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Are You Trying to Be Something That You're Not?

Lauren Grace Living

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Are You Trying to Be Something That You're Not?

Lauren Grace discusses tips for feeling good in your own skin. Lauren Grace is a Acupunturist and Life Coach in Sarasota, Florida and offers her services to those in Lakewood Ranch, Bradenton and Venice as well.2 weeks ago I decided to chop off my hair and have been rocking a new short do. A pretty drastic move for most women. And contrary to what you might believe this was actually a last minute decision on my part. I was scheduled for a normal trim and just less then 18 hours before my appointment I decided that I was going to go short, real short. Why? Because I finally realized that I just look better with short hair.

Seems like a silly realization, and why it took me 8 years to figure out I’m not sure. See when I was younger and living in New York I actually had a pixie cut. And it looked great on me, if I don’t say so myself. But at some point I decided to grow it out just for a change, and then I moved to Florida. The minute my hair was exposed to the humidity in Florida it went back into a pony tail and remained there for 8 years. During that time I tried every product imaginable to smooth out my hair and tame my curls. I would see so many other Floridians walking around with long beautiful hair in the dead of summer and I was so envious. I wanted nothing more then to be able to wear my hair down like they did. In fact I was starting to get quite a complex about it. When I would go out with my friends all I would notice was how good their hair looked. I started comparing my hair with every woman I saw, and feeling bad about myself more and more. Finally I had an epiphany, when I realized that as long as I live in Florida long hair is never going to look good on me, and I just need to accept it. With this new realization it hit me that I should just go back to having short hair, because that worked for me. I recognized that for the past 8 years I’ve been trying to make my hair something its not. And I’ve been ignoring its good qualities. With this new cut I decided that I would start working with my hair, instead of against it.

So why should you care about my hair drama? And what does this have to do with you? Keep reading and I’ll explain.

When I decided to cut my hair it was really about differentiating between my strengths and weaknesses. Short hair = strength, long hair = weakness. By keeping my hair long, and trying to make it be something that it’s not, I was constantly working with and on my weakness. But when I went short, I started embracing and cultivating my strengths. And what a difference that made! I immediately felt more confident then I have in years, and I also felt stronger in many ways. I felt like I was finely accepting my unique self and embracing my natural gifts. And this reminded me that often we get so stuck on trying to fix our weaknesses that we forget about nourishing our strengths.

I’ll give you another example that has nothing to do with hair. When I first decided to have my own website and to start blogging I spent a year trying to build it myself. Now I am not techy at all! That is a huge weakness of mine! So trying to build a website by myself was an extremely intimidating task. But I so wanted to overcome that weakness that I stubbornly trudged along reading countless books and watching endless videos on how to make a website. A year of trying, and I still had no website. I finally gave up, hired a designer, and within a month I had a beautiful website that was infinitely better then anything I could have done. I spent so much time and energy trying to overcome that weakness when I could have just paid someone to begin with and focused on my strength which is writing. Now whenever there is anything technical involving my business I hire out. I realize that my time is better spent focusing on my strength then my weakness.

Does this mean we should never focus on improving those weak spots? No not at all. I think that we should always be learning and trying to improve our skills. But sometimes I think we focus so much on those weak spots that we end up beating ourselves up over it trying to be something that we are not. What if instead of focusing so much on our weaknesses we focused on our strengths? How would that change how you see yourself? How would it change how you run your business and your life?

This week make a list of all your strengths. From your appearance to your skill sets. What makes you unique? When do you feel the most confident? Then focus on really cultivating those strengths and celebrating them. And feel free to brag in the comments below. I want to hear what makes you so awesome.