Have you ever noticed that people become really successful when they stop doing what other people say they should do and start doing things their way?
There is something attractive and empowering about a person who is truly authentic. I think a lot of it has to do with the way they project positive energy. They aren’t listening to and absorbing all the criticism and negativity from other people. Their energy is just flowing outward and what comes from within them is positive.
It doesn’t mean they are perfect people. It simply means they know who they are and they like who they are.
All of us need to express our true authentic selves. We begin by asking ourselves some simple questions:
What are you good at? This may be different from what you want to do or like to do. It is about how your brain and your body work. Too often we ignore some of our experience, talents, skills or traits because we assume we can only use them a certain way. But who says we have to fit into someone else’s mold? Being true to ourselves, we don’t conform to the mold, we break the mold.
What are your values? Your values are those ideals that you are willing to take a stand for in the face of opposition. They define how you conduct and judge yourself and others. They make you hold yourself and others accountable to a higher standard.
What contribution will you make? Our contribution doesn’t have to be something big and bold that you do by yourself. Often it is something we do in conjunction with other people or as part of a team. In making our contribution we put our experience, talents, skills, traits and values into action and join them together with the experience, talents, skills, traits and values of others to make something bigger possible.
What are the results you want to achieve? How are you going to measure your success and see the value of your contribution? What is the final assembled puzzle going to look like?
Our answers to these questions help us find our niche which may not be what we expected.
As a civil engineer I always wanted to build runways and super-highways. It is what I studied and set out in my career to do. It fit with my value system of constructing something that made a contribution to society. However, I never built a super-highway because as it turned out, it wasn’t Me.
Instead I spent 12 years of my career constructing new military family housing. As an Air Force veteran and Air Force spouse I knew how important tearing down the old dilapidated homes built in the 1950’s by the lowest bidder was to military families. I knew how much these families were sacrificing and how wrong it was for them to live in housing that needed to be condemned. I knew from my experience that they deserved homes that met today’s standards and gave them the respect they deserved.
Even with that knowledge it took me a while to realize military family housing was my niche and what I was meant to do. During that time I tried to get into highway construction many times but failed to do so. Eventually I realized I was right where I belonged – military family housing was the perfect fit for my experience, talents, skills and values. My contribution was desperately needed because military family housing is a unique kind of construction that most construction professionals don’t fit into well. My unique fit into the industry made me stand out and made a difference.
When you are where you belong, doing what you are meant to do, you take a lot of pride in your work. On one project I had the extra benefit of meeting every family who moved into the new homes my team and I constructed. I learned learn first hand the difference we made to them. I don’t think I could have ever constructed anything else that would have meant as much to me.
My niche in military family house gave me a great sense of personal fulfillment. It helped me learn more about who I am, what I can do and what has meaning to me. In a way probably only I can understand it led me to doing The Woman In The Room. And as we close out this year, I am again realizing my unique niche and hope that in time it will lead to even greater personal fulfillment.
None of us should ever stop looking for those opportunities to express and be every bit of who you are. As I learned these opportunities can turn up in some very unexpected ways. They can even be those opportunities that you outright reject saying, “No that’s not for me, that’s not who I am.” So, keep an open mind. You may learn a lot about who you really are.
Empowered Women Are True to Themselves
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