Celebrate Your Participation Trophy with Pride
I firmly believe we should celebrate, not criticize our individuality. How often do you chastise the clouds for being so different from each other? I hope it’s never because it’s cruel to treat individual beauty that way.
We live in an age where kids get Participation Trophies for everything. For a long time, I hated that tradition. But, dare I say it? I can see the value (now) in recognizing the strength and hard work that person put into something. Especially when things didn’t work out like they hoped, or dreamed they would.
The flip side of Participation Trophies is a Pedestal of Shame.
The pain of putting our uniqueness on a Pedestal of Shame is often one of our favorite things to do. It separates us from others and gives us the “that would never happen to me” syndrome. This is a judgment of ourselves for how things (AKA our hopes and dreams) worked out.
This double-edged sword can cause you to be the victim or the perpetrator. You want to be the one in control of this sword so that you are neither. Right?
Thinking of being different or unique as a gift can be challenging and seem cocky at first. It’s not that you want to think you are more special but as special as others.
There is not a finite number of people that are allowed to have awesome things- be it awesome shoes or unique characteristics.
What in the heck am I getting at?
We are all awesomely different.
I know this because I write blogs and make jewelry. These are two very common things women do outside of the typical 9-5 and/or how many stay-at-home moms start making extra income. It is a saturated market for SURE! I could give up if I didn’t believe in my uniqueness. Not betterness. Uniqueness.
(Of course, I looked up some statistics and started going down the rabbit hole since I like facts as much as I like dreams! Closing out 2020 there were 31.7 MILLION bloggers, 600 million blogs, and 50.9% of those bloggers are female. There were a lot of math percentages and graphs from the Finances Online website.)
In a very saturated market, I have a pretty decent followership (thank you Corporate America for that new buzzword!) and am known as the person to go to for advice or custom pieces of jewelry. I didn’t start either of those things with any intent of being where I am today. Or where I’ll be in the future.
I started blogging and crafting because I loved it and wanted to share. True, it’s not always met with the positivity and love that I hoped for but I don’t love everything I read either. That honesty also helps me to be a valuable resource for others. I don’t have to like a book or piece of art to give a constructive critique..and someone will love it.
Where’s my proof you ask? How do I know that uniqueness *should* be celebrated?
Naturally occurring unique beauty is all around us.
Nature gives us snowflakes.
Humans are full of uniqueness- DNA, thumbprints, and freckles.
Our perspectives and how we take in information are also very different at times. How many times have you heard something and then one person says it slightly differently and the lightbulb goes off? Remember those art pieces that could be a vase or two faces depending on your perspective? You see one then when someone tells you they see the other then you can see it.
In conclusion, celebrate yourself.
Recognize your own beauty and unique strengths. Especially if that strength allows you to show up as your authentic self.
Enjoy your inquisitive mind and its the ability to reconcile differences in the world.
The era of participation trophies…teaches kids they are winners for just showing up. So are you!
Be thankful for your uniqueness, being who I am has attracted the right people in my life (this isn’t always easy for us to be thankful but it is important).
Download my guide for Mindset Management to get you started.
Peace and love,
Teresea
Photo credit: Unsplash; Lee Wright, Teresea Patton
