“I love decorating but I’ll never be Joanna.”
“I love to speak but I’ll never be Jen Hatmaker.”
“I love to cook but I’ll never be on The Chew.”
“I love to write but I’ll never be Anne Lamott.”
“I love to do yoga but I’ll never be good enough to teach.”
“I love to sing but I’m no P!nk. Or Maren.”
“I love to run but I’ll never win the race.”
“I love kids but I’ll never be as good as a mom as she is.”
“I love to code but I’ll never be Zuck.”
“I love to smile but I’ll never be Buddy the Elf.”
“I love to research but I’ll never cure cancer.”
“I love to travel but I will never become Anthony Bourdain.”
“I love taking pictures but I’ll never be Annie Leibovitz.”
“I love advocating but I’ll never be Rosa.”
…
Stop.
…
Stop.
….
Stop.
…
We are never meant to be someone else. N e v e r. We are meant to be us. And in being oneself, we find our own love tos and becomings. Let them be. Let us be.
We are meant for our own sort of greatness. Our own story. And so, we should never ever ever ever let someone else’s story stop us from our own.
What if you aren’t meant to be Joanna but you are meant to be some version of Joanna that is actually you. What if you are meant to take gorgeous pictures from your lens but you keep trying to see them through someone else’s lens? What if you are meant to cook for small, intimate groups of friends and allow them to spill their souls and fill their bellies but you never take the chance to make them a meal? What if you are meant to share your knowledge with one specific person and that’s it and somehow, instead you bury it inside you and don’t give it any gas and then… that one person is without. What if you try and you fail? But moreover, what if you try and you succeed in a way that you didn’t know was going to look like success until you held it to your chest and felt it beating with your heart?
What if you never let yourself out of the cage?
Use the people you admire as fuel. Not as fear. Let them serve as a guidepost. Or an example. But don’t let them cause you to give up. Don’t worry about not becoming someone else. Worry more about never truly being yourself. For that would be the worst tragedy of all.
You’re right. You will never be someone else. You will never be someone else’s version of greatness if you can never find your own. And once you find your own, you won’t want to become someone else.
You must wake each day and remind yourself that just as the brilliant JT once stated, “It’s gonna be me.” Because each day is your own fresh start to be the person who knows you better than anyone: yourself. And somehow, the depths of night can settle into us and tell us we can’t. Or we mustn’t. Or we’re just not ever gunna.
Let this be your making year. Make yourself meet yourself. Right where you are right now. Maybe you have to stop something that has been keeping you from making you. Maybe you have to start something. And maybe, you just need to stay your course.
Find your spark and let that damn light shine the way only YOU can.
Tell yourself today, “It’s gonna be me.”
“I’m gunna be me.” Every day. This is your making year.
And it won’t happen overnight. Even though you’re in there. It won’t happen just because you want it to. But it will, one day, reveal itself — your purpose — and you’ll wonder why you spent so much time searching the world and the others when in fact it lived in you all the live long day.
This is your making year. Even if it just means making your bed. Let yourself become.
