Hello my friends,
I am back! I took a small social media pause over the last few weeks in order to ressource myself! *awkward smile*
Ok, to be honest, that is not entirely true. I didn’t ressource myself. I was basically shitting my pants (pardon my french).
You see. At the end of 2020 I decided that I wanted to change the purpose of my instagram and start initiating the discussion around leadership in Europe.
In my research I found that “leadership” is a concept that is widely discussed in the anglo saxon world. However, I came to find that this is not at all the case in Europe, especially not in my home country Austria.
Notwithstanding that I believe it to be absolutely vital to bring this discussion to Europe, I believe it is even more important to bring this discussion to today's youth.
From the very beginning, I have had a very clear vision of what I wanted to achieve here with ELY. But lately, I have found myself in a rather odd situation. I have not been able to get anything done. The idea that I was going to start posting videos and blogs airing my personal thoughts, however well thought through or researched they may be, really frightened me, even if it is on a topic that I burn so much for, such as leadership. I actually had recorded a video a few weeks back. But up until now I couldn’t bring myself to post it. I was absolutely terrified at the idea that it wasn’t quite perfect! (Seriously, to you VLOGGERS out there, R-E-S-P-E-C-T. This sh*t is HARD!)
And if you guys know me a little bit, well you will know what a perfectionist I am.
Yes, I admit, my name is Samantha and I am a destructive perfectionist.
So all in all it took me a month of what I like to call now “look-for-every-possible-distraction-phase” - more commonly known as “good old procrastination” or “sticking your head in the sand” - to eventually understand (and I mean by that REALLY UNDERSTAND and ACKNOWLEDGE. Because that is fundamentally different than just feeling it), that what I was actually feeling was fear.
Fear of judgement, fear of not being good enough, fear of not being sufficiently knowledgeable. And that fear had absolutely paralyzed me.
I mean, I do consider myself a grown woman and I usually tend to think of myself rather the courageous kind. But here I was, running from one doctor's appointment to the other (even though seriously I am healthy as a horse) and looking for all sorts of distractions, because I was scared. Really scared what others would think of me once I started to put those videos out there.
Last weekend I got so fed up with my lack of dedication to ELY that I decided that this couldn’t go on. So instead of going on yet another activity spree, I decided to do the counterintuitive thing and instead go deeper into the rabbit hole. I told my team that I needed to take a moment over the weekend. I turned off my phone, locked away the laptop, the computer and everything else that wasn’ t necessary and instead, I held still, took a deep breath and let my mind think.
Not my usual emotional overthinking kind of way, where your mind runs down a million different alternate realities to somehow lower the blow on the future disappointment that you will of course experience. Because, let’s be honest, the world expects you to be a do-er, an achiever, perfection, so you better be perfect or you go home!
Instead I decided to say “No”.
There I was in my apartment in Millstatt, taking long deep breaths, cooking away, cleaning the apartment and letting my mind just flow. No battering myself for every single thing I felt I wasn’t doing well. Just letting the self-constructed pressure evaporate and be. And it was probably as I was walking in the woods behind my house, that I finally started to gain the sufficient perspective to truly understand what was happening to me. I understood that I needed to stop blocking myself. I needed to let go. I needed to be kind to myself.
Fear had blocked me from actually doing the things I care about and love the most. And although fear hasn’t entirely subsided yet and it continues to linger in the background, I know now that fear isn’t worth continuing to neglect the purpose I have worked so hard to find.
As I am writing this, I cannot help thinking about this awesome quote from no other movie - yes, I am being for real here - "The Princess Diaries", which was originally a book for teens from the 2000s by Meg Cabot. I was about 9 back then so no wonder it left its mark!
It’s part of a heartfelt letter that the main character’s Dad addresses to his daughter, Mia. It goes like this:
“Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear;[...].”
With this wisdom in mind I will go back to what I announced a little bit over a month ago.
As promised, I will be taking you through this blog with me on my very personal journey of personal development and leadership. What it means to me, what it means to the young people that I have the privilege to lead and what it could mean for the future.
And without further ado.
Here goes nothing - my first - super easy cheesy - intro on what leadership means to me.
Always Remember. You are smart. You are kind. You can do anything!
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