You know those days when you think “oh man, I’m not X yet; I should be way more Y than I am; those people over there are totally rocking Z…and I’m not”? We all have them, we all fall down the “I should be doing better than I am” pothole sometimes. But guess what? It doesn’t help you to become Queen of the Universe! It actually actively undermines you and makes you feel bad about yourself and your life (never good).
When you’re in “I’m not Queen of the Universe yet and I should be”, you are actively taking yourself out of the running for Queen of the Universe. Because Queen of the Universe isn’t feeling shit about herself, she’s not undermining herself, she’s not ignoring all the cool things she has done, she’s not labelling her whole life until now a waste.
Because your journey is important. The path you’ve taken so far is valuable…even if you can’t see why yet. When I was in my twenties, I bounced around 5 different departments of a business, not settling to anything. I, and everyone around me, thought I was flaky and couldn’t settle to anything. But when I started my business, that knowledge of IT, credit control, accounts, invoicing and coding was invaluable.
Who knew that those years of bouncing around, unable to settle was giving me a firm base for my business? And your journey is the same – whether you can see it or not now, everything you’ve done so far has taught you, expanded you, given you something (it may only be a deep appreciation for people who don’t bullshit!) So you haven’t written a book/started a charity/saved the whale/taken over the universe?
So fucking what?
You’ve been living your life, you’ve been shining your light…as every soul does. You don’t have to DO anything to BE fabulous. You just are. I know this because you’re reading this article…I only allow fabulous people to read my stuff! You are a beautiful soul, whatever you’ve done. You don’t have to move the world to the left a bit to be magnificent. You already are.
And if you want to do more, be more…well, check where that’s coming from…are you just trying to ‘look cool’ or ‘tick things off a list’ or ‘keep up with the Kardashians’? If so, why? They’re all over-rated and don’t bring that much satisfaction. Cool gets exhausting, lists never end, and as for the Kardashians…well, do I even have to say it?
But if you know there’s more to you than you’re currently experiencing, more to life, things you want to do…then let’s go! If it’s coming from a place of desire, of joy, of wanting to fully experience and love your life, then I’m all in with you my love! Let’s do it…but first, you need to let go of the “I’m not good enough; I haven’t done enough; I’m not Empress of the Five Worlds” thinking.
It’s not good for you, it’s not fun…and it doesn’t work as a motivator. It just makes you sad and angry with yourself…which doesn’t help you become the best of you. Instead, here’s a few other things to try:
Would you want their life?
This is a good one if you are looking at other people enviously and comparing yourself unfavourably. Check if you’d want their lives. I’m not talking about slebs here – you don’t know enough about them to say you’d want their life – all you know is what the papers and their PR people tell you. Crippling self-doubt, depression, agarophobia, loneliness, drug and alcohol problems all tend to come out only in a crisis. Choose people you know well enough to know their problems as well as their blessings.
Most of the time, you won’t want their life…and you don’t want to want their life, because you have your own to live! BUT if you find you would swap lives, make a note of what they have that you’d like – not toasters and tv’s, the ‘stuff’ is just window dressing. But would you want their freedom, their self-assurance, their social circle? Start bringing those things into your life – give yourself more freedom, cultivate self-assurance, get out of the house!
Tell your hero’s story
If you’ve been talking about not being Queen of the Universe, you’ve probably been focusing on all the ways your life is rubbish. So now is the time to remind yourself of the good stuff, the fun stuff, the friendships, the achievements, the things you’ve done and the places you’ve been. Remind yourself how much you’ve overcome, how far you’ve come since you were 12.
It’s easy to dismiss our pasts as ordinary, normal, boring, pointless…and to treat our achievements as ‘no big deal’, but big up yo’self! Remind yourself of your awesomeness and fabulousness. Remind yourself that you’ve done things that are a big deal. I know how easy it is to be dismissive of our strengths and successes – I do it too. But pretend you’re talking about someone else, who’s awesome, and pick out everything fabulous about them.
Follow your feel good
What would feel good to you right now? I’m guessing it’s not “compare my achievements to someone half my age who’s done 8 times as much as me”…so don’t do that! What would feel good? Go do that. Never mind what you ‘should’ do or you wanted to do 7 years ago but haven’t done yet, find what would feel good to you right now, today, and do that.
Do that as much as you can, and you’ll soon stop worrying about being Queen of the Universe, because you’ll be too busy having fun.
Loving life isn’t that hard, even if your life sucks right now – but it does take a bit of attention to the good stuff. It takes time to get out of the self-indulgent habit of comparing your life unfavourably with everyone else’s…but like all habits, it can be broken. So, you’re not Queen of the Universe? So fucking what? Go enjoy your life anyway (you may realise that you never wanted to be QotU anyway..it’s way too much work!)
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