I am convinced that the difference between my lowest and highest self is dependent on one thing...

How seriously I take myself in any given moment.

And let me be clear from the start of this, I don't mean serious as in you don't have fun, you don't goof around, you don't let out the child in you and "play."

I actually believe that when you take yourself seriously, you add more fun/play into life.

So what do I mean by "take yourself seriously?"

Let me pull from a book that had a major impact on me ⬇️

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

“Aspiring artists defeated by Resistance share one trait. They all think like amateurs. They have not yet turned pro.

The moment an artist turns pro is as epochal as the birth of his first child. With one stroke, everything changes. I can state absolutely that the term of my life can be divided into two parts: before turning pro, and after.

To be clear: When I say professional, I don’t mean doctors and lawyers, those of “the professions.”

I mean the Professional as an ideal.

The professional in contrast to the amateur.

Consider the differences.

The amateur plays for fun.

The professional plays for keeps.

To the amateur, the game is his avocation.

To the pro it’s his vocation.

The amateur plays part-time, the professional full-time. The amateur is a weekend warrior. The professional is there seven days a week. The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning “to love.”

The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money.

Not the way I see it.

In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough.

If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his “real” vocation.

The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it.

He commits full-time.

That’s what I mean when I say turning pro.

Resistance hates it when we turn pro.”

-Steven Pressfield, War of Art

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The problem is not being the amateur.

The problem occurs when you should be taking yourself seriously, like a pro, in the area you SAY you want to be the pro in.

Yet you continually show up like an amateur would.

This ⬆️ has been me so many times in my life I have lost count.

I treat myself like an amateur, yet I set my expectations as if I will get the results of a pro.

And I never get the "pro" results.

Because I never turn the switch to taking myself more seriously.

Believing that I can be the "pro" is half the battle, and I know this is what it will take for me to get to where I want to go.

But I consistently make the same mistake over and over again by not taking myself seriously enough.

Is it because I don't value myself?

Or I don't believe in my work?

Is it because I sometimes fail to see the point in anything in life and I fall into a depressive mode?

Or is it because I just like to be an amateur at a hundred different things, than a pro at a few?

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I don't have the answers to this yet.

Which is why I write about it here today.

I am challenging myself to take myself more seriously in certain aspects of my life.

And I want to encourage other people to do the same.

Together I want to "go pro" with you.

So that we both reap the results of taking ourselves more seriously, and the results that it will bring to our lives.

#thriveon

CJ

p.s. today I am grateful for Erin being 35 weeks pregnant. We are in the home stretch and I cannot wait to meet our little boy.