The Hardest Thing On Earth For You

“Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself.”   

Katherine Mansfield

Recently, at a networking event, Courtney shared with me the harrowing story of her wedding.  The nightmare began with her dream to walk down the aisle in a Size 2 dress.  She went on a diet, exercised religiously and she lost – nothing.

She then hit on a seemingly brilliant idea.  Her migraine medication had weight loss as a potential “side effect”.  So she duped her doctor into prescribing a higher dosage and soon the weight fell off.  However, in addition to losing weight, she also started to lose her mind, having panic attacks and hallucinations.  Still, though, she clung to her goal.

On her wedding day, she looked fab in her Size 2 dress but felt like s*it.  Things worsened on her honeymoon, which she had to cut short.  Less than a month after saying “I Do,” she and her confused husband were thinking of saying, “I Can’t.”

Eventually, Courtney discovered that the medication was the culprit.  24-hours after her last pill she returned to her senses only to ask – why?  Why had she gone to extremes to become someone she wasn’t?  Someone her husband hadn’t asked her to become?

Days after meeting Courtney, I met Darcy at a holiday party.  Darcy works for a hedge fund and confided that she was anxiously awaiting her bonus because only then would she know how she felt about herself.  Huh? 

She explained that she can’t see herself doing anything other than what she’s doing and if she can’t succeed at this then what’s the use?   A hefty bonus will let her feel like a success and if the bonus doesn’t meet her expectations then she’ll beat herself up wondering what she did wrong.

So here you have two people, each of whom is well educated, street smart and capable at demanding jobs.  And each, with ease, was able to hand over her self-esteem to arbitrary forces.

Courtney blithely allowed the fickle arbiters of wedding fashion to dictate how she should look and how she should feel about looking that way, while Darcy entrusted her self-worth to the whim of a boss who at best was nasty and at worst sociopathic (her admission).

Why would “smart” people do such a thing?  Why not?  So many of us, consciously and unconsciously, decide that we’ll let other people decide what labels to assign us.

As we gain momentum into 2014, have you yet given thought to what kind of person you want to be this year?  Who do you want to be as you set about your work and strategize goals?  Will you choose or will you let others choose for you?