For much of my life, I felt very different to most people around me. For a long time I saw this as a weakness and something I wanted to rectify. These days, I am more than aware that it is an absolute strength and something that I not only embrace, but I strive to enhance in my everyday life.
Being different to me is an amazing thing, because if I am like most other people, then I will live the life most other people live. My strongest belief is most people live a 51% mediocre life where it is just good enough to stop them doing something drastically different to make it amazing. The enemy of an amazing life is a good life.
When you embrace being different you go against the grain and make decisions and choices very different to most others around you. You will then, by virtue of common sense, create a vastly different experience to the people you know. For me, being somebody who will live a life of mediocrity working nine to five Monday to Friday in a job that I hate, in a marriage that’s okay, with relationships with my children that are barely functioning, and actually not enjoying my life is not an option. At 47 years of age, I believe I have at least another 50 years to live, and I will squeeze every drop of life out of those years by living it very differently to most people around me.
The very difference that I was scared of when I was younger is the very difference that I embrace as an amazing strength today. Having the courage to have launched the Strong Life Project and put my story out into the world so bare, with all of my demons and darkness exposed through my book, My Dark Companion, is something very different to what most people do. Having recorded 540 daily podcasts at the time of writing this article is also something most people will never do.
I embrace being a different human being these days, because I believe it gives me a great opportunity to do amazing things. My fear of being judged by others no longer exists, and therefore being different is something that I love. I actually strive to find the differences in my personality to other people and double down on those as my strengths. When I find myself thinking and behaving like the vast majority of people, I go against that and use my differences to drive me in a different direction.
I believe the more different you are, the better you are, the more successful you will be, and the happier you will be. When everybody in society seems to be quite stressed and unhappy, I embrace being different because I believe that will bring a vastly different result.
