Leaderless Energy…Who are you?

People with integrity walk safely, but those who follow crooked paths will slip and fall.  Proverbs 10:9

Do you feel like you are walking crooked?  Are you really trying hard to be that someone you are expected to be by someone else?  You give all you can to be that person, always improving you, and striving to meet their expectations, and yet you come up short and feel confused.  No matter how hard you try, you simply cannot be that person.  Perhaps you even lost your passion and feel like you just cannot find the gusto you once had.  The fact is that you are not and will never be that person because that person is not you. What if I told you that you are walking crooked and that trying to be someone you are not is sucking the energy out of your life.  Take a moment, reflect and believe in your goodness.  All you can be is be your best you, not a you someone wants you to be. 

If you find that you are living your life trying to meet someone else’s unnecessary or unrealistic expectations, STOP IT.  Let’s begin being a healthy straight-walking you. After all, you were born to be you, not someone else’s version of you.

Perhaps you are more or less talkative than others in your life, or more or less organized, adventurous, risky, detail oriented, controlling, creative…the list goes on.   For everything we are not, there is someone somewhere who is.  Think back to school days where for some, science and math were so easy yet for others English or Gym class was easier.  We are all different and there are certainly enough assessment tools available that measure a broad spectrum of personality traits, habits, behaviors and preferences.  These tools help you identify the why you react or think a certain way, and they help you understand differences in others.  They don’t change who you are. But, they do help you identify areas that you may want to apply a less innate, more cognitive process.  This takes energy and continuously working at being someone you are not innately can be exhausting. 

I recently had a situation where I realized that who I am and who I am expected to be was causing me a lot of anxiety.  While there are behaviors I can modify easily, there were some that were going to cause me to exert a lot of energy.  Armed with lots of information from my personal development assessments, I tackled my situation.  I aligned myself with people who are opposite me in things like time management, I disengaged the stories in my head that had me shouldn’t all over myself and I flexed myself more in the areas that are beneficial and are within my comfort zone.

There are always going to be situations where you will need to walk crooked. However, accepting who you are and learning to enroll others who have those preferences that drain your energy will compliment you, will keep your energy level increased and will have you perceived as ”that person” who meets their expectations…all while you get to be just “you”.