A phrase that I utter on a regular basis is "There's no point sitting at home on your own being amazing", and I mean it. When you find your Thing, the worst thing you can do is keep it to yourself. The reason being that your Thing is there to help other people—hence it needs to be shared to be helpful! I know it sounds obvious but it's not always as easy to do as it sounds. But you need to get over yourself and do it!
If you've been doing what you're good at for a long time it gets pretty comfy. You might not like it much or even enjoy it at all, BUT if it's habit and you can do it on auto pilot, it's very (very) tempting to carry on doing it.
It genuinely breaks my heart when I see fabulous people either totally oblivious to their Thing, or knowing it and saving it for Best.
I appreciate this might be somewhat of a 'girls' analogy, but chaps—I'm going to trust you can translate this into something that makes sense to you :)
Sometimes I'll buy something and keep it for Best. Maybe it's a beautiful dress, or a fabulous pair of shoes, or a super-posh handbag. And I'll keep it for Best. Now Best is sometimes a mythical date in the future... an invitation that I am not sure is coming, an event that may not actually appear on my calendar, an occasion that I am hoping will happen in the future, a version of 'me' I am hoping to be some day...
So in the meantime, I hang onto said dress/shoes/handbag for Best. Actually, I did this recently with a gorgeous coat. It was one of those 'macs' which is neither waterproof nor warm, so therefore a little impractical :) but also beautiful, and so no occasion was quite right for it (in my mind)—I didn't want to wear it out in the rain, I worried it would get creased and ruined on a trip to London, etc. So it hung in the wardrobe for a loooong time. And then one day I just decided. Today is Best. Any day is Best. And yes, I get the irony that I wasn't taking my own advice.
As here's how this related to your Thing. You might think that by doing your Thing (or wearing your lovely 'saved for Best' item) you'll be going over the top. You worry you'll attract too much attention. It might be a little impractical, it might mean you take a step-up in the fashion/'look at me' stakes, but it's ready to be worn RIGHT NOW. So put it on!
If you save your Thing for Best—which, in the real world, shows up as waiting 'til you have a perfect website, after you've worked with a few clients, once you've got your book written, when you've completed some more training (don't get me started on that last one!) or whatever it is that you will be 'in the future' and therefore able to do your Thing—Stop. Right. Now.
Your Thing is your Thing and YOU HAVE IT NOW. You don't need to save it for Best or save it at all. Go do it now, it's ready to be done now.
Sure, you might feel a little uncomfortable at first and take extra care of it, but give it a couple of wears and you won't even notice it any more, it will just be you doing your Thing.
Keeping anything for best means you're limiting the enjoyment both you AND everyone else can have as it's hidden away. Take your Thing and wear it now. It's not going to wear out, as here's the funny thing about Things... they just tend to get better the more you do them...!
What once seemed 'too much' will seem every day and then you can go find another even more gorgeous version of your Thing to share with the world. And that can only ever be a better thing.
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