New Year, New You...

This seems to be a very popular slogan for the New Year's marketing machinery. So much so that I am starting to feel a very personal pressure to succumb to it. Feelings of inadequacy and 'not good enough' start showing up for me and I am wondering whether or what I need to change in order to be good enough to fit in and to get to that place where I feel worthy and good enough.

Lose a few pounds, eat more healthily, learn a new language, make more 'me time', work harder at home, step up at work,... the list of possible improvements is endless! Somehow, it feels less encouraging and more like my inner critic is being indulged. Like most people I feel like I am trying my very best in most areas and it's difficult to live with 'good enough' when we it seems that we are surrounded by 'perfect'.

Apart from the fact that I have my own personal drama around marketing and how I think our vulnerability is targeted, I think that New Year's resolutions can be an amazing and powerful thing! And it's not just limited to the 1st of January. No, you can step up and change something YOU don't like, challenge yourself to something new (or old) that is important to YOU ​​at anytime YOU want.

It is very powerful thing to feel like you could actually be yourself and work towards your own goals!

Things can shift for you at any time.

Most importantly no one else needs to tell you what needs to be changed or tweaked in order to reach a new, better, improved you.

You are amazing as you are and wonderfully made.

You need to know what you want and what you need in order to lead your life, so it's right for YOU! No one can tell you how to do it.

In a space where we are being offered so many different versions of perfect, it can be very difficult and exhausting to perceive our own thoughts and desires, though. It is so noisy outside that sometimes it's very hard to listen to our inner voice, the only voice that matters and that can tell us how we feel and what is right for us.

If we want to step up, though, we need to be vulnerable and this requires a lot of courage! Courage to still be us and to hold on to that courage even, when (not if) we feel like we don't fit in and are fighting in our own corner. When it seems like everyone is doing it differently and we have to chose belonging to ourselves over fitting in with others.

Deep emotional connection and the feeling of true belonging comes from a place within, which cannot be altered and addressed by any advertising and effort to change who we are.

“I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul."

• Nelson Mandela

Let's start a conversation about how you can achieve this. As a New Year's resolution or really on any day that you feel ready to be vulnerable and ultimately more courageous to love your life and be you.

#courage#coaching#truebelonging#daretobe#vulnerability