Happy Monday, friends! I hope you had a great weekend. My weekend was busy, and my typical tiredness was compounded by a small bout with allergy symptoms (headache and sinus stuff). Aside from that, it was a good weekend overall.
Today’s topic is probably a bit surprising to you all, since this is not a subject that I speak on frequently. After all, my blog has been about my own journey, and I’ve only casually observed others who may be on the same path. I believe in keeping my figurative eyes on my own paper, so being invested in the activities of others always seems futile and distracting.
That being said, this topic has come up several times when chatting with some of my ambitious friends, especially since they and I are often part of online/virtual groups aimed at providing education, resources and advice to women that want to improve their lives. One thing that my friends and I have observed is how many ladies that claim to aspire to “leveled up” lifestyles are failing miserably at achieving their goal.
This is a topic that has been on my mind for a while, mainly because it always takes me a while to clarify, within myself, what patterns I’m seeing and what those patterns mean. When I see certain behaviors repeating themselves, I like to take a look at WHY this is happening, and how can I avoid falling victim to the same thing.
Here’s the pattern I’ve noticed: a woman decides that she wants to improve her life in multiple areas. So, she joins groups that claim to support these lifestyle changes. She makes a lot of surface changes quickly (new hair, new makeup, new clothes, and learns the “lingo” used within these groups). She posts her “before and after” pictures, and is quickly praised for the changes she’s made, then she goes out into the world, ready to get whatever she wants.
Except . . . The world does not hand her what she wants. In fact, most of what she experiences is only a fraction better than what her life was before. She is perplexed because she’s done all of the things that she was told would lead to her ideal life. But all of her efforts lead to miniscule rewards, and she sometimes gets a lot of criticism and coldness from people that were once her good friends and beloved family members. She doesn’t understand why her new life is still elusive, even after all of the changes she’s made. She ends up feeling discouraged, and before you know it, she’s stop maintaining her “new look” and settled back into the mediocre lifestyle that she was living before.
There’s a simple explanation for why so many women in the level up community end up failing. They are doing the steps backward! Changing the exterior and trying to pass yourself off as “leveled up” is only good if you’re trying to impress in a one-dimensional world (like virtual/online groups). But when it comes to the 3-D world, your facade will crumble if you think that you can skip doing the inner work. If the change doesn’t start with the inside, then you can be certain that whatever progress you’ve made will be difficult (pretty much impossible) to maintain.
One of my mentors from years ago said, “Life is a mental game”. I knew this to be true, but the older I get, the more I see it play out in real life. A lot of people really want to bypass the “hard” work of changing their mindset because, let’s face it, doing the superficial stuff is a lot more fun and easier. But the lives we want are right on the other side of our limiting beliefs, bad habits, unsatisfying lifestyles, and shoddy networks. Our wildest dreams can’t come true until our inner worlds are up to snuff.
I have more thoughts, but I think I’ll save those for another day. I hope you all are doing well! I’ll talk to you all tomorrow.
Bronze Butterfly 