Have you ever thought about what really motivates you to live the life you are living?
What motivates you to be in the job you are in, the relationships you are in, live in the place you live?
Are you actually waking up every day and looking around you at your world and all its infinite resources and saying, this is my perfect place from which I am going to leave my mark in history?
Or if you are like I was in my 20’s and 30’s, you are you are waking up and seeing that the dream and hopes of the perfect relationship, or career or having amazing health have not all panned out.
In your teens and twenties, you are developing your adult social identity. At that time you are attempting to become someone special in the world. Someone other people will think is a good, or loving, or caring, or powerful, or brilliant, or successful, or driven, or strong, or sexy person. You know, a someone you can be proud of and others will say, “She (He) is amazing!”
The idea of becoming a successful person has roots in survival where you need to make a living. But the real motivator and the problem is fear of being a failure or being average in a world that only honors the best.
It is true that we are all born to make a difference in the world at a soul level, so striving to be amazing is not solely ego, and it is in our destiny to make a mark somehow. But if that energy in you that wants to make a difference is channeled into being someone you truly are not, your life can come off the rails and seem confusing even when you are achieving your goals.
I just watched a great old movie from the 90’s called The Talented Mr. Ripley in it Matt Damon plays a chameleon type of person who soooo wants to be better than he is, that he actually kills and takes over the identity of a wealthy young man, then continues to kill anyone who might reveal his secret, even people he loves. Now I know that is an extreme, but movies are never random and tend to teach through metaphor. In the movie, Ripley’s most powerful line he delivers, after he is so far into his murderous illusion he can’t get out, he says, “I would rather be a fake somebody, than a real nobody!”
With all my work helping thousands of people Discover their Purpose, I have found what Mr. Ripley has alluded to is at the heart of why so many people suffer needlessly in their lives. The fear that if they just present who they are to the world it will not be enough. And if they look closely they might realize that they are a real a nobody, and that is too hard to handle so they never look that deep, but rather try to be a fake somebody. That somebody then is not real and lives in constant fear of being revealed as a fake. Even many years later, they have no idea they are still faking it about who they are, there is still an underlying sense that there is always something not quite right in their life. They just know that those who do not buy their story get avoided, which leaves the person more and more isolated over time.
At the Rhys Thomas Institute one of the first things we do with students is make sure they see that what they were hiding from the world is actually the most important part of them.
Before you can realize your purpose, and uncover the truly unique and amazing part of you, (see my book Discover Your Purpose) you must have the courage to stand for what is truly who you are. Each of us has a unique quality that we alone can deliver in the world, that is what we need to focus on, not who we think we need to be in the eyes of others.
The courage to stand alone in your unique gifts can only come through clarity of knowing your deeper soul purpose. One moment of inner clarity lets you realize that you will never have a moment of inner peace by being someone other than who you were born to be. Trying to be what your parents, or society, or your church want you to be, is a very slippery slope in life. Having a deep sense of purpose makes you resilient and compassionate toward others.
What did you choose in your 20’s? Being a good mother, or a business owner, or a lawyer or Doctor, or a nurse, or in the clergy, or a great athlete, or a demon lover, or an actress, or a rich person. It doesn’t matter what you chose, if you were not born to live that life you will feel by the time you are in your 40’s that there is something missing. Trying to be someone that you are not drains your energy. It’s like lying. Every lie must be remembered and you can never just be free to be who you are. Over time you don’t know you are lying, but your body does and you start wearing down and getting ill or having relationship problems.
What is the solution? How do you find the energy you need to thrive and fill every day with passion and joy? Simple, get clear on your life purpose. You have an inner purpose of health and selflove, and an external purpose of finding a soulmate to love and having some kind of career or work that inspires you as you inspire others through it.
The key is, you must go from being against being a failure, to being for sharing your unique talents. All of you who, like I did, became really successful at being someone you are not in your 20’s and 30’s, or longer, know the quiet desperation that it creates like a level of stress that never really goes way no matter how you distract yourself.
If you are ready to step off the tread mill of trying to be someone you are not, or have a few years already looking for the real you and are ready for the next step, you can get my book, Discover Your Purpose. Or if you have it already, give it as a holiday gift to those you love. It’s truly the gift that keeps on giving. Energy, health, self-love, and lifelong relationships are all the gift of having the courage to see your unique gifts as super powers.
If you have read the book, you’re likely yearning for more. The next step for you is to join the Rhys Thomas Institute, where in just 5 weekends a year, we’ll show you step by step how to make what is deepest within you a somebody to a lot of people in the world.