Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.”

– Wayne Dyer

I love this quote for what it taught me about myself. I remember a time when I struggled with extreme fatigue. I was so exhausted some days I dragged through my days. As I tried to get to the root of what it was, I came across this quote.

At the time I was struggling with working in a full time job that was a conflict with my values, struggling with debt, striving to start my coaching practice all while raising my 17 year old son. Every day was full with work, things to do and challenges at every turn. Often I did not have any control of things at least so it seemed. I felt overwhelmed with all that I needed to do and yet I seemed to only be treading water. Constant movement that never went anywhere!

One night while at dinner with some coaching buddies, (good friends) they pointed out to me how I was resisting being who I am. I was spending tons of energy fighting what I could naturally do it I let myself believe! Sounds kind of mysterious doesn’t it? Well have you ever been with someone who you know has potential, a gift, the ability to make things happen and they couldn’t see that? Well, I’m sure you have.

I would compare that experionce to what happened to me. No matter what they saw in me, I denied it. I could go into great detail about my frustrations and pain and struggle and they advised me to let go of that belief and create a new one. Simply see yourself for who you are.

How do you do that? Well from my experience as well as the experience of others I have coached, I learned to rely on these steps:

1.What do people come to you for, what to friends, family, business partners rely on you for?

2. How do you use that gift in your life, do you turn your back on that and say it is insignificant or is there some small way in your life you use this gift from time to time?

3.Once you define your gift, practice using it as many different ways as you can. Make it apart of your daily interactions.

I bet an example would help create a picture of what I am talking about.

When I asked others what they came to me for, they told me I could make sense of what was going on for them based on what they shared with me and what I came to know about them. I realized this was my intuition I was using.

I realised that working in a corporate setting, I had learned to turn my intuition down to a low volume. It was constantly there in the back of my mind, but I would second guess myself many times. They I started to pay attention and realized that would often know an outcome, direction or solution to a problem before it happened. I would say to myself, I knew that, that’s what I thought etc.

Then I recognized it was up to me to trust that I am intuitive and when I use it, it makes a difference in people’s lives.

So I started by practicing using my intuition. In my corporate job, I would not say it was intuition, I would frame it in a way that everyone could relate to or understand. It just gave others a feeling of trust and confidence in working with me.

As a result today I am learning to rely on my strengths and live my life as who I am rather than the safe me. Today fatigue evades me most of the time. Whenever it creeps back, I know it is time to do a personal assessment of what is really going on in my life.

I challenge you to answer the question, “What are you pretending not to know” I would add to it, what are you pretending not to know about yourself.

“Discover the Possibilities”
W