It's a Choice...

I had to make a choice yesterday.

From the outside this choice may have seemed insignificant, but in the grand scope of life it was an important one. What was this choice, you ask?

I chose to show up, and when it got hard I chose to keep going.

This moment was like a waterfall of realization hitting me all at once while I was leaning over with my hands on my knees trying to catch my breath.

“Wow…I am really out of shape.” I thought to myself. “How on earth did I let myself get here?”

Immediately as that thought danced across my mind, I grabbed it and flushed it. That question truly won’t do me any good in this moment. I needed to ask myself a better question. So I did. I got real with myself. “Hillary, you may not be where you desire to be right now, but that doesn’t mean this choice to show up is any less significant. You have a choice right here, right now. Will you embrace the process and be grateful for your body’s ability to move, lift and carry you through this workout? Or will you give up because you are daydreaming about a time when this would have been easier for you? One choice will move you forward, the other will hold you hostage…it’s your choice.”

With determined resolve, I chose to embrace the process. I chose to see myself where I am now - to love me just as I am in this moment and be excited about where I am heading.

As I mentioned above, this one seemingly insignificant moment in the gym brought forth a waterfall of realization for me. It wasn’t just a choice to keep going and embrace the journey of a healthier fitter me - it was a realization that this choice was instrumental in ALL areas of my life. It was a choice to begin each day excited about embracing the process, to love the unique experience of seeing new layers of my growth in each and every step. To do this because I see the value in becoming all that I was created to be, and not because I want to seek affirmation or approval from anyone else.

For most of my life I have felt that I needed to measure up to some perceived standard. This isn’t because of anyone telling me I had to, it was something I created for myself based on what I saw going on around me. What actions or accomplishments received the most praise? What accolades were those around me giving out in efforts to encourage someone to keep going?

As I observed these exchanges, I began to desire similar praise. I wanted to become someone that others would see as ‘exceptional’ - someone that they could be proud of. While I do believe it’s important to do all that we do with the goal of excellence, what I didn’t realize in my youth was that this desire to receive praise was a toxic desire rooted in performance to feel loved.

I believe we all experience this temptation to buy into the lie that we just aren’t enough as we are right here - right now. Choosing to believe this lie doesn’t make us stupid or less than, it simply makes us human. However, the choice to base our decisions and our perception of ourselves around this lie is very dangerous. We can very easily wind up traveling down a path that was never ours to walk in the first place. We wind up living a life trying to live up to other people’s (or our own) unrealistic standards and never discover what it’s like to be truly comfortable, truly happy being who we were created to be. We end up living a life that wasn’t our God-given life - and that, my friend, is tragic.

Over the last year I had been working diligently on a writing project. It started off as one idea and wound up becoming something completely different. If you aren’t familiar with the writing journey, just know that this is very common. It has been a dream of mine for some time to become an author and that dream became a reality in November of last year as I published my first book titled He Waits For Me: Love Letters From the Lord.

As this dream came to fruition, you’d think that I would be over joyed with this milestone finally arriving, right? I thought this would be the case too! But what I found was, I was being slammed with intense amounts of anxiety as I read the email that my book was now Live and available for purchase. Every fiber inside of me was screaming to call the publisher and have the book taken off their marketplace. Thoughts of wanting to hide and never tell anyone that this book was out there were swirling through my head. What if they read this book and look at me completely different? What if they read my story and see my struggles and think less of me? What if they don’t like my writing?

All these thoughts were very real, but they weren’t truth. They were unrealistic standards I was placing on others who would choose to read this book. The sad part is, I was very timid about sharing with others that I had even written this book. I shy’d away from posting about it on social media, and I even considered not going to my book launch party that my friends threw for me. Fear tried very hard to rob me of the happiness this accomplishment brought into my life, and if it weren’t for my amazing family and friends speaking truth into me - it might have won.

In reality would some readers choose to believe one or more of those opinions I feared so much? Sure. But whether they do or not, those opinions don’t determine whether or not I should see value and worth within myself, or whether I should embrace the joy of the moment as I see a dream laid out beautifully within my hands. I’ve been shying away from doing something that used to be so important to me - writing encouraging messages to share with others. I’ve allowed this unnecessary worry about whether or not others would see what I had to say as relevant or not, keep me from using my voice. I had forgotten why I started my campaign to be A Positive Voice Cutting Through the Negative Noise. If what I share helps just one person see the beauty of who they are, to see that they ARE worth it and to just keep going…then I have accomplished my goal.

Am I the best writer? No…not yet anyway! (Haha just kidding). But I am working on my craft and I am making the choice to enjoy the process. Because even in the process, there are beautiful lessons and things about yourself that you see clearer than you ever would if you never embarked on the journey. So often I would obsess about the destination being the oasis where everything would become enjoyable. But the problem with this thinking is that I missed out on so much happening along the way. Each step is a cause for celebration because it means we are making the choice to invest in the person we desire to be while simultaneously loving the tenacious individual we are in that very moment.

There is so much to be said for celebrating the small victories along with the big ones, and the decision to learn from the moments where we fail all while remembering we, ourselves, are not failures. I don’t know where you are in this process. Whether you have already come to this realization that you are wonderful and worthy and have been walking out your own process with joy for some time now, or if while reading this, you have come to realize that you too had been holding yourself hostage with the wrong perspective?

Either way, I hope that you never live another day without excitement and expectation of what the journey holds for you. I hope that you see each step as a victory. I hope you laugh more than you ever have because you have stopped taking yourself too seriously. I hope you relish in the happiness of milestones reached, and you find gratitude in the failed attempts because you’ve learned something new - a better way, a fresh perspective on the task at hand.

This life of yours is special - unique. No one else can live this life you’ve been given. So embrace the process, enjoy the journey and never ever forget that you, my friend, are worth it.

You are loved.