"I wish that I could be like the cool kids. 'Cause all the cool kids, they seem to fit in."

Let’s face it - we all want to belong to something.

We’re born with a need to belong for a sense of connection with others and to create a support system. It’s a tribal need in us. We want to be liked. And science tells us by having a sense of belonging to others, we have better coping mechanisms for dealing with challenges.

Some of us wanted to belong in the cool kids gang at school. I had a spiral perm just to belong to be seen with the right haircut, in the right crowd at the right rave.

Well, full disclosure, my spiral perm did not go quite as planned and I mainly belonged to the bad hair gang and no amount of Silvikrin Classic was going to tame the hours spent in the hairdressers with rollers in my hair while I got high and burnt the inside of my nose on the scent of perming solution. I definitely did better with my Princess Di flick than I did with my spirals.

We see how other people act, what other people wear (hello Crocs) and we succumb, we follow. We succumb to following the crowd because our instinct is that is what will make us feel comfortable. Or, as we get older, we look at what others are doing, we notice their success and we think ‘if we can just do it that way’ then we will be successful too. Am I right?

I remember starting in the world of work and listening to people at work who I thought were more intelligent than me, more grown-up, knew more and I wanted to be accepted so I (mainly) followed their lead. (I didn’t get my nickname Millie Tant for always following the crowd ; ) but I did shoe horn myself into a round peg for a while thinking this was how I was going to make it big.)

Today we see images get passed from phone to phone, from person to person, we watch as tik toks get shared, talked about, giving us something to belong over, a common parlance. We love to have something to share, something to bond over - it makes us human.

And then the fabulous Brene Brown comes in and makes me think (again). I’m a massive fan of Brene (I feel we should really be friends and so on first name terms) and what I love about her is that she invests in the data, the research, the science, the evidence.

She defines belonging as “being part of something bigger but also having the courage to stand alone, and to belong to yourself above all else.” In that case, belonging is actually the opposite of fitting in.

And, of course, she got me thunking.

Maybe we should start to look at how we crave belonging and what that can do to us; it can minimise us, it can make us smaller, it can stop us being true to ourselves. Fitting in can make us try and shave the corners of our beautiful square pegedness (new word) so we can fit in with what we believe success should look like, what thriving should look like, what being okay should look like.

Fitting in means we are changing ourselves to make other people like us. It can mean we become people pleaser central - and with that comes a little sprinkle of resentment and maybe some crossness (rage) with ourselves because we haven’t had the courage to stand up, show up and be our own truth.

Our fear of being judged stops us looking from the inside out as to who we want to be, who we should be and who we owe it to ourselves to be.

Maybe it’s time that we stay stuff it to fitting in because it lessens the impact we can create, it limits our potential.

Maybe by owning our space, by giving ourselves permission to be us, by showing up in all our glory, we will create a sense of belonging with the right people who will champion us, cheerlead for us and help us crack the feck on.

So maybe it’s time for you to ask yourself a few questions?

• What do you want to stand for?
• How would you like to show up?
• What would showing up look like for you, feel like for you if you did it without the bastard fear of judgement?
• How would you think, how would you act, how would you feel?
• How often do you not speak your truth?
• How often do you doubt your own voice?
• Who would you be without the doubt?
• Who would you be if you didn’t try to fit in but instead you decided to stand out?

I’d love to know your reflections. And if you need a cheerleader to help you define your story, own your truth and enable and empower you to show up your way, give me a shout.

I’ve Coach in your Pocket programme spaces available from September and a fabulous new group programme coming where we can learn how we can show up and stand out, unlocking our potential. Give me a shout if you'd like any information.