How I Am Learning To Stop Playing Small In Life

and how you can too...

I have a very good life. I am in my early twenties and earn a six-figure salary. I have been doing so for the past couple of years. I live in a nice building and have wonderful friends and family. However, I have recently become discontent with my life. This was the life that Coffy of 3 years ago would have been proud of. However, I wanted more from my existence. So I decided to do the most radical thing that a woman can do and asked myself one simple question. 

What do I truly want for my life and how do I get it? 

I knew that I would not be content if I try to minimize or compromise on my greatest desires. So, I answered that question as if I had a magic genie that would grant me all my wishes. I came up with the greatest and most fulfilling life that I could imagine for myself. Then the even greater question, how could I make that life happen? In my attempts to create a game plan for global domination, I realized how little information there was for women who wanted to play it big in life. An overwhelming majority of female content is laced with pseudo-inspiration, girl-boss, liberal feminist rhetoric, all ideas that unconsciously undermine women.  

Without a proper guide to great success, I began to study the lives of some of the most fabulous women in history. Hoping that they would provide a roadmap to an amazing life. Some of these women are Josephine Baker, Amal Clooney, Angela Merkel, Joan of Ark, and Joan Rivers. These women come from different backgrounds and experiences but all had a great impact on their society. In learning about their failures, triumphs, joys, and sadness, I realized that these women were mortals just like me. They were not these indestructible women that had supernatural foresight. These women had doubts, insecurities, and unkind circumstances just like me. However, that did not stop them from creating the life that they wanted for themselves. This made me realize that I am in the right position to go through this undertaking. 

Additionally while studying the lives of some of these great women, I decided to quickly skim through the lives of some of the greatest male business leaders on the planet. I watched videos on Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. I soon realized that these men lacked any form of supernatural abilities. They were highly intelligent men but were not bestowed with some foreign wisdom that was unattainable to the rest of us. There are probably more intelligent men in the cubicles of Tesla, Facebook, and Amazon. These powerful men were in these positions due to a combination of luck, courage, intelligence, and foresight. 

While studying these heroes of mine, I came to the honest realization that we are all going through the experience of existence for the first time. Jeff Bezos has made billion-dollar mistakes at Amazon. Mark Zuckerberg never expected to have the power to literally undermine democracies. Elon Musk tried to sell Tesla to Apple when it was struggling but Tim Cook refused to take a meeting. We forget that even the most successful people on earth are navigating this existence for the first time and making mistakes in the process. These men know that whatever mistakes they make in the process of doing business, they will recover in future earnings. I needed to develop that mindset. 

I have taken the radical decision to create a great life for myself. Here are some of the guidelines that I have created for myself:  

1. I will not compromise on my core beliefs. I value love and freedom above everything and will live a life in pursuit of those values. 

2. I will not play stupid games because they have stupid rewards. An example of a stupid game is the dating game. It rarely leads to fulfilling long-term relationships. I refuse to play a game where the prize is not consummate to the effort that was put in.

3. I refuse to be paralyzed by fear. I will become accustomed to taking losses in the short-term as long as I win in the long term.  

4. I will not confine myself to self-imposed boundaries and transcend any negative beliefs that I had placed on myself.

5. I will take inventory of my skills and abilities and use them to add value to the world.

6. I will not seek out any professional career coach with paltry credentials on the internet to give me a guide book. I will listen to my inner voice and do whatever it tells me. I anticipate that I will not always be right but I will eventually be right.

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