Halloween is my favorite holiday. I can dress up and be anybody I want to be. It’s like “trying on” a new identity for a brief period of time. It’s fun when people compliment my costume efforts – “how clever!” and “how original!”
Too bad Halloween only comes once a year.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could “try on” certain aspects of ourselves that we wanted to grow into? Maybe our current costume feels outdated – “I’m tired of being a financial analyst” or “The weight of this Perfectionist coat that I’m wearing is dragging me down.”
What would it be like to show the world our evolving self in a way that’s as observable as a Halloween costume?
And, how would it feel to have people affirm that choice — admiring our cleverness or originality?
My colleague Dana Theus of InPower Coaching talks about how there are “stories” we tell to ourselves and to others – about our professional selves. She says that if we decide we want to tell an updated version of our story, we need to get comfortable “trying the story on” – by telling the modified version to people we trust.
We need to practice our new stories – because, as Dana’s research indicates, our logical left brain may understand the story, but our emotional right brain won’t believe the new story until it gets some practice hearing it a few times and getting feedback from caring, trustworthy sources.
Are you feeling like you have a new story to try out? You don’t have to wait for Halloween to roll around. Declare today Dress-Up Day – slip into your new story, walk around in it and show it to the world. Just like Halloween, if it turns out the costume wasn’t comfortable, you just take it off.
Heather,
Thank you so much for sharing the story of your transformation. It will be a tremendous help to people who are trying to figure out “what’s next” in their lives.
How appropriate that you are commenting on this particular post, what with me in the “theatrical” costume and all 🙂