We regularly get these desk drops from the ICASA people. It is supposed to be filled with all the tricks, treats and stories to help you cope with life, your job, your family. In short pop-psychology packaged in easily digestible chunks. Today's one has this interesting article in it relating to Caroline McHugh's TED talk.
When you look at remarkable individuals, people who have achieved what they set out to do, what they have in common is that they have nothing in common, she says. Rather, the thread that links them is that they have found a way to figure out their unique gifts – to play the one true note they were meant to sing, she adds.
These remarkable people come from all walks of life, in art, business, music, even the person in front of you in the grocery store or the colleague in the cubicle next to yours. McHugh notes that we call these people “larger than life”.
A concept that makes her smile, because how can anyone be larger than life? Life is huge. But the truth is, most people don’t take nearly enough space in their own lives, she remarks. The ones that appear larger than life seem to take up a little more room and not only that, they shine.
McHugh notes, “What I’ve learnt in all my years of research is that individuality really is all that it is cracked up to be.”
Our job, says McHugh, is to be ourselves, not like anyone else, but to fully become ourselves. It’s not new advice – even she admits this. “Everyone tells you just be yourself.” What makes the advice hard, she points out, is that word, ‘just’. As if being yourself in a world that constantly tells us to be someone else is easy.
The odds of you in the world
Then there’s the other problem – the one where we can’t help comparing ourselves to others. What if you think being you isn’t something to write home about? That you aren’t special? Perhaps you think you’re ordinary. Or not as special as other people. Consider this: scientists have calculated the odds of you being born, taking into account wars, natural disasters and everything else, the moment in time to the parents you were born to is 1 in 400 000 000 000, according to Mel Sherat, author of Stop Saying You’re Fine.
What this means is that you as an individual beat the odds over a trillion times to be in this world today. There’s nothing at all ordinary about that.
As a child you are fantastic at being yourself, says McHugh. It doesn’t occur to you at three years old to ever want to be someone else or like anyone else, because we don’t know how to disguise our differences. Once we get older we become aware of our differences and we compare ourselves and measure these differences against others for good and bad. Where it become a problem is when we start to lose ourselves, when we forget who we are and what makes us unique and we let it get in the way.
Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, designed her year-long quest to find happiness around the simple motto to “Be Gretchen”. She says that there was no point in trying to build a foundation of happiness that didn’t reflect her fundamental nature. This doesn’t mean she embraced false truths that limited her growth or didn’t stretch her, but rather she didn’t waste time doing things that she knew she didn’t like. For instance, if you’ve never been someone who is naturally mathematical, forcing yourself to make this your career would probably not be the best idea, whereas improving your skills so that it doesn’t hold you back in what you want to do would.
Owning your lobster suit
In her book, Creative Living Beyond Fear, one of the central messages author Elizabeth Gilbert shares is the idea that everyone was born to be creative in their own way whether its art or business or anything else. Our job isn’t to decide whether it is good or bad, but rather to push past the things holding us back. One of the ways we can do this is to embrace who we are.
Gilbert shares a story of a young man who found himself with the good fortune of being invited to a costume party thrown by a group of aristocrats. Excited, he arrived dressed in what back home would have been a completely fun and appropriate outfit – a lobster suit. Only, this costume party wasn’t like the dress up parties he was used to. When the casual aristocrats had used the term, they’d meant a masquerade ball. The young man, dressed in his lobster suit, was surrounded by world famous celebrities dressed to the nines in diamonds, feathers, and masks, he was mortified. So what did he do? Instead of going home or slinking away – as if a man dressed in a lobster suit could ever slink away – he owned it. He saw the humour and embraced it, and so did everyone else. At the party, everyone was talking about him. Everyone wanted a picture with the man in the lobster suit and afterwards he made several important business connections and had gained new friends as well.
Had he decided to do anything but embrace the lobster suit, his experience may have been different. In life, the lobster suit can be a metaphor for our unique selves and why we should embrace them. South African artist Ann Gadd was a respected art director with a reputation for excellence before she decided to take the plunge and open her own business. Times were tough, and to take her mind off things one day, she started painting quirky sheep. She had a complete blast while she was doing it and when she finished she knew that she had something different – something she never normally would have painted but she embraced it, took them to a local gallery who ordered them on the spot, and a few days later she got a call for more. Overnight, her life changed and now Ann Gadd is internationally acclaimed for her fun, humorous sheep. Had she said to herself, “No this wasn’t the plan, I must stick to my usual work” she wouldn’t be the artist she is today.
Your faults, flaws, and unique gifts make you who you are – a one in a trillion person with their own unique lobster suit to offer the world. Your only job is to embrace it, who knows where it may take you. "
Original article can be found here.
Now, the question remains, without NLP how are regular folk going to de-program themselves from the decades and decades of conditioning, by teachers and parents that worked from the same script and forced you into a box, they could handle. Individuality does not conform to anyone else standards.
The art of being who you are
"There’s an art to being yourself, says life coach Caroline McHugh, in her powerful Ted talk of the same title.When you look at remarkable individuals, people who have achieved what they set out to do, what they have in common is that they have nothing in common, she says. Rather, the thread that links them is that they have found a way to figure out their unique gifts – to play the one true note they were meant to sing, she adds.
These remarkable people come from all walks of life, in art, business, music, even the person in front of you in the grocery store or the colleague in the cubicle next to yours. McHugh notes that we call these people “larger than life”.
A concept that makes her smile, because how can anyone be larger than life? Life is huge. But the truth is, most people don’t take nearly enough space in their own lives, she remarks. The ones that appear larger than life seem to take up a little more room and not only that, they shine.
McHugh notes, “What I’ve learnt in all my years of research is that individuality really is all that it is cracked up to be.”
Our job, says McHugh, is to be ourselves, not like anyone else, but to fully become ourselves. It’s not new advice – even she admits this. “Everyone tells you just be yourself.” What makes the advice hard, she points out, is that word, ‘just’. As if being yourself in a world that constantly tells us to be someone else is easy.
The odds of you in the world
Then there’s the other problem – the one where we can’t help comparing ourselves to others. What if you think being you isn’t something to write home about? That you aren’t special? Perhaps you think you’re ordinary. Or not as special as other people. Consider this: scientists have calculated the odds of you being born, taking into account wars, natural disasters and everything else, the moment in time to the parents you were born to is 1 in 400 000 000 000, according to Mel Sherat, author of Stop Saying You’re Fine.
What this means is that you as an individual beat the odds over a trillion times to be in this world today. There’s nothing at all ordinary about that.
As a child you are fantastic at being yourself, says McHugh. It doesn’t occur to you at three years old to ever want to be someone else or like anyone else, because we don’t know how to disguise our differences. Once we get older we become aware of our differences and we compare ourselves and measure these differences against others for good and bad. Where it become a problem is when we start to lose ourselves, when we forget who we are and what makes us unique and we let it get in the way.
Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, designed her year-long quest to find happiness around the simple motto to “Be Gretchen”. She says that there was no point in trying to build a foundation of happiness that didn’t reflect her fundamental nature. This doesn’t mean she embraced false truths that limited her growth or didn’t stretch her, but rather she didn’t waste time doing things that she knew she didn’t like. For instance, if you’ve never been someone who is naturally mathematical, forcing yourself to make this your career would probably not be the best idea, whereas improving your skills so that it doesn’t hold you back in what you want to do would.
Owning your lobster suit
In her book, Creative Living Beyond Fear, one of the central messages author Elizabeth Gilbert shares is the idea that everyone was born to be creative in their own way whether its art or business or anything else. Our job isn’t to decide whether it is good or bad, but rather to push past the things holding us back. One of the ways we can do this is to embrace who we are.
Gilbert shares a story of a young man who found himself with the good fortune of being invited to a costume party thrown by a group of aristocrats. Excited, he arrived dressed in what back home would have been a completely fun and appropriate outfit – a lobster suit. Only, this costume party wasn’t like the dress up parties he was used to. When the casual aristocrats had used the term, they’d meant a masquerade ball. The young man, dressed in his lobster suit, was surrounded by world famous celebrities dressed to the nines in diamonds, feathers, and masks, he was mortified. So what did he do? Instead of going home or slinking away – as if a man dressed in a lobster suit could ever slink away – he owned it. He saw the humour and embraced it, and so did everyone else. At the party, everyone was talking about him. Everyone wanted a picture with the man in the lobster suit and afterwards he made several important business connections and had gained new friends as well.
Had he decided to do anything but embrace the lobster suit, his experience may have been different. In life, the lobster suit can be a metaphor for our unique selves and why we should embrace them. South African artist Ann Gadd was a respected art director with a reputation for excellence before she decided to take the plunge and open her own business. Times were tough, and to take her mind off things one day, she started painting quirky sheep. She had a complete blast while she was doing it and when she finished she knew that she had something different – something she never normally would have painted but she embraced it, took them to a local gallery who ordered them on the spot, and a few days later she got a call for more. Overnight, her life changed and now Ann Gadd is internationally acclaimed for her fun, humorous sheep. Had she said to herself, “No this wasn’t the plan, I must stick to my usual work” she wouldn’t be the artist she is today.
Your faults, flaws, and unique gifts make you who you are – a one in a trillion person with their own unique lobster suit to offer the world. Your only job is to embrace it, who knows where it may take you. "
Original article can be found here.
Now, the question remains, without NLP how are regular folk going to de-program themselves from the decades and decades of conditioning, by teachers and parents that worked from the same script and forced you into a box, they could handle. Individuality does not conform to anyone else standards.
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