the ‘Emerging Self’ is enough
We hear so much from self-help gurus about being your ‘best self’. I don’t know about you, but I can probably be my ‘best self’ on about ummmm….10 days a year for about 2 hours a day - when I get out of bed with positivity, achieve my to-do list in an hour, spend time totally connected to my loved ones, followed by a nap in the hammock!
At these times I feel really great - full of purpose, joy and peace. I congratulate myself on my achievement… but what about the rest of the year? Does this mean I am a failure at life because I am not being my ‘best self’ all of the time?
Modern society puts so much pressure on us to be our ‘best selves’ in every aspect of our lives… work, family, friends, health and leisure. It’s easy to look at social media and feel like your life is less than adequate, and that others are better at living than we are. We put these ideals at the forefront of our minds and this can leave us feeling like we are not enough in any sphere of our lives.
But what if our ‘emerging self’ is enough? What if it is the journey rather than the destination that’s important? Sure, it’s great to have goals and dreams, and they are so important in making meaningful change, however what about if we turned inward a little and recognised the amazing things that we have accomplished to get to this point in our lives?
Many of us focus on regrets and what we ‘should have’ or ‘could have’ done differently in the past. We need to acknowledge that we did the best we could with the knowledge we had at the time. But more than that, we need to see what we did well, what we achieved, what strengths we showed when things were difficult. So we want to say thank-you to our ‘emerging selves’ for that journey.
Some of you may say, “Well, I didn’t really make any great moves in the past… in fact I was pretty lost/ stupid/ ignorant!” But you are here, reading this. You must have done something right. What did you learn from this journey, what strengths have you built in yourself, have your values become clearer?
Our ‘emerging selves’ are never going to be perfect. We will most probably never be our ‘best selves’. However, we do need to thank ourselves for our resilience, courage and spirit to keep going. We need to thank ourselves for learning the lessons we have learnt, the connections we have made with others and the willingness to strive to build lives that have meaning, joy and purpose for us.
I want women to understand that being your ‘emerging self’ is enough. There are days we are all going to wish we did things differently - had more patience, more effort, more fun. However, I believe we need to thank ourselves everyday for just getting through one more day of being human. We need to draw out what our ‘emerging self’ learnt or practised each day and focus less on what we achieved. After all, if we spend a life wanting to just achieve goals, we will always feel there are things not completed. We achieve everyday by being our ‘emerging selves’ and that’s enough.