It's Never too Late to be Your Own Superhero

One of my favourite poems is The Dash by Linda Ellis. The dash represents how you live your life from the time you were born to the time you die.

It’s the tiny hyphen between your birth date and your death date. It’s about living life to the fullest and finding true meaning in life. It asks the reader to think about their life, whether they are living it in the way that they want to and if they are happy.

It’s not about possessions; it’s about what makes your soul sing and how you communicate that with the world. How you showed up. How you spent your dash.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, and it’s raised a quite a few observations for me. None are particularly groundbreaking or original but it did make me think a lot about how I show up in the world.

Everything you do in life is a choice. Everything.

How you feel is a choice.

How you act is a choice.

How you respond to others is a choice.

You choose whether to take things personally. It’s your choice how you react to perceived bad behaviour, like someone not returning a text (something I’ve been guilty of unintentionally as I’ve usually replied in my mind) or not saying thank you for a present you thoughtfully dropped by.

You can be happy or not. Whatever you are going through at the moment, there is always something to be grateful or happy about. The fact that we are breathing or that we can see or hear is enough for me.

I’m not telling you how to feel. As quite frankly I get annoyed with anyone who does that to me. However, we have a choice in how we respond to the world around us. You can make all the excuses you want but ultimately it comes down to you how you shape your life and your world.

None of us knows how long our dash is going to be. We have a choice in how we live our lives, the difference we make and how we impact those around us.

One of my greatest fears is that I will die unfinished with of my dreams and aspirations still inside me. It’s that fear that drives me every day to show up for my clients and help them make a difference in their businesses. I am, however, a constant work in progress.

What I have learnt though is that:

• There is no magic pill
• There is no magic solution
• There is no magic guru or a rainbow coloured unicorn that will make everything ok.

There is you. You get to be your own super-hero.

It’s all about taking action, continually refining things (including yourself) and moving forward, however slow. Several years ago I made some significant changes to my outlook on life and learned to love who I was. As a result, I am now the happiest I have ever been.

Without action, nothing will happen. Nothing will change.

So start where you are with what you have. It can be the smallest possible action. Just start.

If you have bits that wobble that’s ok, they are part of you and they make you who you are. You are loved anyway.

If you have things that you don’t love about yourself, that’s ok. Focus on what you do love. Because others will love those things too.

If you think that life will be different if you were funnier, smarter or taller. Get over yourself. The world loves you just the way you are. Moreover, if some people don’t, that’s ok.

You can’t be everyone’s cup of tea. If you were the most exceptional cup of tea in the world, someone would still want more milk or less sugar. They are not your tribe; they don’t matter. Focus on the people who love you and want to spend their time with you. They matter.

What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.

Focus on your dash. 

Focus on how you want to spend the rest of it.

It’s never too late.

Never.