Reaching uncommon destinations requires uncommon decisions
If everyone followed the same path, we'd all end up in identical places.
In this minisode, Tiffany confirms that attaining excellence involves pushing beyond the familiar, the comfortable, and the safe – venturing into uncharted territories. Embarking on this journey alone might feel isolating, a sentiment shared by many, including herself.
But through navigating her journey, she realized that acknowledging this loneliness, and vocalizing it could help release its hold.
When moments arise where you question your chosen path, remember: it's not that you're doing it wrong; you're simply on the road to excellence.
Tiffany Sauder [00:00:00]:Welcome to Scared Confident. I'm your host, Tiffany Sauder. This last week, I spent a little bit of time with a young woman that reached out just looking for some support; and she's not quite 30, has four kids, a combination of adoption and biological children. And she's made some decisions that are not the same as the people around her, as her peers, as people in her age group, as people who have the same job title as her at work. And she asked me kind of sheepishly, did you ever feel lonely? And I felt like this wave just go through my body so quickly, and I almost started crying, actually.
Tiffany Sauder [00:01:06]:And I was like, oh, my word. I felt so lonely. I felt so lonely that at work, because I was the leader when I was in my didn't really have people I could tell my problems to. I felt so lonely as a mom because I didn't necessarily have mom peers at work. I felt so lonely at church because a lot of the Bible studies and things that were happening during the week, I chose not to go to because of some of my professional priorities. I felt so lonely and for a really long time. And that's not to say that there weren't people around, that there weren't people that loved me, that there weren't people that wanted to be interested in my life. It's just the truth of it was I was experiencing something so different in running, like starting a company and running it since I was 25 years old, being married to somebody who was going to have a career in this two career household that we were trying to unpack and figure out, what did that mean? And I was trying to figure out what fed me personally, professionally, socially, spiritually, what fed me, and what did that look like? And I guess I just wanted to say to you that if you feel lonely, that does not mean that you're doing it wrong.
Tiffany Sauder [00:02:38]:That does not mean that that feeling will subsist for the rest of your life. Like, be there for the rest of your life. I don't know if I use the right word. Yeah, it just doesn't mean that you're doing it wrong. And I think I needed somebody to tell me that because I wondered if I didn't fit into a tribe, if I didn't fit into a group, if I didn't fit into something, what did that mean? And I want my encouragement to be like, if you don't make different choices, you won't get to different places. And when you have an outsized dream in your heart, when you have a vision that is uncommon, it is going to require uncommon choices that take you to uncommon places, that require you to use your time in uncommon ways. And that's how you get to uncommon outcomes. I don't know.
Tiffany Sauder [00:03:32]:This is just an encouragement. Yes. Sometimes loneliness is part of the journey. I also think there were times where I could have said it more that I was lonely. I don't know who would have fixed it, but sometimes just saying it out loud, saying that you're lonely, I think it would have released a little bit of it to me. But I remember when I felt lonely, I would count the joys that were present in my life because I had taken this uncommon path. I would count the lessons that I had learned. I would count the people I had met.
Tiffany Sauder [00:04:06]:I would count the new experiences I never would have imagined. I would count the things I'd learned about myself while there was and is an expense to taking an uncommon path. And I think one of those prices we pay is sometimes being lonely. There is an incredible reward in the journey, in the path as well. So this is encouragement for you, those of you who are on uncommon paths, making uncommon choices with your time, you're not doing it wrong. You're just headed for excellence. Thanks for listening. Bye.
