Enjoy Being In The Process Of Becoming

This talk is a message to all my fellow multi-passioante overachievers out there.
This is an invitation to still hit your big goals but in a way that feels good...in a way that fulfills you.
This is a story of how stress almost destroyed me and how I recovered from it and found a better way to do things...and so can you!

Transcript

If I ask you,

Do you have big goals?

I bet the answer will always be yes.

But if I ask you,

Do you enjoy working towards those goals?

I know you're not going to be as excited for this one,

Right?

I know what it's like.

That amazing rush we get when we're setting a new big goal for ourselves.

We start planning with all the excitement.

I use paper planners and colorful markers and highlighters and post-it notes.

The works.

Planning for big goals is my jam.

And then we get to work.

We learn new things,

Try new things,

Fail and win and fail and win until we tick that goal off our checklist.

Only to feel happy for like a day.

Then a mix of feelings of yay,

I did it and okay,

Now what?

Until we realize that it's time for us to say okay,

Next.

And the cycle continues.

New big goals and cute plans for that rush.

Then exhausting ourselves again to take that one off,

Feel that very short-lived joy,

Then chase it all over again.

My name is Ken Solomon and I am a recovering,

Multi-passionate overachiever.

Don't get me wrong.

I love big goals.

I still set them and achieve them,

But not in the same way because that cycle almost destroyed me and I had to make some changes.

You see,

At the beginning of this year,

I was 38,

Happily married for over a decade,

A mom of a handsome 12-year-old boy,

A wildly successful entrepreneur teaching over 150,

000 students worldwide,

Running two successful digital businesses,

Teaching my courses in two different languages,

Did two TEDx talks and had my idols hire me to help their communities.

I ticked it all off,

Didn't I?

But I had my battles.

Anxiety,

Sleep issues,

Health issues,

And I fell in the 90% trap.

There's a rule that says that you usually achieve 90% of the things you actually wanted in life,

Yet still feel it's not enough because you're focused on the 10% that didn't happen.

To me,

That 10% was my health.

I've had health issues my entire life and everyone blamed it on my weight.

My entire life,

I was treated like a problem.

Every doctor I visited blamed whatever it is that I was feeling on my weight and advised me to lose weight to feel better.

Even with blood tests proving I have very healthy habits,

Stable cholesterol levels,

No triglycerides,

No thyroid problems,

Doctors would glance at my blood test results and be like,

I don't know how you are this obese and still have such good results.

Then they would put me on yet another diet that doesn't work for me and move on with their day.

And I would continue to feel like a walking,

Talking problem and disappointment to my family,

Constantly blaming myself,

Thinking how can I be this committed and this successful and doing all of this work and can't take control over my health.

And then I would go on another quote-unquote work sprint and overwork myself to numb the pain and feel good about myself.

Until one day I was on YouTube and a video was suggested to me that changed literally everything.

A video about something called Lipedema.

And about 265 Google searches and hours and hours of YouTube searches later,

I decided I want to get checked for this.

Found a doctor,

Booked my appointment,

Showed up on May 29th,

2024 at the clinic,

Waiting for my answers.

The minute the doctor looked at my body and had her examinations,

She told me that I have stage 4 lipolemphedema and that I've had lymphedema my entire life.

It is not curable,

But we can manage the symptoms and slow it down.

And that the constant stress that I was living was actually making it worse and making it spread faster.

My whole world stopped at this moment.

My brain was fried.

A wave of emotions took over me and I couldn't feel my tears running over my face when I asked her,

So I'm not the problem?

And she kindly smiled and said,

No Kanz,

You're not the problem.

And then she proceeded to put me on a one-year plan to slow down lipedema and ease the pains my body was going through for years.

I left that clinic not knowing exactly how I feel,

But I knew two things.

I'm not the problem and the stress must stop.

Then I spent the rest of that day in a roller coaster of emotions.

On one hand,

I was happy I found an answer.

On the other hand,

I was so angry and so frustrated that I wasted years of my life blaming myself and not allowing myself to feel great about everything that I achieved just because I was blaming myself and thinking I'm the problem.

And even though I now had a plan and a support system in place,

I felt like,

But what do I do now?

I'm gonna live with this illness forever,

Like for the rest of my life,

And I will need to slow down,

But I don't know how to.

I have big goals and dreams and I want to continue to achieve them.

How do I slow down and still do that?

I remember scrolling on social media until maybe two in the morning that night,

Crying and trying to numb my feelings with scrolling through reels and videos so I can actually fall asleep.

And I watched a reel that hit me like a ton of bricks.

It had a quote that said,

Enjoy being in the process of becoming.

And I was like,

That's it!

I now get to become my true self and not blame myself for anything anymore.

My brain instantly went into matrix mode.

I started seeing how I was taking off my goals off the checklist and not enjoying the process because of all the blame that I was giving myself.

It was just running and running to an extent that I didn't feel the time passing.

All I felt was just me hitting yet another goal and then blaming myself that whatever I did wasn't good enough because of what was going on with my health.

So me being me,

Your typical multi-passionate overachiever,

I decided to challenge myself and not give up to all the negative thoughts and feelings I had.

I decided to go on a year of becoming someone who enjoys being in the process of becoming.

I wrote it on a post-it note and put it on my nightstand and went to sleep.

The next morning,

I grabbed my planner caddy and if you don't know what that is,

It's a bag that has some of my planners and markers for on-the-go planning.

And I sat in bed outlining and planning my year of becoming.

I decided to do some prep work first and have a clear vision this time not only on where I'm going but also who I'm being.

And I wrote,

I am becoming someone who enjoys the process.

I am becoming my next level self who will continue to work on my big dreams but will make sure I'm enjoying every minute of the process,

Even the challenging parts,

Without ever blaming myself for the past or seeing myself as the problem ever again.

I assigned week one of my becoming year as prep week and week 52 as celebration week.

And in the middle,

The remaining 50 weeks,

I chose themes for each week.

And these themes were values that matter the most to me.

And instead of doing those weeks and those themes in numerical order,

I decided to gamify this and have fun with it.

So every week I will choose the theme randomly and just get to work.

And because I needed to slow down,

I had to make sure I'm not working too much on this.

So I just did one journaling prompt every week and took one inspired action in one area of my life in that same week.

And these were weeks like week of gratitude,

Week of joy,

Forgiveness,

Playfulness,

Creativity,

Connection,

Resilience,

Health,

Compassion.

And yes,

I even did a week for rest and recovery.

My goal was simple and meaningful to become someone who enjoys the process,

Not just chase after the goal and to become someone who doesn't blame themselves for anything.

Just become that happier,

Healthier and way more successful version of myself,

But way more at peace.

100 days later,

My health never felt better.

I'm at peace with myself that I've never been at before in my life.

And the more I rested,

The more I enjoyed my goals and actually achieved them even faster.

So yes,

I'm still a multi-passionate overachiever.

The recovering part was just me recovering from chasing instead of enjoying and recovering from blaming myself for everything just because everyone else thinks I am to blame.

I am becoming a multi-passionate overachiever who enjoys being.

And now I have a challenge for you.

If you decided to enjoy being in the process of becoming,

Who will you become?

What will your year of becoming look like?

This doesn't have to wait until January 1st or 1st of the week or 1st of the month.

Your year of becoming can start right here right now with a simple decision.

And I promise you that if you make that decision today,

Your life will be overflowing with joy.

So,

Are you up for the challenge?

Reviews

This was great! I am up for the challenge. Thank you 😊