This quote has me thinking a lot about how easy it is to fall into the trap of competing with those around us… even if it’s not an outright, out loud competition, you might be silently comparing yourself to other humans in similar situations and compiling a huge list of “should’s” which, ultimately, become detrimental to your own growth and happiness.
 
I’m a member in a stellar business support group full of outstanding female entrepreneurs and I often find myself getting swept up in the idea that my business “should be” doing, growing and shining similar to them. When I travel that path of “should’s” & comparisons, I get overwhelmed, go into hibernation mode and get stuck, not knowing how to move forward.
 
It’s incredibly important to remember that every person is unique and has special gifts to share with the world and their own curvy path to shining their light. Some people are natural-born hustlers, go-getters, spotlight-lovers and that’s wonderful. But for those of us who are more introverted, it’s important to know & truly believe that it’s perfectly fine to grow our businesses at a turtle’s pace, to quietly go about our days serving others in the only way we know how.
 
If you find yourself stuck in a comparison mud puddle, remember to stay true to yourself and only move forward with business growth activities that feel authentic to YOU. Feel confident in letting your unique flower bloom & shine in your own way. 

Alex Beadon threw out a tough challenge for Day 6 of her #FeelGoodBlogging challenge. We were asked to be vulnerable and share something about ourselves that might push us out of our comfort zones, but would ultimately allow our readers to learn even more about us. So let's dive in!

I was always a hard-working, dedicated student. Pretty much all straight A's from the get-go and by high school, was on a path towards all Honors and AP courses. That is, until my sophomore year. I was placed in the Honors English class and after turning in one of our first writing assignments our teacher announced to us that only a handful of us were "A" students, a few more were "B's" and the majority of us would be "C" & "D" students, according to her [highly subjective] opinion. At least that's my recollection of her speech. And you can imagine, for a girl who always strived for A's, this terrified me. But here's the thing about me, most definitely as a teenager, and even sometimes to this day: that rather than rising to her challenge, and BELIEVING IN MYSELF that I could get an A in her class, I shrunk in fear that I would get my first C or D. This had me in a state of panic, so much so that I arranged a meeting with her, my guidance counselor and my parents. The outcome of which was the decision to drop out of her class and return back to the non-Honors English class. That switch began a snowball effect that eroded my self-confidence, the belief in my intelligence and my academic abilities and by the time I graduated from high school, I was in NO Honors classes. I didn't even want to go to college, but wanted to pursue dance full-time.

Thankfully, my parents wouldn't hear of it and I did head off to James Madison University in August of 1990. It was there that I first encountered the notion that maybe my sophomore year Honors English teacher only had one opinion about my writing skills, not a hard fact. After turning in an essay about "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest," my college English professor called me to his office. I was terrified. I thought I was in for a lecture on my poor writing skills. Instead, he said to me, matter-of-factly, "Megan, this is the most well-written Freshman essay I've ever read." Can you guess my reply? "That can't be true. My high school English teacher told me I couldn't write well." I was shocked to say the least. And thankfully, he was very encouraging. But it has literally taken me decades to erase the doubt that ONE teacher planted in my mind and in which I so readily believed. I would give anything to go back to my carefree days as a young girl, when the world was my oyster and I hadn't given anyone else the power to erode my confidence.

Two things have occurred since then that have helped me start believing in my writing abilities again... first, in starting my own business and associated blog, I am regularly amazed at my own posts, how easily the words flow out of me and in a clear and coherent manner, no less. Second, I found out this year that my high school English teacher had passed away and I thought, a la Elsa, "OK. It's time to LET IT GO." I've allowed her opinion to eat away at my confidence for far too long. It's time to release her hold on me and move forward with the knowledge that I can, in fact, not only write, but write well.

We all have negative self-talk that erodes our confidence, instills guilt and makes us generally feel lousy. So today, try a dose of self-love. Try BELIEVING IN YOURSELF. Because the only opinion of you that truly matters in the end, is your own.

For Day 4 of Alex Beadon's #FeelGoodBlogging challenge, she's taking a page out of one of my favorite magazines, US Weekly. Each month there's one celebrity sharing 25 things you didn't know about them. Thankfully, Alex only asked us to share 10. Hope you enjoy getting to know your friendly photo organizer a little better! Feel free to comment below and tell me if we have anything in common! :)

The morning of September 11, 2001, I was sitting in my windowless office in Canal Center Plaza in Alexandria, VA, situated right on the Potomac River about 2-3 miles away from the Pentagon and National Airport and 3-4 miles from the Capitol and White House.

Sometime shortly after 9am, I received a call from a friend telling me a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in NYC. I was in total disbelief. At the time, my cousin's family, including their two small children, were living in Battery Park within sight of those Towers, in addition to all my other cherished Manhattan relatives uptown and I immediately started to panic about them.

The word started to spread amongst my colleagues, and many of us wanted to leave, but our leaders told us to stay put. Then came the news that a plane was heading for DC. Next report was that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. Again, I was in disbelief. We were only a few miles from there and surely we would have heard the explosion. Regardless, that news was enough for me to take matters into my own hands. My thinking at the time was that if we were destined to die, I didn't want to die at my office amongst work colleagues, I wanted to die among friends and family. So I ignored my boss' request to stay, packed my personal belongings and left. My friend lived in an apartment nearby and hadn't left for work, so I decided to ride out the crazy chaos with him. As I was driving, the radio announcer started reporting another plane heading for DC. I was behind the wheel, crouching down, trying to look up and out my front windshield, to see if a plane was heading my way. (As I type this, my hands are shaking like a leaf at the memories.) My friend's apartment was near Alexandria Hospital and little did I know they were transporting all the Pentagon victims there. I tried and tried to get to his neighborhood, but all the streets were closed in the area, to allow the emergency vehicles faster access to the hospital. As the ambulances were flying by me, I realized I wouldn't be able to get anywhere near his neighborhood, so I parked my car on a random street, locked it up and started walking. It was a long and terrifying walk, but eventually I made it safely to his apartment. Then we switched on the news and saw the horror of what had happened. We were glued to the TV for hours. 

I will never forget those images. I will never forget struggling to make a cell connection with my NYC relatives to ensure they were all OK. I will never forget the smoky smell as I stepped outside the next morning, the smell of our burning Pentagon. It was truly surreal.  I will never forget the roar of the fighter jets circling our city night after night, month after month, waking me up repeatedly and re-instilling fear at every pass. I will never forget those thousands of precious lives lost and their loved ones who carry on. I will never forget.

Our country was changed in an instant, that beautiful September morning, and so was I. Our leaders have managed to avert another crisis of that magnitude on our shores, but there are so many countries on our planet that are facing these horrors daily. And we can never forget their pain, their fear and their desire to live a peaceful life. Let us never forget not just ourselves, but all of our fellow humans who deserve to live terror-free.

P.S. Please feel free to share your memories of that eventful day in the comments below. I'd love to hear them!