I’m just going to start with this. You were never meant to do it alone. Can you do all the things alone? Probably. Can you figure things out and take steps all by yourself and think for yourself and parent yourself and do the things that you need to do without having the motivation to do it all? I’m sure you can!
But are you meant to do everything without support or guidance or encouragement? Absolutely not.
Before I decided to take a break from social media about a week and a half ago, I scrolled over sooooo many posts and reels -insert motivational music here- proclaiming ‘NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU’ or ‘NO ONE IS GOING TO DO THE WORK FOR YOU’ or ‘NO ONE IS GOING TO TELL YOU WHAT YOU NEED TO DO.’
Anyone else notice this JUST DO IT trend going around?
While I agree that all of these statements hold truth, I also believe that they can be misleading and discouraging if taken the wrong way. If interpreted the wrong way, one might think that they’re supposed to fly in whichever direction the wind and their circumstances take them and just hope that they’ll figure it out all on their own, eventually.
Don’t believe this. I’ve fallen into this trap time and time again and the only place it has lead me was ‘in my head on the merry-go-round of being stuck, defeated and confused…and feeling all alone.
Truth is friends, I believe that we all need the help of others to figure some things out in life. We need people with different perspectives than our own and different gifts and talents than our own to help us jump to the next stone in the pond. We can’t get through life, or the other side of the pond, without the help and support of others.
By ‘others’ I mean a friend, a coach, a therapist, a co-worker, a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a motivational speaker, and sometimes even a stranger.
We were not created to navigate life on earth all by ourselves.
And so where do I see truth in the statements above? Ultimately, WE are the only ones that can take the action required in order to get results. We can’t sit on the couch and ask our friend to workout for us if we want to lose weight. We can’t expect our partner to to go to the interview for the job that we applied for. We can’t snap our fingers and expect that dinner will miraculously appear on the table. We can’t just sit around and hope for life to fall into place.
But we can ask for help.
We can call up a friend when we feel down or stuck or confused. We can ask those in our lives that we trust to hold us accountable. We can hire a coach when we need some new strategies in order to move us closer to where we want to be.
Although no one is going to come and save you or do the work for you, don’t for one minute believe that you’re mean to sit in your struggles and figure it all out on your own all of the time.
Success comes from doing the work and doing the things that we don’t always feel like doing, but that does not mean that we’re not deserving of receiving help along the way. And we’re not wrong or weak or pathetic for seeking out the help.
Sometimes that one person or community of people come along at just the right time with the encouragement needed or the advice we’re searching for or even just the push we need in that moment.
You need help? Seek it out, and then ask. Why do it all alone when you don’t have to?
Wake up, Rise up, Conquer
Tara Fraser
Wake up, Rise up, Conquer 