Perfect, NO. Committed? Absolutely. - the lesson I learned from the challenge, ROUND 1 -

“The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead.” 
― Bette Davis -

A little while ago, I gave myself a challenge.  A challenge called ABC for "I AM ME". I have been working on this project called "I AM ME" Project. Doing that, made me realize how much I love talking to people, connecting with people, and also don't really know about myself. I've written here so many times that I am good at writing about myself but not talking about myself. Now this comes to the point that I cannot make any excuse for myself. Well, rather, it came to the point that I didn't want to make any excuse for myself. I wasn't sure what I was doing. It's just that I was called to do this project. I was called to reach out to people and go beyond what I was already comfortable. 

So, let's talk about ABC for "I AM ME". It's a very simple challenge. I post up video of me talk about any topic based on a word, or two, starting with that letter. For example, the very first day, the letter was A and I talked about authenticity. It was "LIVE" but not really. I put my FB setting for "ONLY ME" and did few practice rounds. Once I was done, I did post it up. In the beginning, I wanted to do it good. I wanted to make the best video. I was excited. I thought I was gonna talk about all these amazing thing about being me, and all that. I didn't know why I was doing it, or what I was doing it for. But I knew that I was suppose to do it. A lot of actors can agree with me on this, once you have the permission, like given a script, or given a direction, then we can go there. We can do however big or crazy or angry or anything they want us to be. But when there's no script and no direction? We have to give ourselves a permission to do what we want to do. More often than not, we don't. Because we tend to think that who we are, is not good enough. In order for others to tell us it was good, it was necessary for us to stay in the box, meet their expectation, be who THEY want us to be, or who we THINK they want us to be. Or we would be mimicking someone else and we have no idea. Because we are not use to giving ourselves the permission. It is the expectation that WE put on ourselves. It's the FEAR in disguise. I realized that I had expectation for myself, more than I imagined. I wanted those videos to be good, the message to be clear, and the viewers to LIKE them. Ha. Full of expectation. I wanted to make myself look good, obviously. 

And in the middle of that challenge. I decided to actually GO LIVE. I was nervous. Really nervous. Damn notifications that pops up on the bottom screen made me even more self conscious. How many people are watching? How many people are leaving? Is anybody commenting? Then, a friend pointed out. "STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THE NOTIFICATION". BOOM! I wasn't speaking for myself. I wasn't being clear about my vision or intention or any of that. I was there and I wasn't there at all. So, I stopped looking the notification and decide to stare at myself, which is terrifying by the way. You know what they say when people tell you to do the mirror exercise. "YOU can't lie to yourself, while you are looking at yourself in the mirror." It was almost torture for the first few minutes. Then once I was in the zone, speaking from a deeper place, The nerve started to go away. It wasn't the same nerve any more. It turned into excitement. I turned into something deeper. It went into my WHY. Why I am doing any of this. Why I wanted to start this in the first place. WHY I want to keep talking about my mission and purpose. I couldn't be more grateful for his advice. Thank you. 

Yesterday, it was the letter Z. I actually had to look up what are the words that starts with Z other than zero and zebra. They say it takes 21 days to start forming a new habit. I noticed that I wasn't afraid of talking about myself, at least less than before anyways. I wasn't so stressed about looking at myself any more. I am starting to talk like me, or finding out the way to talk without imitating other people. OMG, I know that without even realizing, I was trying to sound like my teachers, Marie Forleo, Marriane Williamson, Gabby Bernstein... and NOPE! that wasn't happening. I felt like I got the glimpse of talking as who I am and have FUN though. And it was liberating. So, what I took out from this was this. 

1) We have a choice to give ourself a permission to be who we are. 

2) It takes practice to find your way. Experiment. Imitate. Have Fun. Then you find your way. 

3) If I can do it, YOU CAN DO IT. 

4) This is only a beginning. 

5) Be in the moment and truly focus on what's right in front of you. 

I am going to keep doing the challenge, putting myself more on tape. Explore more area of where I am truly not being me yet. I am gonna expand my comfort zone. I am gonna have fun. I am gonna be in the moment.  I am not going to apologize for who I am. And I am gonna commit to it. 

Stay tune for what's more to come. 

"I AM ME" Unapologetically. 

Love, Hope, Faith