Choosing ME!

Jim Rohn said: "You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? Got me saying? Got me thinking? Where do they have me going? What do they have me becoming?

When I started off on my self-development journey I understood from my readings that I needed to build my self-awareness muscle first. Because if you don't know who you are, how would you know which areas of yourself and your life you need to work on? The first thing I did was look at my relationships as a whole, and did some friendship autopsy. If I wanted to change I needed to be in an environment conductive of growth. My mindset was shifting and I wanted to be a better me and live a purposeful life. Writing things down gives you clarify always and this autopsy exercise helps you see your pattern in each and every relationship you've ever been into, but only when you are honest with yourself about yourself. I wrote the name of every person I was hanging out with in a column and asked myself these questions:

• What do we talk about when we are together?

• Where do we spend time together?

• What kind of vibes I am getting around this person, am I feeling energized or depleted?

• What value do we bring in each other life?

  
  

It was eye opening, my first realization was that I was a people pleaser, that I value my friendships more than I value myself, my time and energy. How many times did I cancel my plans last minute to accommodate a friend who wanted to go on a shopping spree or just meet up because they were feeling bored? While the same friend would never do that for me. I ran many scenarios from the past, where I would ask friends to accompany me somewhere or ask them to do something together and straight forward they would say no, I have my plans already for the weekend.

Second, I loved gossiping, whenever I was with these people, all we talked about were other people' business, like everything was going well in our lives or we were perfect. While the people we were spending time talking about were climbing up the ladder of life, but none of us were. That realization hit me hard, I was totally crushed when I discovered all these truths about me, it dawned on me that I squandered so much time of my life gossiping, so much energy looking for clues and information about what we thought was going on in other people lives to share it with friends.

I could see I did not have any relationship that was enriching my life, none of my friends was going anywhere, neither was I. Nothing bounded us beside the endless complains, the gossips and none of us were taking full responsibility for our standing in life. Our conversations were like that: He and She got promoted because they are asslickers yet we never questioning why actually it was not happening to us or what could we do to get promoted. After I went through that exercise, I decided to let go of everyone and everybody and to choose me over anyone else. I needed to upgrade myself and it was never going to happen with my current life circumstances.

"Choosing yourself isn't about being selfish; it's about being self-aware." – Unknown.

Yours Truly,

The Queen Of Africa