Finding My Way To Badassery

I have had quite the story to tell, quite the experiences had.  The past few years have led me through uncomfortable spaces and amazing places.  I have jumped into life, saying yes to new things and new experiences.  I have also retreated far away from people who care about me and hid deep under the covers hoping to make time disappear.  The ups and downs, the highs and lows, they have all been lessons to teach and exercises to learn.  And for some of it, I felt like I was just allowing life to happen to me.  I was putting in the work without really knowing where I wanted to go.  But I think I figured it out.  I know where I want to go.  I want to be the bestest, badassest version of myself.  

I can’t always choose the path that life lays out in front of me, life seems to have a way of being unpredictable and erratic.  It has a way of changing its course and direction without warning or trace.  But who the fuck cares.  I don’t need those things to be bad-ass.  I don’t need my path to be straight.  I don’t need my path to be easy.  I just need to be sure footed.  I need to travel with a good attitude and a clear mind.  I need to say yes to things that make me uncomfortable.  I need to embrace changes as opportunities.  And I need to hold hands with the people that are walking the same direction, relying on the relationships and the friendships to build trust and confidence.  Maybe I even a little fearlessness and courage…maybe.  

It’s easy to look ahead with optimism, but it’s a lot harder to live moment to moment, step by step.  For some reason making the plan is so much easier than following through with it.  I can sit down and write out the steps that are guaranteed to get me to the badassest version of myself, but that is the easy part.  As the list is coming together, I have to look at the bumps in the road.  Where does my path go wrong?  Where do I get lost?  First of all, I think most of us begin our lists, our goals, by seeing ourselves through a lens that is filtered with other peoples accomplishments.  We start to write our lists based on what other people want for themselves and for us.  And then we lose our way by comparing ourselves to other people.  Those comparisons are usually skewed.  We compare our failures with their successes.  We watch with envy as someone loses the 10 pounds that we seem to struggle with.  We get frustrated with our strength when someone accomplishes their first chin up.  But we forget to look at ourselves and see the pieces that make us successful.  We forget that people are watching our successes and are proud of these achievements.  Comparison can lead us down a path that feels more like failure, a path that is littered with envy and resentment when really there is no need or no place for that.  What if the first item on our to-do list to badassery is to see our own personal successes.  To give ourselves a high five for every smile we give, every pound we lose, every single thing that we do right in our day.  Because honestly, no one else is going to make me a badass, so I better start by finding my own successes. 

Another piece that veers us further away from our goal is spending too much time looking for the end of our path, for the finish line.  We forget that each little step is moving us forward, moving us in a direction.  We set the end results of an image of ourselves, maybe it’s losing 10 pounds or walking every day.  We set this end result without realizing the work that it will take to change our eating habits, our lifestyle.  And then we create the future image of the person we think will be looking back at us.  But that person is right here, right now.  That person is the one that is working the hardest and deserves the reward everyday for putting in the work.  We need to allow ourselves flexibility to not be perfect but to be real and true to ourselves.  We don’t need to be so hard on ourselves when our time line is off and our progress is slowed or worse, we hit a plateau.  

Becoming a badass is also about the journey, it’s about all the bumps and turns.  There is life and experiences in each and every one of them.  There is no need to give up, just because the path doesn’t look the way we thought it would.  Sometimes we have to look down to see how far we’ve climbed.  It would be so easy to look ahead a week or a month and be able to predict and plan exactly where we would be.  We could plan for our success and prepare for our failures.  We would know what’s ahead and pace our steps to get us there either faster or slower.  But that isn’t life and that isn’t going to give me the experiences I need to become the badassest version of myself.  Each bump, each turn carries a story, carries lessons.  It carries tantrums and healing.  It carries its own successes and failures.  We need to learn to enjoy the ride, enjoy the unpredictability.  Sometimes it is going to give us experiences that will make our hearts grow and our smiles huge.  Other times it is going to break our hearts and test our abilities to not let it break our spirit.  But that is the path ahead, that is the unpredictability of what awaits.  I am ready to embrace and conquer anything that brings me to the badassesest version of me.  And the road ahead isn’t always going to be easy, but it’s my road to take.