Be Who You Are

 One thing I've been grappling with a lot lately is allowing myself to be who I am, even if that person isn't always the "best fit" for my current life situation. Ever since getting my yoga and HypnoBirthing certifications, I've felt, in many ways, like a failure for not using them (even though I just barely got the HB certification). I have always struggled with completing major accomplishments - like these certifications - and then feeling like a failure shortly after when things didn't "happen" right away.

What's frustrating, from my perspective, is that I see this attitude in my students all the time. I'm constantly telling them that nothing happens TO them, that they have to make success happen. You need to work for it, not wish for it - right? So why is it SO HARD to take my own advice?

Part of it comes from being a Rebel Tendency type (see what you are here). Rebels hate being told what to do - even by ourselves. That's why resolutions are so difficult to keep. Telling myself I need to create a schedule and stick to it for updating my blog or promoting my business is hard because my own personality rebels against itself. It's a rather irritating paradox.

I have also ruminated on the fact that when I try to learn new things and I'm not successful right away, I tend to get angry and frustrated and embarrassed and quit before I actually learn - again, something I talk my students out of literally all the time. I shouldn't expect myself to be successful on the first try, but I've been successful on the first try enough times to convince myself that if at first I don't succeed, I won't succeed at all. This issue is fed when I pour time, effort, and money into learning something new, and then I'm not good at it. I feel pretty confident that if I hadn't gotten a teaching job my first year, I would've simply given up. 

I'm tired of giving up, quite frankly. It makes all my need to learn new things feel like a big waste of time, money, and effort. Money is something I currently focus on, given overspending and shopping are the two traits I'm trying to curb right now. I find it hard to forgive myself for spending money on all these certification courses when I feel like I'll never use them because nothing has happened in the week since I started trying. Logically I recognize this is irrational, but fear of failure is holding me back.

Maybe I will never make it work, maybe I will. As I tell my students - the only certainty is that you will fail if you do nothing. I'm working on taking my own advice, on allowing myself to do what I enjoy and just try.