“Butterflies…”

-


 

Shared by Breanne Smedley

I remember playing in one of my first soccer matches in elementary school.

Our team was called the Dragonflies, and we were fierce!

At least that’s what I remember about fifth-grade soccer…

I also remember the feeling I would get before every game.

An uneasy feeling in my stomach

My mom told me they were “butterflies.”

That made perfect sense, it’s exactly how I felt.

A bunch of butterflies fluttering around my stomach disrupting things.

Making me feel like I either had to go run around or race to the bathroom before I took the field.

I remember trying to tell the butterflies to calm down in my head. I would try to imagine them slowing their wings down and eventually stopping, then disappearing from my tummy.

I didn’t want butterflies around. They made me feel different.

Fast forward to today, and my mindset around those little guys has shifted entirely.

I now see them as a measure of my daily growth.

Butterflies, nervous excitement, a little bit of fear.

Those are the signs that now tell me I’m about to do something meaningful.

In just the past couple weeks, I can tell you exactly when I felt their wings flapping around again.

Right before I had a tough, but important conversation with a player.

The moment I sat in the “safe seat” with my team and shared my hero, hardship, and highlight with them.

Right before I lead 70 football players through a mental training workshop.

Leading a group of amazing, dedicated women through a 21-day challenge of transforming their Inner Critics into their Inner Coach.

All these moments evoked nervousness, fear, and butterflies.

All of these moments were also pivotal in my journey to continue to evolve as a coach, leader, friend, and entrepreneur.

My lesser self, the one that avoids butterflies, lives in the comfort zone.

My lesser self likes to prevent me from ever feeling nervous. So it designs my environment to allow me to always feel comfortable.

Avoiding the tough conversations. Never trying anything new. Preventing growth. Stopping transformation.

My heroic self lives to embrace the butterflies.

Because once they show up, I know I’m about to face my fears.

That feeling tells me I’m on the right track.

And that growth is not far behind.

===

#MindfullyEvolving

#DaringlyResilient

 Check out what we're up to now!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Learning to Crawl..."

-
Image
  Shared by Kristina Smedley Kaden has been blowing our minds with his persistence in learning how to crawl. I don’t know why this is surprising. For some reason, I expected that babies just crawled… not that I would see his very visible effort into actually learning and practicing how to crawl. #newmom ;-)   About two weeks ago, he started getting further up on his hands. And started a little rocking back and forth. Then slowly we saw a knee pop-under him.   Then a little lat pull-down type action to use his arms to lunge himself forward. Then all in about 24 hours he was army crawling, then getting his legs into it, and then suddenly he was coordinated and crawling around. I loved watching him figure this out.   And watching him struggle a little with something until he got the next piece down, and the next, and the next. And honestly, Kaden has been a great reminder to me that I too have to learn to crawl first, before I can walk and eventually run. And even ‘crawling' isn't
Read more

“Streaks…”

-
Image
  Shared by Breanne Smedley Spend time around high schoolers and you’re sure to hear the word, “streaks.” More specifically, phrases along the lines of: “I gotta keep my streaks.” Or, “We broke our 100-day streak yesterday!” If you don’t hang out with high school-aged people every day, let me fill you in. “Streaks” refer to the ongoing exchange of photos/messages between two people on SnapChat. If a friend and I snap chat with each other for two days in a row, we have a two-day streak. Three days in a row, a three-day streak. Five days, a five-day streak. And so on until one person breaks it ad the streak has to start back over. Kids get a little neurotic about their streaks. I overheard a student talking about how she gave her SnapChat login information to a friend so that she could “keep her streaks” while on vacation without cell service. That’s commitment and problem-solving at it’s finest right there. While sometimes I don’t get it (because apparently I’m old and I haven’t even re
Read more

“Exhausted vs Inspiring…”

-
Image
  Shared by Kristina Smedley “Exhausted vs Inspiring…” I have noticed two pretty distinct responses from others when I share what’s going on in my life right now. “Wow, that is inspiring!” -OR- “Ugg, you must be exhausted!” It seems that they’ve either had the experience of following their dreams and understand the commitment, hard work, and pure energy gained on the journey… whatever their personal journey might be. Or they’ve sat back in life, thinking it would just be too hard or not possible. We all run into this choice at one point or another. I’ve definitely had those moments where I didn’t go for it. And I remember feeling sluggish, uninspired… exhausted. This is the exact opposite of what life is like when stepping into, what we call, our ImpactZone™. Here, there’s unlimited energy as our passions are discovered and acted on. Where are our skills and abilities are utilized and further developed. Where we have a deep and meaningful purpose. Here, life is exciting, challenging, a
Read more