Drowning Not Swimming

For as long as I can remember I’ve always felt like a square peg in a round hole.

Always feeling like I was swimming upstream “the wrong way”.

Throughout my schooling, I always felt like I just didn’t get it.

Everyone else around me was traveling through their teens. Finding classrooms, passing exams, and applying themselves as if they all had been given the
“how-to” handbook.

The feeling of uncertainty has always stolen my confidence.

The “what if “I fail narrative is no friend. It lies to us.

It whispers our deepest fears in a tone that is so alluring it is impossible to ignore.

When I got rejected from a private school. It just amplified the false narrative that I continued to carry with me through into my 20’s 30’s and early 40’s. Failure is a real and paralysing fear for me, and I know many business owners feel the same. This year I am about to have my 50th birthday and roll over into my 11th year in business. I have finally realised that swimming upstream the other way and dancing to my own drum is exactly what has made me resonate with my clients. I spent at least the first 6 years not even acknowledging that I was a business owner. I would say I was a personal trainer, but I was never brave enough to say I was a business owner.
Not to mention the impostor syndrome I would constantly struggle with when asked what I did for work.

My script went like this…

• I didn’t look like a personal trainer should.
• I don’t follow the hectic training schedule a trainer should follow.
• I don’t have the Instagram profile a trainer should have.
• They are going to think I’m a fake.

The feeling of swimming upstream was never far away even in my adult life. I still didn’t feel like I fitted in. I knew I was different but hadn’t yet learned that my difference was my difference!!!! Unlike school life. My passion for helping people was deep-seated and I just kept persisting.

The little ticks of success kept my desire alive, the conversations and trust my clients shared…slowly, and I mean very slowly helped me build my confidence. A little fake it till ya make it was definitely a part of my early business strategies

My own fears have stopped me from growing but I learned to be kinder to myself these days.
I can now say free of fear or judgment that I am a fabulous business owner.

A successful business owner!

I don’t follow the fitness norm. And that’s awesome. I’m that square peg in a round hole and I love that. I’ve learned that failings are lessons… but only if we hear them. We must fail to grow. Failure builds resilience. I have grown and I have built resilience.

I am now swimming not drowning!!!!