I recently had a fully-engaged Saturday, where I attended two seminars for women. Both sessions were invigorating, thought-provoking, and energy-boosting, lessons that I shall share later on in this article. At the end of the successful day, however, much to my dismay, I came out feeling like an impostor – the real one!
This is what facilitated the feeling; I sat at a table where from my observation, perhaps only two or three ladies (out of 9) were my age-mates or older than myself. The others were younger, which was proven by a comment raised by the guest speaker during her presentation, which they acknowledged in the affirmative. I was confident and comfortable, as I watched speaker after speaker being introduced by their impressive titles and well-decorated career histories. To these introductions, I had no worries and was simply pleased to sit at the feet of a great line-up of speakers. Speakers that gave very good and invigorating speeches. This was up until one of the ladies seated next to me was publicly acknowledged by the host for being recently appointed as a CEO for a certain organization. And yes, she was among the younger ladies.
I thought, alright, I can accept that; one young CEO on my table. The session progressed on to the Q&A session when another three ladies at my table introduced themselves, and as they voiced their questions and mentioned their titles and the fact that they were board members on one or several boards, another one had been involved in a policy change that is to be effected worldwide and so on. I suddenly felt small. I looked at my ‘little’ work title and the fact that I was nowhere near being a CEO, nor seating on a board or drafting a life-changing policy. And yes, most of these were among the ladies that were younger than me. My ego had just been thoroughly bruised.
I questioned my career choices and trajectory, I wondered what I had done with my life so far and I wondered where I had gone wrong. I wondered if I was just unlucky or if I was actually in the wrong forum. Did I really belong here or was I the real impostor in this meeting? And no, I was not seated anywhere near the ‘high’ table where the guest speakers were. These were delegates just like myself.
The session was really good and invigorating with great takeaways, but I couldn’t shake off the imposter feeling for the rest of the morning and the day after.
The main speaker discussed being intentional with your life. She asked the question “How intentional are you about your life?” Do you have a plan for your life 3 years from now, or are you letting life dictate where it takes you as you say “God-Willing”? Being intentional about your life means you aspire to achieve a certain ideal by a certain time frame. It can be to buy a house within the next 4 years, to have a family in the next 2 years, or to become a CEO in the next 5 years. Or it could be to write 100 articles within the next few months. It could be that you’d like to lose 5kgs within the next few months or to start a business within the next 2 years.
With our busy lives today, we’ve become so busy that we don’t ‘have time’ to be intentional about our own lives. It’s easier to ‘go with the flow’ than to become intentional as we know we’ll face some resistance and will need to put in the extra effort. We have all these ideas and desires, and a good follow-up question to this is “What would you like to be intentional about?” You need to choose an area of focus; Career, Health, Wealth, social life, Family, and Environment. What do you care the most about and how are you going about it?
I came across a poem the other day that truly reflects our lives today, the author is said to be Caitriona Loughrey. Below is an excerpt from the poem;
Barely the day started and.. it’s already six in the evening.
Barely it is Monday and it’s already Friday.
…and the month is already over.
…and the year is almost over.
…and already 40, 50, or 60 years of our lives have passed.
…and we realize that we lost our parents and friends.
and we realize it’s too late to go back….
So… Let’s try, despite everything, to enjoy the remaining time…
Let’s keep looking for activities that we like…
Let’s put some color in our grey…
Let’s smile at the little things in life
And despite everything, we must continue to enjoy the serenity this time we have left. Let’s try to eliminate the afters…
I’m doing it after…
I’ll think about it after
We leave everything for later
Because what we don’t understand is that:
Afterward, the coffee gets cold…
afterwards, priorities change…
Afterwards, the charm is broken…
afterwards, health passes…
Afterwards, the kids grow up…
Afterwards parents get old…
Afterwards, promises are forgotten…
afterwards, the day becomes the night…
afterwards life ends…
And then it’s often too late…
So… Let’s leave nothing for later…
Because still waiting to see you later, we can lose the best moments,
the best experiences,
best friends,
the best family…
The day is today… The moment is now.
Becoming intentional might require you to be courageous. Are you courageous enough to pursue your intentions? I think most of us struggle with this because we lack the courage to do what needs to be done. You need to be courageous if you hope to make a difference. Sometimes you’ll need to Do it afraid according to Joyce Meyer – check out the article on how to deal with fear, or you might need to team up with others through collaboration, or you might need to surround yourself with people with similar ideals, or to create your like-minded community in order to get that courage. We become afraid of failure and therefore chose not to try.
Back to my real imposter story, after a day full of such rich content, why was I so dejected? I had wrongly chosen to look at what I had not done instead of looking ahead, to what I could do. I allowed myself to have self-limiting beliefs and thoughts that blinded my mind to what else was going on in my life. Not everyone takes the same path, and not everyone has the same head start or pathway in life.
A good story I was reading recently from the book of Genesis; is the story of Joseph, when his brothers went to Egypt to look for food during the 7-year famine. These same brothers had sold Joseph as a slave several years back, and through fate or by design, he had become the governor of the land, second only to Pharaoh. As they humbled themselves before him, Joseph revealed himself to them but told them not to feel bad about their actions, since it had been designed that he was to have been in Egypt for the sake of rescuing his family from famine. Our experiences can be used to build our future, no experience goes to waste and when used well, they do catapult us higher when the time is ripe.
During the years when Joseph was a slave, he was diligent in his work, even when he was wrongly incarcerated. His example is an extreme one but still shows us that no experience is wasted. What skills do you have that you can use for the causes you care about? What else would you need to add or remove? What attitudes need to be dropped or picked? What intentions do you have and how do you plan to get there?
It's never too late to start being intentional!
