In an effort to support you in becoming more of the balanced, well-rounded and whole entrepreneur I know you are, I have invited my colleague (and walking partner) Elizabeth de Moraes to share with you her greatest lesson as a woman in business.
Elizabeth is a Success and Health Coach, a certified yoga and Pilates teacher and an accomplished former international professional dancer with multiple Master degrees and once you read her story, I think you will be motivated to Unleash Your Inner Celebrity™!
Enjoy this guest post from Elizabeth!
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When Tara invited me to write as a guest blogger answering the question of “what has been my greatest lesson as a woman in business”, I knew instantly what my answer would be.
This hard-learned lesson is what most, if not all, of my successes and joys revolve around and is the ultimate gift I can give the world, myself and my precious family…
Drum roll, please…
…my biggest, yet most challenging lesson I have learned as a business woman, and in all honesty, simply as a woman, is that in order to live a fully expressed and impactful personal and business life, I MUST have an unwavering BELIEF in myself and in all the gifts I have been blessed with.
I have also learned that this is only possible with and supported by amazing and unapologetic self-care so that the beautiful things I can bring to the world are able to be brought forth. If I don’t release what is inside of me due to fear, doubt, ‘comparison-itis’, or self-loathing, I do a great disservice to myself and everyone around me on many levels. The effects are boundless, positively, or negatively, in relation to my relationships, the love I am able to give, the impact I can make on others, the creations I make, and the status of our bank accounts. Even deeper, if I don’t allow myself to be expressed there is always an inner dull ache of knowing I am not fulfilling my potential. This dull yearning seriously causes my soul to hurt.
What I have learned is that when I am true to myself, show up for myself and authentically put my message up and out there for others to experience in their own way, I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing in my life. I have a sense of passionate purpose and, as a result, the right people show up who are my complete ideal clients, and I experience more love and joy. I also have a deep sense of accomplishment that nothing can compare to. When I am fully showing up for myself in business and in life, it gives everyone the opportunity and challenge to do the same. This is where the magic happens.
This realization and follow through did not (and still does not always) come easily. I have spent most of my life getting in my own way. For years, I have intensely had an inner battle about whether, or not what I have to offer the world is of value. Grappling with that doubt and is not an easy thing to overcome and it can still raise its ugly head if I let it.
You probably can relate to some of these inner recordings…
I mean, little ‘ole me? How could what I have inside of me help others? They probably will think my best isn’t good enough and then where will I be?
Aren’t others doing what I do and don’t they know more than I do?
Julie over there is kicking it in her online community and dang it, she is doing what I wanted to do and doing it so much better than I could even imagine!
Even though I have multiple graduate degrees and certifications in various fields, I don’t know enough and everyone will know I am a fraud!
Oh, what if I fail?
What if I SUCCEED? I only know how to keep being successful if I keep pushing hard and get into burnout.
I ‘know’ I am meant to light up this world with a huge mission, but what if I am wrong? What if I am really supposed to focus on my immediate surroundings and not entertain those grandiose ideals?
Well, I’m fat, so who is going to take me seriously? (as a former international dancer this was huge!)
Or how about the opposite? If I stay fat (insert any excuse you want to put in there) I won’t ever have to know if it was my talent that might have kept me from really stepping out and succeeding.
Yadda yadda yadda! Does any of this sound familiar?
What I didn’t realize (and still sometimes forget when I get wrapped up in my ‘head-spin’) is that each and every one of us is placed here for a specific reason. We are given certain gifts and dreams to fulfill so to serve the greater good. And because those were placed in our heart, we are given every skill and provision to make them happen. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been put there. Our job is to go out and get into ACTION and allow those things to manifest themselves in ways that are beyond our dreams.
But often we tuck those gifts away, locking ourselves in a proverbial ‘box’ of sorts. For me, it was a progressive process that crept up on me. At some point in my life I started playing it safer and smaller, but with bursts of expressive inspiration sprinkled throughout. I could hit a certain amount of success in business and then fall into distrust, allowing myself to sabotage myself in some way. I got married, had two amazing kids and acquired a mortgage. The sabotage continued, just under a different guise. At this point, I really stopped taking risks and my life morphed into a habitual lifestyle of taking care of everyone else. My self-expression and self-care was put on a back-burner and the result was inner emptiness.
It was complete self-abandonment. I sabotaged myself in every way and can still fall into this trap every once and a while if I am being pushed to my next level of up-leveling in my business and life. I used to be the queen of over eating. I could go out to eat with friends and come home and eat an entire box of cereal by myself to fill a void and to prove I sucked in life. I also did this if was getting too close to reaching my big dreams as a professional dancer. I am so glad that behavior is behind me!
I could also and still can, get locked into another form of sabotage and that is analysis paralysis and over consumption of more and more information collection. I can fall into, or deceive myself, in believing that I don’t know enough to get into action on a project I need to work on. Procrastination can also show up by looking at what others are doing and comparing yourself to them. I tell you…procrastination is the perfect way to trick yourself into believing you are working on something and being productive. Truth bomb! If you are not in action you are not being productive, so cut the c#@p!
For you it might look different. You might be an emotional eater, so are carrying around extra weight. Do you find yourself, yet again, showing up to business and social events (can we say reunions?) not looking the way you would have loved to? Do you know that you would love to make videos for your branding and marketing because you have such great material to share, but don’t allow yourself to go there for fear of not looking like a ‘10’? Could you really be holding on to that weight because you are fearful of truly unleashing your awesomeness and what might come from it? What if you take off and can’t handle the speed, or what if the opposite happens? What if you are a dud?
My response? Get over it and DO IT ANYWAY! We don’t have time, or can afford to allow ourselves to hold back anymore. The world needs us! I invite you to get yourself feeling THE best about yourself and start giving yourself the best self-care you can provide. Have more fun! Start eating and sleeping well because you deserve it. Start reading self-empowerment books and absorb their messages. Take more walks in nature. Get more massages. Dance.
Isn’t it time to stop making excuses and self-abandoning yourself and get to a place where you are loving every element about yourself? It takes practice because at first it will feel a little weird and selfish, but it will get easier as you will find yourself happier, witnessing others gravitating more to you, wanting to do business with you! Believe that all the answers are already in you and that you deserve to live the amazing life with the astounding success that you desire!
Begin to value your gifts as the blessings that they are. God has gifted YOU with unique gifts to give to the world in a way that ONLY you can give, so find what most grounds you in expressing your true essence and CELEBRATE those authentic gifts!
You have a choice that only you can make, and it is all about perspective. Your circumstances might be a certain way, but your perceptions of and your actions around them are up to you.
What if we stopped living our life stating: Does this look ok? Maybe I should just not even try…” and start living with the attitude of my 7 year old, Isabella who, without a care, throughout the day states, “LOOK AT ME while I show you my new skill I learned!?
I love the latter! What about you?
How about together we let go of our tight hold on what we think is our security blanket and jump!? It’s time to become the butterfly you know you are meant to become!
Here’s to unleashing what I call your ‘inner celebrity’! I look forward to ‘celebrating’ your authentic expression in the world! If you would like to learn more about:
- how to break the blocks that hold you back from being the exquisite starlet you desire to be
- how become more present in your body and mind so that you can access your inner essence
- how move yourself to a place where you are thriving as a full expression of yourself, and
- how to morph yourself into physical embodiment of who you desire to show to the world
I invite you to check out my new 6-week program: “Unleash Your Inner Celebrity™”
You can also find my most recent book, Thrive Again: Simple Strategies to Time Out, Tune In, and Tone Up Your Life
ox,
Elizabeth
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Elizabeth “Eli” de Moraes comes to you with decades of entrepreneurial experience in the health and fitness industries. She is a Success and Health Coach, a certified yoga and Pilates teacher and an accomplished former international professional dancer with multiple Master degrees. All of these greatly and organically influence her approach to how she coaches her amazing, highly driven clients.
After finding herself wrapped in a blanket on the ground in her backyard during a nervous breakdown from to many stressors pulling on her, de Moraes was forced to look inward at her own life and make a change. As a coach, she is passionate about empowering other women across the globe in two stages. She first encourages and guides them to stop living in overwhelm so to create a work-life balance, and then into the second stage of helping them ‘unleash their inner celebrity™’ so that they become the celebrity they desire to become in their life and industry. She can take you from feeling lost and invisible in your life and business to vibrant and ‘camera-ready’ for your next life and career appearance, making a bigger impact in the world.
