Are You Afraid of Who You Might Become? How to Push, Nurture, and Love our Authentic Selves

Have you ever felt like something was holding you back from achieving your goals, but you can’t quite put your finger on it? Maybe we think it’s a fear of failure? Many books and articles will tell us this is often a trigger that leads to procrastination. But, on the flip side, there is also fear of success. Are we afraid of what that looks like? Are we unsure of what to do with that success? I have another theory, especially regarding women, on why we might be falling short of our goals. 

I believe we are afraid of who we might become. That could change everything. It could change our career, who our friends are, who we are as parents, and could even change our relationship with our spouse, maybe even ending it altogether. And that is scary as hell! As women, we are naturally interdependent. We still bear this programming even in modern society. We are the ones our families rely on to keep up the family unit. Historically, the men were the hunters, and the women were the gatherers. We gathered everyone and everything and brought it all together for our survival. Our survival depended on our ability to keep all the balls in the air: no pressure or anything. 

But one thing in life is for sure, and that is change. There is an old myth that says our body renews completely every seven years. While this isn’t entirely true at a scientific level, there is a lot to this statement. If you have kids, think about how much they change at the ages of 7 and 14. At 21, we are often an entirely new person, and honestly, about every seven years after that, we see massive changes that have taken place in our lives. Often, we do feel like entirely new people because we have wholly BECOME new people. 

This process can be a great thing, or it can be holding us back. If we are not allowing space for this renewal process for fear of what it may take from us or for fear of exposing our most authentic selves, we aren’t genuinely allowing ourselves to grow into the humans we were meant to be. Maybe we take a step back from that growth for fear it brings us outside of our comfort zone, for fear we might not make it, or for fear that it takes us to a new destination altogether that’s completely unfamiliar. So we stay, we allow ourselves to remain inside of our boxes, just a bit. We may build a window or peek our head outside every once in a while and say, this is me, here I am, this is what I want now. But then we take that proclamation and pull it down inside of our safe box and try to make it fit. But it doesn’t always fit. Sometimes we just need to smash that damn box into smithereens! But we are afraid. 

Let me tell you something very scary but very liberating. Not only every seven years, but every damn day, you get to wake up and choose who you want to be. Seriously, you can be whoever you want to be. Think about the person you see yourself as, what color is her hair, how does she show up in the world, what does her workday look like, or is she at home? How does that home look? Think of all the ways that you dream of showing up in the world and write them down. Then, tomorrow I want you to pick one to be when you wake up in the morning. You may not have all the pieces you envisioned just yet, but you can still BE that person. Just own it. Right now.

Here’s a super simplified example. Maybe you see yourself as wearing makeup more regularly. So tomorrow, I want you to get up and put that face on. You may find that you feel refreshed and ready to take on the world when you have your face on, and it’s something you want to adopt in your life regularly.  Or maybe, you might find that it doesn’t fit who you are and it isn’t that important to you after all. And that’s okay because you get to choose all over again—every day. You are in control of your own life. So choose YOU for today. Maybe you’ll be someone else tomorrow.