You can’t let other people tell you who you are.
You have to decide that for yourself
Recent world events show us how easily individuals can be persuaded.
How the voice of others can tell us what to be, who to be, how to behave. They tell us who is good, who is bad, who is right and who is wrong. When individuals are led by others, they diminish themselves.
In reality we all need to decide for ourselves who we are, what we stand for and how we will live our lives.
Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.
Coco Chanel
When a man doesn’t know what harbour he is making for,
no wind is the right wind
Seneca
I was speaking to a prospective coach client this morning. They described themselves as lost. The work appears to be about self, about who they are.
They asked me how they would know when they had achieved their goal; I responded with a question, asking how they know now? How they know they need to come to coaching, that they are indeed ‘lost’?
They responded that they ‘feel it’. And so I said, ‘that’s how you will know.’
Sometimes knowing where we are headed is important, but so too is knowing how we will know we have arrived. Without this, any wind, any movement, is without purpose and just as likely to take us the wrong way as to take us the right way.
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you
Carl Sandberg
We lay down the layers of our life through the use of our time. Knowing how we want that to be and to be seen by others. Choosing the legacy we will leave. This matters.
Wherever you are, be there totally
Hunger is the best pickle
Benjamin Franklin
Desire and drive add spice to our lives.
… eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak
Hans Hoffman
Your ego is a false identity that your mind created
and then you took up residence in
The “I shoulds” and “I musts” we tell ourselves belong to our ego. It’s not all you are. In fact it’s an illusion, albeit a very influential one.
Be more than your ego. Listen to your soul. Fly free.
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd
Rumi
We are, what we give to others.
Shut your eyes and see
James Joyce
Sometimes looking blinds us to what is really going on.
Especially when the truth lies inside.
image: Tony Allen
illuminated dandelion 