Admit. Accept. Fluorish.

                          
Social media is dangerous.

Well, it has proven to be dangerous at least in my hands. Here is my little disclaimer: I have had a Facebook account since the beginning. My social media family grew to include Twitter (a few times) LinkedIn, Tumblr, Blogger and a personal web site. I thoroughly embraced it and while the sites themselves never changed what I was “sharing” about myself did.

One of my friends made a very good point; people can be whoever they want to be on the web. It is easy to create an alter ego or persona. I have found myself saying that, “I am never going to meet these people in person, so it doesn’t matter who I really am or portray myself to be." Wrong! The alter ego I created caused me to get a lot of negative attention. I relished in it. I laughed about it. I never took it seriously until one day I realized that my followers were beginning to expect this behavior from me and it was uncharacteristic of whom I really was as a person, as a woman, as a mom and as a professional.

Then, I became a published author in September 2011 and all things changed. Instantly, I was put into a category that many writers desire. Where previously I made little changes to my behavior; a little change was not warranted in this situation. There needed to be a complete 360 degree makeover. I needed to re-invent myself. My journey was just beginning and my foundation needed to be lain stronger.

According to merriam-webster.com, re-inventing is defined as “to remake or redo completely.” The prefix “re” means to do again; consider these words: replay, repeat, and reorganize. I’m a huge internet researcher and here is what I found.

According to www.truesuccessteams.com, this is what it means to re-invent you. “To truly re-invent one’s self one would question everything they are doing an bring it back to their core values and make a course correction, either a “reinvention” by turning 90-degrees, or simply a refinement of one’s course. It isn’t really even so much a “re-invention” but an admission and acceptance and flourishing of our deepest passions. I know….it’s like a flower. It was always there, but the reinvention is the blossoming of who one really is, finally letting it come out.”

The words highlighted in bold are what struck a chord in me. Everything has a process; especially when it comes to life. The only things necessary are admitting, accepting and ultimately flourishing with our newfound selves. I am so proud that I was able to do this before it would have been too late.
Well, what about in your life? You know you have this problem or this issue, but have you admitted to yourself that you do? When you are re-inventing yourself, the only person that matters is YOU. Don’t allow anyone else to define who you are.

Oh, and don’t tell my friends about my initial statement – they would NEVER believe you!

Tamika