I want to see your messy kitchen, your wobbly bits, coffee strains and life scars. Not in a voyeuristic way but because I want to connect with you as a HUMAN. And your customers do too. I’m not interested in pretending everything is perfect. I’m weary of the ‘look at my perfect life’ noise. And so are your clients. When we pretend we’re graceful swans, smooth sailing upon an untroubled lake of life, without waves, choppy waters or the reality of the frantic work of those legs under the surface, we disconnect ourselves from the reality of life. It sends a message to potential clients who know that there life ISN’T smooth and shiny and perfect that there is something wrong with them.
Toxic positivity makes people feel ashamed for simply being a human.When we push this stuff out into the ether, we distance ourselves from our potential clients. They look at us and think ‘they can’t help me, how would they even know what it’s like to be me with my struggles?’
Pretending to have it all together won’t help your business. It will harm itSo you can stop trying to hide the fact that you’re an imperfect human. You don’t have to wait until you’ve attained some sort of enlightened human status before you can own your skills and ability to help others. Show the real side of what’s going on, then maybe we wouldn’t have millions of people unable to cope with the reality, being in a global pandemic, to the point where they pretend the thing doesn’t exist. I’m tired of a personal development industry that’s essentially telling us to gaslight ourselves into pretending that everything is fine when we’re in a global pandemic. Everything is not fine and no amount of positive mental attitude or bubble baths with change that. What will change that is more of us doing the healing work that’s going to help folks process the human stuff that we go through. To help folks build better lives, heal their wounds, reconcile their grief and be more grounded, effective humans. THAT”s what’s needed.
And you don’t need to pretend your kitchen is always pristine and sparking to do that. In fact, you need the opposite