I've Outgrown that Old Version of Me

Today, I'm going to talk about how I have outgrown that old version of me.

If you want to watch the YouTube version of this blog, please go to this link. If you want to hear me talk about this topic, listen to this episode of the Dynamic Women Podcast.

What does that even mean? How does that connect to you? 
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Maybe you're feeling a little bit like, "Wow, I've been in business for a long time," or "I've been in my career for a long time." You might feel like you've moved on, things are different now, and you're feeling a bit stuck. It’s not the right match anymore. 

It's like when you put on an outfit that has been a favourite of yours, and it looks really good on you and you wear it well. Then you look in the mirror and think, "I just don't love it anymore. I'm just not feeling my best in it anymore. I want a change. I want something different. I want something to represent me fully."

It wasn't until one of my coaches said this to me: "Diane, you’ve outgrown that version of you." I know I've outgrown a lot of the work I've done, taking it to a completely bigger level. I'm on a bigger mission, and that's going to be another blog coming up. I've had a lot of success—I've been in business for 14 years now. I've moved from life coaching to mainly doing business coaching because people kept coming to me for that. I don't say that to brag, but to show this transition that I'm in. I've had a lot of success doing things a certain way, and I've thought, "Okay, I've outgrown those things, those offerings."

I have outgrown the way I have done it, not to say that I won't do it in a similar way, but I'm going to do it at a higher level. Even though it's been wonderful, I agree that I've outgrown those things.

My clients sometimes worry that this means I'm not working with them anymore. But no, they're just getting me at this higher level, which is really exciting. It's been this way for a while now. I haven't felt the same drive and joy in doing those older pieces. 

But it wasn't until my coach actually said, "Diane, you have outgrown that version of you," that I realized I wasn't just outgrowing the things I did. I've outgrown who I am. We all do that. You might be in version 9.0 of yourself. We're constantly up-leveling. Sometimes it's a natural flow or shift. Sometimes, we need to take a moment and think, “What of the old do we need to shed to come into the new?”
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Caterpillar-to-Butterfly Analogy
A lot of people use the caterpillar-to-butterfly analogy, that whole metamorphosis of changing from one thing to another. And how you need to let go of the one for the other. It's true. You can't be a caterpillar and a butterfly at the same time. But I think that's what I've been doing. I had one foot in the caterpillar and one foot in the butterfly, and I just needed to go full-blown into the butterfly. I've outgrown the way I used to do things, my offerings, and how I showed up. It wasn't that I was a bad version of myself. I was a full person making decisions based on the knowledge, experience, tools, skill, and who I was being.

Over the past few years, I had major friction. I've felt a bit stuck, lazy, unmotivated, and unfocused. Yet, because I'm a coach and a driven, motivated person, I still accomplish and have a lot of things happening. What I did in the past was based on who I was in the past. Still me, but there's this newly evolved version of me. Maybe this is true for you, it's time to not be half in and half out anymore. It's like standing between two worlds, and you can't stand between the two worlds, or you won't know how to be. It's not even just you don't know what to offer, and you don't know how to brand yourself, and you don't know how to speak about what you do. But you don't even know how to show up anymore.

Recently, I went to get my new driver's license photo done. I thought about my last one, I just rocked up there and got a photo taken. This time, I put some thought into it, and my son noticed I was dressed up. It wasn't that I thought my outfit would be part of the photo. It's how I wanted to “be” in that photo. I know you can't smile. I know you can't pose, and I know that the photos usually suck. 

But it was really cool because even when I went in there I was the current version of me and I was treated differently. Usually, you don’t get to see the photo or redo it unless your eyes are closed, or you smiled somehow or another issue. But after the guy took the photo, he showed it to me and asked if I was happy with it. I redid it because my chin was up too high. The next one, my chin was too far down. We took another shot, and finally, I got it right. It was funny because I showed up differently. I showed up like the newer version of me.

As I said, you might be in version 9.0 of yourself. But have you actually honoured it? Have you actually honoured the change, the growth, and who you were being? Or are you supposed to be in version 14 of you, and there's still that notification internally that says, it's time to upgrade. It's time to go to this newer version of you. But you're not. 

If we think of different platforms like Zoom or our phones, there are different versions of software for a reason: they run faster, they run better, they're smarter, more intuitive, the bugs are fixed and more features. This is the same with you. 
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When you're standing between the two worlds, two versions, the old one and the new upgraded one, neither will run properly. You can't perform well if you are between the two. If you are in an old version, you're not moving forward, things will feel slow. You'll be in dissonance. There'll be friction. There will be a void of energy. It's going to drain you. That's how I've been feeling a little bit because there is this need for me to fully upgrade. 

I truly believe you cannot do this type of work by yourself. It wasn't until my coach said, “You've outgrown this version of you” that I went, “Yes. Yes. I have.” 

​That's what's been feeling off. I'm still doing great work. I'm still supporting my clients because in those moments when I'm supporting my clients, I am this newer version of me. I am at my fullest and my best. 

But the other times, and I want you to think about that too. Have you been able to fully be yourself? There has been some shedding over the past few years, shedding of people, shedding of places, and things. When I show up places, and it’s is not the place I need to be, it's hard for me to stay there. Maybe you’ve felt that way too, or with people in your life, that you're on this trajectory of moving up and moving forward. But you've been held back. 

I had to ask myself, and you can ask yourself now, what has stopped you from stepping fully into that next piece, that next version, that newer, better, shiny version of you? 

I've talked before about how sometimes with clients, when they come to me, they're living in black and white. If you've seen The Wizard of Oz, at the start of the movie, everything's in black and white, and then all of a sudden it goes to color, and it's vibrant. That's what I see in people. In the beginning, it's this void of energy. They're in front of me, but they don't have life in them, no spark, no mojo. They're drained. They're fatigued. They're in that dissonance. 

But really, we want to be living in color. I guess that's also why the caterpillar to the butterfly is a really good analogy to be visual to the color. Yes, I get caterpillars are in bright greens and other bright colors. But when we think of butterflies, we think of vibrancy and almost like that opulence of how they're shining. The color changes to almost holographic, and this shimmery metallic tones.

The key thing to think about here and probably why I felt a little bit like cocooning and pulling back and hiding a little bit was that if you don't step forward, you will internally die a slow death. You're going to lose out to the old you. The old you is going to take up more space than the newest version of you. The old you is going to push out the color and keep you in the black and white. 
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You have to make that decision that you’ve not only outgrown that old version of you, but that you will be the new version, which the new I believe is just the most authentic, current, best version of you that you were meant to be. 

This is where we're going over the next few blogs. I'm going to talk a little bit about the change of mission. I'm going to talk more about how to step into who you're meant to be. I feel like this is what the world and you as my reader are really striving for right now. It's like things just don't feel where they need to be. They don't feel like how you want them to be. You know you've outgrown where things have been and what you've been doing, but do you actually have permission to say you've outgrown who you're being? 

It can be a really scary place to be because what does that mean for you? It means stepping into a bigger, fuller version of you. Let's see where this journey goes. I would love to hear how this resonated with you, or the questions this brought up for you. 

Shoot me an email at [email protected] and let me know your thoughts.
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Read my other blogs:

1. The Change Is Coming
2. I Kill Myself Trying to Do Both
3. My Coach Shifted Me