It’s been a while since my last post. I went away on holiday recently and was faced with some eye opening realities. Enjoying time away from all the stresses and mundanities of life, I came home feeling a serious pang of gloom. I brought it down to a simple case of post-holiday syndrome. But then I started questioning myself and I felt overwhelmed by how much more happiness I wanted in my life. I was in this continual state of self evaluation. Questioning my worth, my values and what inspires me. But am I going to sit here in a pitiful state dreaming of the future? No way, not me! If my resilience helped me through the worst of times then I knew I just needed a little inspiration to stay positive.
One piece of advice which was drummed into me a long time ago, is that we must just keep going. Regardless of the situation or whether we are feeling unmotivated, afraid or uncertain about the future, it is better to constantly keep moving than to stay idle. In hard times these words resonate deeply within me and the gutted feeling of past mistakes and failures remind me all too well of the times I gave up. I feared the unknown and was afraid of moving forward. It got me nowhere at the time but I learnt from those mistakes and moved on.
Most of the time we don’t even recognise what we are afraid of until it looks us straight in the eyes. Fear is a basic human emotion instilled in us from a young age. Conditioned by our parents, life as a kid is simple. We are brought up in an institutional environment and we’re molded by what society perceives as good and acceptable. Fear is pushed aside to make way for the responsibilities of adulthood. How do we separate basic levels of fear from the lingering fear that holds us back from pursuing our goals? What if you have no direction? Where does the creativity come from if inspiration is lacking? When people don’t know the answer, they use fear as an excuse but it is far better to move forward even in uncertain times than to be left behind in an idle state of weakness and complacency.
So what really constitutes complacency? Its insidious grasp is firm and is probably udetectable. You might be content with your current situation that you fail to see opportunities.Maybe you’ve reached a plateau and don’t want to do any more training or try anything new because you’re comfortable. It just “seems too hard”. Ask yourself, would you rather circle the bottom of a steep hill because it looks too challenging to climb? Or forego comfort to push yourself to the top? It is this analogy that I remind myself of when there are days I feel like I’m stuck in a rut, when I feel inadequate, not smart enough or just plain impatient with life. I turn to world leaders, to my idols and my mentors for inspiration.
One thing I really enjoy doing is reading stories about entrepreneurs and what makes them tick. They are not only big thinkers; they are big doers. I, myself, need a little direction at times to be propelled into action so the idea of being an entrepreneur is somewhat intimidating, but part of me wishes I had their level of tenacity. Especially when I read about women entrepreneurs. It pushes me to want to accomplish so much more on my own. What is the driving force behind their motivation, agility and energy? They all possess a forward-thinking mindset. If you take a look at the world’s leaders, put them in a room and ask them to spill the beans about their journey of life, they will most likely tell you that the difficult times they encountered were simply stepping stones to get to where they are today. They did not remain idle, stagnant or unwelcome to change. An open mind to change may lead to new relationships, better career paths and different life experiences.
It is with this type of “I can do anything” mentality that I am seeing more and more women on the rise in leadership roles. It inspires other women to stop and take notice. What’s even more interesting is that I’m also seeing women rising up in technology roles. How often do you see women engineers? Or women entrepreneurs? Or women as CEO’s or on the Board of Directors of large multi-national companies? I’m inspired by all types of leaders, but it takes great courage and strength of character for a woman to rise to the top. A fearless woman is a woman who believes in herself and she can persevere when the going gets tough.
Marissa Mayer, recently appointed CEO of Yahoo is like many driven career woman yet she stands out as a fearless newcomer, having earned a coveted role in a very large and well known organisation. Unlike her predecessors, Mayer is the youngest CEO at Yahoo and one of the youngest women CEO’s in the world. Even at Google, she was the first woman engineer to contribute to Google’s product creation and land leading roles as the company grew. Now Mayer is striving to prove to the world that her efforts will help boost Yahoo’s current lacklustre image in the face of its Goliath competitor, Google, and she is exemplary of a woman managing to exceed expectations and continue to break through that glass ceiling stigma. The catalyst for breaking through that ceiling in a world dominated by men, lies not just in a womans breadth of understanding and intelligence, but it lies in her attitude. The fearless women with the right attitude are the ones who make it to the top. At the young age of 37, Mayer is indeed in my opinion, fearless.
So here I am, at times feeling uninspired, unworthy and not good enough. I look at world’s leaders and inspirational women doing their part to encourage gender diversity in management and executive roles. I look at eccentric over achievers like Steve Jobs, powerful moguls like Gina Rinehart and humble philanthropists like Melinda Gates or Oprah Winfrey who are changing the world and it pushes me to want to do more. If I could achieve a tiny fraction of what they have done in their lifetimes, then I would be happy. But then I look at people closer to home; the people who are close to me, who inspire and motivate me every day… and one thought remains. It doesn’t matter what I do. What matters is that I refuse to let myself succumb to self-doubt. I refuse to stay idle. I am enamoured with all these inspiring leaders of the world and I aim to dedicate my future to moving forward, even in idle, uncertain times. Pushing boundaries and rising above the fear of the unknown is avoiding complacency… it’s avoiding stagnant behaviour… it’s refusing to conform… it’s refusing to be a wall flower….It’s creating new ways of thinking and welcoming new opportunities into your life…. for me, it’s about being fearless and that will be the key to my happiness.
