In 2002, I quit my six-figure job on Wall Street to do something I deeply felt like I needed to do. I wanted to be making the world a better place. I wanted to help. I wanted to change lives. I wanted to do something good.

So I did.

I changed everything, turned our lives upside down to make this big change. I felt right every step of the way. I felt pulled toward this new goal. It was hard and challenging but I knew in my bones that this was the right thing to do. It was me walking in the direction in which I was meant to go.

It felt right.

But it wasn’t.

Once I started doing it, everything seemed to go wrong. I fell into an ever-growing spiral of despair and frustration. I think it was harder for me because I felt so strongly that the cause was essential. It was important and I didn’t want to mess it up. I owed it to the people I was trying to serve to do a good job. They deserved my best.

And my best just didn’t measure up.

Not to the ideal in my head of how good I had to be. It didn’t matter if I was better than others. It didn’t matter if I did a little good. I wasn’t doing the good I felt they deserved. I wasn’t measuring up to my goal. I judged myself constantly.

And it broke me apart.

I felt so ashamed of myself. Of my inability to create the change I so deeply craved for these people. I felt so incapable. So incompetent.

While the degree is different, I felt the same way today. That combination of “I so desperately want to do good here” and the “this person deserves better than I am.” I ached to help. I ached to be better than I actually am capable of being.

And that ache is painful for me. It sends me to the darkness and I don’t know how to find my way back. It is a reminder that I am not good enough to measure up to the person I want to be in my head, in my heart, in my soul.

It hurts.

So I did the only thing I can do. I apologized. I was honest and I cleared the space the best I could. Now I need to tend to the wounds I created for myself. The ones from that dream ten years ago are still there. While my head knows it was right to walk away, my soul aches for the person I wasn’t. But I want to know that I can forgive myself. I want to understand that sometimes when you want something so badly, it makes it harder because your measuring stick is misaligned. You’re holding yourself to a standard that cannot be met. You are setting yourself up to be crushed.

And I don’t want that. I want to be strong enough to get up and try again. Or strong enough to walk away without looking back. I want to disassociate my self-worth from the outcome. I am here with the gifts I have to give to the world.

My job is to offer those gifts and give freely.

The rest is not up to me.

Ever since I made this collage page for the Your Living Canvas class, I’ve been thinking about bravery and taking brave steps and being brave in general.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe….I’m going to say something controversial now. Ready?

I, think to the outside world, the difference between a brave move and a stupid one is the outcome. Society (and even we) measures bravery on how good the outcome was. If you took a big risk and moved to a new town, job, relationship and it turned out great, you were so brave! But if the outcome was less than stellar, well then you were dumb and/or didn’t think things through.

Taking a step in a new/different direction is very difficult. Our body, mind, heart and soul just want to play it safe. We like inertia. We know how things work at this moment. Even if we dislike so many parts of status quo, we know how to navigate through it. All the upsides and downsides are known.

And “known” is a good thing.

Unknown is a scary thing. The outcome is not quantifiable. There are no guarantees. There’s risk (and of course potential reward) and whenever there’s risk, there is always the possibility of undesired outcome, unexpected downside. I think almost all of us are afraid of the unknown.

I might be in a situation where I have to decide if I want to plunge forth on a decision that involves some changes. Some unknowns. I am trying my best to get reassurances that things will work out the way I want them to, but there are no guarantees. When you do something new, something you’ve never done, there are no guarantees.

To be honest, even the “knowns” are not guaranteed. Today I have a wonderful husband and two great kids, I have a job working at home, I have a home, I have hobbies, friends, etc. One or more of these things may no longer be true tomorrow. Things are not in my control as much as I’d like to think they are. So things could change tomorrow anyway. But the difference is that if I plunge forward, I will have put the changes in motion. I will be the responsible person if things don’t unfold as desired. It will be my fault. I will say “I wish I hadn’t been so stupid or greedy or selfish….” I don’t know what I’ll say but it won’t be nice. I’ll blame myself.

Whereas if things work out, I’ll be so wise! Good job doing the right thing Karen. Good job for being brave.

But of course, what’s brave is taking the step. Moving forward even though you don’t know the outcome. Thinking and feeling your way through the choices. Doing the best you can to stabilize and clarify the unknowns. And then just taking a leap.

Each leap is brave.

Regardless of the outcome. Each leap means you’re trying to grow, stretch, improve, try something new. Each leap means you’re not staying with the easy but unpleasant status quo. You’re taking charge of your life. Right or wrong. You’re doing something about it.

And that’s brave.

How it turns out? Well that’s just life. Things work out the way they do. Sometimes they don’t. And then you learn and you apologize. You eat your pride and figure out your next steps. Or maybe it’s a small adjustment. Maybe it’s the final straw to something that was fundamentally never going to work.

And sometimes things work out. And then it’s magic. You’re so glad you leapt.

No one knows what the future really holds. And we can all be geniuses in retrospect. So we all work with what we have now.

I want to practice being brave. I want to know that regardless of the outcome, I will find a way to be ok, I will survive, I will thrive. Each time I am brave, I get stronger. Each time I am brave, I learn to trust myself more. I want to remember that being brave is about taking the leap. Not about where I land.

I want to be brave.

This month’s assignment for the One Little Word class was about choosing a battle. I’ve been thinking about this one a lot this week. I’ve noticed that there are certain things that can hurl me into spirals of negativity. And once my mind is on a roll, it’s hard to stop patterns from repeating. I’ve come to believe that what works best is to stop myself at the very beginning.

I had a situation last week, where someone was exceptionally mean to me over the phone. It was an area where I already felt a little small about myself. I tried to stand up for myself but she just got meaner. After I got off the phone, I almost cried. I just felt small and terrible. It affected the rest of my day (probably the next few days actually.)

I know from personal experience that when other people criticize you it’s more often about them and not you. I know that when people frustrate or annoy me, it’s more about me than them. I know all the facts but I often have a hard time making my heart/soul listen to them when I am in this bad place. Instead, I beat myself up. And in lieu of ignoring or letting go, I join in. I bash myself more than they ever can. I make myself small. Tiny.

What a load of … you know what.

Here’s what I believe: People who make you feel small are NOT worth it. They are not worth your time or your effort. I noticed that I often spend more energy trying to “win” the love an attention of these mean people over those who already love me and accept me the way I am. I somehow feel like their mean words are truer than the words of those whom I trust. What a waste of time! Even as I write this down, I can see how ridiculous that is but I know that I do it again and again.

There’s a book I love called Now Discover Your Strengths which talks about how we need to change our perspective on how we look at our strengths and shortcomings. The book explains that instead of spending so much energy trying to improve the areas in which you’re lacking by a little bit, it’s much better use of your time and energy to focus on what you’re inherently better at. You can find help, hire others, delegate, outsource, etc for the areas where you need more help and you can focus on what you’re good at. Apparently this leads to a much bigger success and happiness. When you think about it, this seems pretty obvious to me. Clearly if I focus on what I am good at and like to do and find other ways to fill the holes I have, every task will be done better and I will enjoy my life more. As opposed to always feeling like I’m struggling to keep up with the areas where I’m lacking.

I feel like I can use a similar method in choosing my battles. I want to work on things that will make my life happier and better. On things that will improve my relationships with the people I care about. I want to let go of the crap that doesn’t really matter. I want to work on things that make my family time more enjoyable. Focus on my marriage. My friends. I want to remember that I come to this world not with just my shortcomings but also my gifts. The battle is to weed out the garbage voices and let the important ones come to the surface. I want to do what makes me happy. Regardless of what others think of it. I want to do what makes me shine. Thrive.

I think the best way to quiet the voices others put in my head is to remember my own voice. To give my voice and the voices of the people I love priority over all the noise. I want to pick my battles more carefully. I want to focus on what serves me. And not what brings me down.

I want to not just know but feel that when others’ criticize me, it’s about them. When people are mean, it’s about them. When people are gossipy, unkind, cruel, belittling, or whatever, it’s about them. If someone has genuine feedback, they can find a way to give it kindly. Otherwise, it’s not worth my time. I want to feel this so deeply that when these things happen, I can just let them go. Without going into any spirals. Without giving them any space in my head or heart or soul.

I had the opportunity this week to follow up on last week’s call and report the not-so-kind behavior to higher up in the woman’s chain. I thought about it a lot but in the end I decided to let it go. Maybe she had a bad day. Or maybe she’s mean all the time. (I know that if this is the case, it’s better if someone stands up and calls her out on it. But in this case I wasn’t the best person for it.) Either way, I decided I was going to let this go. I knew that thinking about the situation didn’t serve me. It made me go back to that small place. So I decided to just let it go and stop this battle before it began. This particular one wasn’t going to be my battle. I want to focus on what makes me feel stronger and not weaker. I want to focus on people who care about me and people I care about.

I want to save my battles for the deserving few.