recognize those areas of the week that you didn't do well or didn't go right or you are mad at yourself or you did disappoint somebody or it did fail and not try to like pretend it didn't happen. Instead just be bring awareness to it, bring light to it and then bring acceptance. Acceptance first can start at the circumstantial level where you go, I accept. You know what? That happened wasn't ideal. I say this to myself like literally every Friday, you know, well, that happened this week. It was not ideal and I bring a little humor to it, right? But notice I'm not avoiding it, I'm not hiding it, I'm not stuffing it back there instead of like, okay, that happened. You know, it's almost like that was a hot mess that didn't go right. Okay, it's almost like I'm just bringing awareness to it. But almost, I would say a little bit of humility and humor. I'm like, okay, that happened. Then what do I do? Okay, well that happened. All right, that happened. It wasn't ideal. I accept it's done. I accept it. Done, it happened, it's done. Right now I have to decide, do I need to take an action from it? Do I need to repair? Do I need to make it better? Is there anything I can do to quote unquote, improve it? Sure, I can do that, but I don't do that yet. First I say it happened, wasn't ideal, accept it. Not going to make excuses, not going to get angry, not even make the next plan yet. Just going to look at it, be aware, accept that it happened, the circumstance. The second thing is, I'm going to look at the character. There's Brendan in that scene, didn't go well. And I'm going to accept the truth that that Brendan guy probably didn't have all the information, all the capability or the world's plan or total control. I'm just going to go, all right, I accept. Kid probably did the best that he could. And I'm not going to diminish myself. I'm not going to diminish myself, capital S self, because of that situation, okay? Instead of let me in this moment, looking back, I'm just going to give grace. I'm going to give mercy, I'm going to give forgiveness. I'm just going to accept it. I'm going to accept it. It happened. There it is, okay? And I'm going to give that person grace. Because you know what? He's in the next scene. I need to make sure he enters the next scene intentional, ready, in a good place. What I'm not going to do, please listen. What I'm not going to do is. Is shame the circumstance or shame the character. Because whatever you apply shame to withers and dies. Whatever you apply shame to ends up going in the dark rooms in the back. Whatever you apply shame to stops instead. When you apply grace, there's fluidity there. When you apply grace, there's opportunity for change there. When you apply grace, you also apply truth. Grace is a form of truth because when you grant grace, you accept the truth. And the truth is, you weren't in total control, were you? And so if you can go, let me just give it grace and let me bring it to today and go, okay, I'm going to give myself grace. I didn't know everything. I don't know all the rules of the universe. I'm not in control of everything. God grant me the strength to know. I don't control everything. All right? I'm going to give myself grace. And now I'm going to ask a very simple question. Given that l. That loss, that thing that didn't go well, and given the grace I'm going to give it and the acceptance I'm going to give it, okay, that wasn't ideal. Then I asked myself a simple question. Is that. Please listen, is that something I should just let go, or is that something I need to repair? Plan for or build from. So every Friday I go, should I just let it go? And 90% of things in life you should just let go, right? Maybe 10%, you go, all right, let me recalibrate from that. Let me repair from that. Let me pivot for that. Let me plan that to fix that or do something about that on Tuesday, right? And that's how we can turn some losses into wins, is by giving it grace and making a plan. But see, if you shame it and shame it, and shame it, and shame it, shame it. Here's what you're gonna do. Because you can't turn that loss into a win without grace. Here's what interesting happens, you know what you do. We want to kill it. We don't want to sense that and feel it. So we shove it over here. Let's start something new. I might feel better about it. And the dopamine and the novelty kicks in, oh, this is better. I don't have to face this thing. See, we'll never face this thing unless we accept it, grant it grace, and then we can turn it into something, right? That's how we continue it on. We can accept our quote unquote failures as lessons, make a plan and keep it going. And that's how you turn an L to a W. But if you're always striving for new W's and avoiding and abandoning L's, it's why you won't feel worth. Because you couldn't transform anything. When I can learn to transform failure, inadequacy, upset, things that didn't go well, and I can transform them into a positive direction, and I can build upon them, and I can turn a bad into a good. Guess what that does to my worth. My sense of value, my sense of competency goes up. But if I avoid it, if my life. I want you to hear this. If my life is one of avoidance and abandonment, not that other people avoided me, not that. Don't blame other people. Because I know when you say abandonment in the 21st century, everyone goes into victimhood, right? Oh, I was abandoned by this person, or I was abandoned by this. And maybe that happened. But remember, we're in character development mode, not circumstance mode anymore. If it did happen, it happened. Now we're back into character development mode. And so I tell people all the time, I'm like, but your sense of worth is less about who abandoned you and more about what you are avoiding and you are abandoning and what you are transforming and what you are directing and what you are aligning to it comes back to us. It's about us making healthy decisions. Now to direct myself now to the next right action of integrities, to align with a better future. Not about what happened to us in the past. Because no matter how far we go in the past, at some point all roads, all, all roads lead to either acceptance of it or avoidance of it. And so the ultimate shift in mindset is to take that L to W and just accept. Remember, 90% of it, just let it go. But if there is something there I need to be responsible for, repair or improve or build towards, I gotta make that shift in my mind. This is the power of self acceptance. This is the power of acceptance and awareness broadly in our lives that gives us so much personal power and yes, self worth.