AND THEN I DECIDED TO BACK MYSELF

In my early to mid-twenties, somewhere throughout the years when I was lost in trying to figure out what I’d ‘one day’ do with my life, I somehow found myself accidentally living the wrong life.

I’d always know I was born for more, you see, and it was something I knew so deep in my soul, my bones, my cells, my REMEMBRANCE of who I am and who I came to be, it was a given, a knowing, it was fucking DONE, but yet –

I just wasn’t QUITE sure how to actually get it done.

And besides, it OBVIOUSLY wasn’t time yet! Since I had no fucking clue where to start or even, really, what it was I wanted.

The whole ‘born for more and I’m gonna rule the WORLD and live my DESTINY’ thing was more of a FEELING than something I could actually action, or even put into words.

So I’d set upon the adult pathway initially thinking I was going to lawyer the fuck out of my life (proper job! Important job! prove my WORTH!) … got the grades for that but basically backtracked on the whole college / university thing within the first week when I realised that nobody was WATCHING or VALIDATING me anymore … started to become more and more aware that I wasn’t going to live the normal life … went to Europe for the summer … gained some weight … got fitness obsessed as a result of that … became a PT … always want to be the BEST so quickly got myself a management position, and with it, a husband (it wasn’t EXACTLY a package deal, except I guess it was part of my ‘be a good adult plan!), some extra pounds, and a Proper Person Fancy Car and Apartment.

Roughly a year or three into this whole plan I started to wake up each day with an increasing sense of doom.

I looked and felt like shit, firstly, even though I worked high up in the fitness world. I was eating absolutely terribly (following conventional nutritional wisdom and food pyramid type bullshit!), not working out properly, drinking too much, fighting with my husband all the time, he was QUITE nasty to me a lot, but I don’t know that I was much better, and all I wanted –

Was to be happy.

I remember when we broke up, and he was so.fucking.angry at me, we were in the lounge and he had a stack of printed photos which had been in a box on the coffee table, from our honeymoon I think, and he was flicking them at me one by one, like mini-frisbees, and screaming at me about how I could DO this to him, but also about how STUPID he was –

That all he should have done was look at all the titles on my bookshelf to know I wasn’t happy.

Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

Authentic Happiness

30 Days to Change Your Life

etc.

And I thought, as the photos kept flying at me, cutting the skin all around my eyes and all over my face, I had the oddest small slices of cuts all over my face for a good month after that, I thought –

Well. What’s so bad about wanting to change your life? What’s so wrong with chasing happiness? Why can’t I be HAPPY?

And as his anger passed and it turned to wanting it to still WORK, wanting me to stay, wanting to FIX things, I thought about how much EASIER it would be, to continue down the path of the life I’d already created, had already set up, had READY TO FUCKING GO, and I could have SO

easily.

said yes.

I remember us both in near foetal position on the floor in the window looking over Melbourne’s beautiful Fitzroy Gardens, for some reason I was holding this really expensive bikini which he’d bought me as a sort of make-up gift, and I was crying like my heart was breaking and my very SOUL was being ripped from me, as I decided –

NO.

Even though it hurt SO.DAMN.MUCH.

I wasn’t going to go back.

I decided to back myself, and to trust that even though I had NO FUCKING CLUE HOW, I was going to find a way to live a life that felt on PATH, because when I looked ahead to the natural progression of the one I was living in right then I saw the future and it TERRIFIED me.

At the same time, a few weeks before or a few weeks after, I’m not sure, I was working 18 hour days opening a major gym in the heart of Melbourne, recruiting the entire PT team, getting ready for the biggest deal launch for the chain I worked for in years, pushing myself like a CRAZY person and barely sleeping or eating, never mind training.

We had an 11pm meeting in the back room, what would become the PT staff room, the day before the club opened. I was almost delirious with being sick, I had in fact passed out in the middle of the gym earlier that day, and I desperately needed a few days off. My superior told me there’s no way I was getting time off for at least 6 weeks, through the launch time, and also yelled at me and my colleague about something I can’t any more remember, to do with what we’d not done right at a presentation the night before, and I sat there and looked at him, my eyes glazing over as I tried not to spin off my chair, and I thought –

I’m making REALLY good money.

I get KILLER commissions (I’m a gun at sales, I ALWAYS got the top commission available)

I will MORE THAN LIKELY be promoted into his role within the year as he also moves up, because if I decide I want it then nothing will stop me.

– and what the hell would I do instead, go back to just doing PT?

I listened to him yelling and ranting and venting and I thought – wow. He is under even more pressure than I am. And only getting paid a few k more a year than me! Why am I chasing this?

I decided to back myself.

I waited a few weeks, past the club open, walked into his office SHAKING, as at the time my entire IDENTITY was wrapped up in that job, and quit.

And walked back out into nothing. But knowing that if I made up my mind? I’d create money and any OTHER sort of magic I decided, NO problem.

I was 26.

Getting divorced.

No job.

Walked away from everything I owned, the apartment, the car, the fancy 25k surround sound system I could have rightfully sold and taken half of, left EVERYTHING in my entire LIFE, except for 6k I decided to take from our savings, one plate, one knife and fork, my books and clothes, and my cat, Arnie. He still lives the good life back in Melbourne with my parents, incidentally 🙂

I had nowhere to live, no idea how I was going to really make money or what I even wanted to DO with my life, still (except for change the world and be rich and famous and all that good stuff!), and I was not talking to 99% of my friends or family, due to my marriage break up.

But I had DECIDED to BACK myself.

I had DECIDED to walk away from a life that was freaking SUCCESSFUL.

I was married! I was making great money! I had an apartment in EXACTLY the right suburb! We had a freakin’ BMW and ALL the fancy shit! I was living a GREAT dream life.

It was somebody else’s dream though.

And mine? Well, mine was NOT going anywhere and for every day that I did NOT press fucking play on what I really wanted, it made itself more known to me.

And I’d try to escape –

In food.

Alcohol.

Anger.

Whatever.

Do you ever find yourself trying to escape, trying to numb down, trying to PUSH down the knowledge that the way you’re living your life right now, whilst VERY fucking Well Done from the outside looking in is actually a VERY Big Fucking Mess from the inside looking out??

Yeah … that.

So as much as I had NO fucking clue what I was really going to do or what sort abyss I was walking into I just KNEW that just because I’d set out on a path DIDN’T MEAN I HAD TO STAY ON IT.

Can I tell you something?

JUST BECAUSE YOU’VE SET OUT ON A PATH DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO STAY ON IT.

And when I look back, over the years, at all of the BIG wins and breakthroughs I’ve had, all the ‘next level’ stuff I’ve been able to achieve, all of the OMG WOW stuff I’ve called in or created, I can see that at some point BEFORE getting to the HAPPY FLOW PLACE?

I walked away from something.

Into the abyss.

Usually feeling SCARED if not TERRIFIED.

And with no fucking clue what the HECK I thought I was going to do instead.

But a KNOWING that I HAD to BACK MYSELF, that it was the only way, really, that knowing ‘how’ was really THE most irrelevant thing about it all!!

I’ve done this so many times and in so many ways I really can’t even remember them all. I do know that recently, well, last year, when I left my SECOND marriage, one of the things he threw at me in his sadness and anger, was that this is just what I DO, isn’t it?

“It’s your THING, Katrina.

You just walk away from EVERYTHING, and everyone”

And I guess it is my thing, if you want to look at it that way.

I’ve sure walked away from enough stuff to make it my thing! And when I decide to walk away I REALLY don’t give AF what sort of money | time | energy or even COMMITMENT I’ve invested.

Just because I said YES once upon a time –

Don’t mean I can’t change my mind if it’s aligned to do so.

And you ALWAYS know what’s aligned, so the only QUESTION, if you want to live the life you could REALLY be living, is ARE YOU GOING TO DECIDE TO ONE DAY BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF ABOUT IT?

I can tell you that most people will just never be honest with themselves about what they really want, what they came here to do, what their LIFE is therefore going to be about, they will instead choose to live in FEAR and the WRONG.FUCKING.LIFE rather than rock the boat!

Well, I’m not only okay with rocking the boat I’ll BURN THE GOD DAMN THING TO THE GROUND if I have to, in order to live the RIGHT life, the one that burns DEEP inside of me.

And I suggest you decide to be okay with doing the same.

With doing WHATEVER it fucking takes to live the life you were born for.

With leaving a TRAIL of chaos and disaster and even wreck and RUIN smoking behind you if need be as you set EVER forward on the path you’re called to.

Is it really so much to ask? To take ALL MEASURES necessary in order to create your LIFE on purpose?

I don’t think.

And it breaks my heart that most people just won’t DO this, because, because, because …

What would people think?

And what will I do instead?

And how will I how will I HOW will I figure it OUT?!

Well, how about this:

PUT YOURSELF IN A FUCKING POSITION WHERE YOU DON’T HAVE A CHOICE!! How about THAT?

Anyway.

Recently, last week in fact, I found myself wrestling with something pretty fucking Big Deal.

I had a contract on the table which required a 2.8 million investment (give or take!) from me over the next 18 months, and also required me to give a percentage of my revenue for EVER basically, in exchange, essentially, for the Manufacturing of Me Into an A-List Famous Motherfucker.

The costs were various forms of marketing, essentially, is the best way to describe it all.

And the thing is … I BELIEVED, do believe, in the ability of what would have been my Fame Management Team, to bring it for me. They believed in ME, in my art, my need to be messy and unpredictable and badass and ME.

And it would have meant:

TV deals.

Product deals.

All sorts of deals!

A NYT best-selling book.

Becoming PROPER famous, mainstream KNOWN.

A motherfucking EMPIRE, and the world to know my NAME!

I fully believe that all this would have happened, as well.

But the thing is …

As I looked to the future …

To being bound to a filming schedule, to having to follow a PROCESS (’cause as much as you say I still get to be me and do what I WANT, when there’s a SHOW and a book plan and other people involved there IS going to be a fucking process and pre-planned content and I HATE fucking pre-planned ANYTHING), to having to show up and perform on COMMAND …

… to ALL of this, as I looked to it and saw what it would mean and the ‘SUCCESS’ and FAME it would create, I realised:

I had that same sinking feeling of daily increasing doom that I had back in my first marriage.

When I looked to the future and to all that I’d created and was created, to the path of SUCCESS I was on, to what EVERYBODY ELSE thought or would think was fanTASTIC, and I realised:

It fucking TERRIFIED me.

And not in a good way.

I looked to the future of this fame pathway and all I could feel was DREAD.

Like I was about to set myself upon a pathway that I would ultimately end up WALKING AWAY FROM, because no matter WHAT the supposed benefit if I can’t just wake up and be free to make it up and just be me day by day then at some point I AM going to walk the fuck away.

No matter how much money | time | energy | commitment | whatEVER I have to leave behind.

And I looked back –

At everything I’ve walked away from over the past decade, and more.

At how ultimately no matter HOW freakin’ scary it was I’ve ALWAYS ended up just backing myself.

At how everytime I DO back myself I fucking BRING it ’cause baby when I DECIDE to do something?

I figure it the fuck out and I God damn DO it.

And I decided that now, at 37, at this point in my life, with the multi 7-figure empire I’ve already built behind and with me, and the future of fame! And millions! And impact! And more ahead of me, that maybe –

Just maybe.

I no longer need to say yes to something I ultimately already know, deep down, I’m going to end up walking away from.

I no longer need to say YES out of FEAR, out of worrying that maybe there’s not anything else out there for me instead.

I no longer need to say YES when ultimately I AM going to end up backing myself anyway, and walking –

The fuck.

Away.

I’ve spent my entire life saying yes to things that I KNEW weren’t quite right.

Two times married, for that reason.

Endless business ventures left behind me for that reason.

Countless consultants paid tens of thousands of dollars to provide something external when I always KNEW it was going to be about what’s inside of me, but didn’t yet trust myself.

SO much money and time and energy spent, along the way, just to eventually end up BACKING MYSELF.

And I decided.

Finally.

To just say yes NOW, to what I’ve actually always known it would be about.

Which is?

That when I get famous and change the fucking world it’s going to be because I did it ENTIRELY MY WAY and on my terms.

So as much as I was teetering on that edge –

Seduced by the promise and even the BELIEF of fame and glory –

Once again staring into what would be an ABYSS of uncertainty if I walked away from it –

And I wondered what the ‘right’ thing to do was –

All of a sudden it became crystal fucking clear.

And I decided to just back myself.

Which brings me to you:

If you decided, today, to walk the fuck away from what you KNOW is not aligned –

And to back yourSELF?

How would that look?

And would the promise of what you CAN create, if only you CHOOSE, be worth leaving behind everything that was never going to actually be a fuck yes anyway?

Just something to think about 🙂

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