“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.” - Brene Brown
Let’s get vulnerable.
No really....let’s talk vulnerability here, what it means to me, and why I believe it is so important for achieving great things.
For me, vulnerability is putting yourself out there with no safety net to save you. It’s breaking down every piece of yourself to completely expose your weaknesses. It’s being willing to not only expose those weaknesses but to confront them head on, attack them, and really try to overcome them.
We, as humans, don’t typically deal well in this space. We don’t naturally welcome weaknesses to the forefront, put a spotlight on them, or expose them for all to see. The basis of our humanity is to be strong, to win, and to not show weakness, and this is exposed more now with social media and it’s misrepresentation of reality in the everyday lives of people around us. Once weakness is shown it is an opportunity for prey to bring you down and lift themselves up, or ultimately to defeat you in battle. None of us want to be defeated, it’s the animal instinct.
Much has been done to study vulnerability as strength, to expose the true growth that comes from being vulnerable. I’ve made it my personal mission to constantly be pushing the edges of vulnerability, trying to push boundaries for the sake of coming out stronger and living a more fulfilling life.
Let’s have a look how it applies and how you can use it to your advantage to truly achieve some amazing things in life.
In your career, many people take jobs or careers they are comfortable with in a field they know about. If you work for a large organization with many different departments, how often do you entirely step outside your comfort zone to take on a role or task that you don’t fully know?
Much more learning, development, and growth comes from cross training, often a lateral move or sometimes (as I’ve done before) a backwards move to learn a new area leads to quicker steps forward up the corporate ladder. Be honest with what you don’t know, not only to yourself but to your boss or anyone, you’ll be surprised how much more you end up knowing by getting into that uncomfortable state. It’s ok to have weaknesses. Be vulnerable, address the weaknesses and put a spotlight on them until they’re weaknesses no more.
In your family life, especially as men, you don’t want to expose that you aren’t good at something or can’t do something or are failing at something you said you’d do. You’re better off to address it, admit failure or weakness, and get the help to grow stronger. It’s not about challenging yourself here, it’s about fixing the issue now so that next time it isn’t an issue. Get vulnerable with your family or friends, these are the people you should feel most comfortable being open with about your struggles....if not then you need a new tribe.
In fitness, be willing to step outside your comfort zone and get vulnerable..... expose your weaknesses to grow stronger. Comfortable hitting the weights but not cardio, push yourself to run or bike or get the cardio in. Enjoy working your upper body but hate leg day, get on doing leg day more often as you’ll only get comfortable doing it when you get stronger and to get stronger you need to attack the weakness. Hate running long distances, you got it, start pushing yourself to run longer in order to really drive true growth and strength in your life. Hate stretching, join yoga. I could go on forever here, but the point is to be entirely vulnerable to your weaknesses and expose them fully, be willing to be the weakest guy in the gym that day because you’re trying a new exercise to work a different muscle.
For the marathon, I knew I was not a distance runner nor had the lung capacity nor the training to do anything more than some sprinting or stop/go sports. But my willingness to say, “yes I am awful at distant running because I run too hard and burn out or I don’t know proper breathing techniques” allowed me to attack those areas the hardest by finding ways that worked. Watching my pace and slowing my runs down, this helped to train myself to run longer and not worry about all the people who would pass me. I’d never get to the finish if I didn’t become ok with my weaknesses as a distance runner. This was toughest at the beginning of runs when you feel great, I really had to constantly be pushing myself to slow down and leave something for the other 20, 30, or 40kms. Let them pass you as you’re weaker than they are around km #30.
I’m just as guilty of taking the easy route too. We all do it as it’s comfortable and we hate being uncomfortable or showing that we can’t do something. But I train myself to keep this top of mind, always willing to expose myself for the true individual I am. This takes much practice and reminders, I’ve been working extra hard at being as vulnerable as I can be this year and it’s helped me achieve many things I likely would have never achieved this time last year. It’ll also help me push towards achieving other great things in the future, because I’m ok being awful at many things and pushing myself to be better. I don’t know what the outcome will be but I know I’ll be happier having the courage to take the shot and see where the outcome takes me.
If you put yourself out there, try something new, and fail, then you’ll be stronger than you were when you took that vulnerable step forward and that makes all the difference.
DadBud
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