For most of my life, I worked to check all the boxes. Excel in school. Get a full scholarship to college. Graduate with honors. Obtain multiple degrees. Get a job and take care of yourself. Volunteer, help the community, mentor, serve, teach, etc., etc., etc. Seemingly, I did it all. If you put a goal in front of me, I worked to accomplish it.

So, what’s the problem? On the surface, it seems like a recipe for success and a journey filled with continual accolades, right? Yeah. Right. Sure.

The challenge is that this pattern didn’t really have anything to do with me. It placed all my value in what I could do, but not who I was. It made my journey contingent upon and governed by the expectations and requirements of others. It left me exposed, trumped up by their cheers, but equally destroyed by their criticism, or worse, paralyzed by their silence. The ebb and flow of my life was solely predicated upon and at the discretion of others’ opinions. This subliminal system of validation yielded all my power and control to my surroundings and support system, or at times, the lack thereof. It positioned me to win their battles but lose my own. It created a false sense of humility and a deceiving sense of security in many of the wrong things and people.

There were moments filled with tears and depression, overwhelmed by this hole I dug myself into and couldn’t see a way out of. I couldn’t cry for help because no one knew I was drowning. I was still performing and producing, taking care of anything and everything to ensure nothing fell through the cracks of my deficiencies. They couldn’t be at a loss because of me. That was non-negotiable.

My truth was that they mattered more. I became whoever they needed or wanted me to be. How they saw me made all the difference in the world because I hadn’t paused to see myself. I deteriorated my self-image and minimized my self-importance because, then, I couldn’t be held responsible if something went wrong. I absolved my guilt, my pain, and my disappointment by hiding and shrinking, choosing to turn off various facets of who I was to satisfy their comfort, all while ignoring my own.

Somewhere, I stopped thinking about me, what I wanted, what I needed, and who I was hoping to become. I stopped dreaming. I stopped living. Or maybe, I realized that I had never truly done any of that in the first place.

I had to ask myself some hard questions and make some tough decisions. I had to separate my wishes from theirs. I had to tune into what He was saying and silence everything and everyone else. I had to resolve from within that there were some things that I only did because I was told they were necessary or respectable or honorable, but not because I actually wanted to do them. I had to admit that they weren’t the problem, I was.

It took a lot of time and a great deal of isolation, prayer, and determination, but I got what I needed. I had to learn to silence the voices of the naysayers, especially when the loudest one was my own. I had to reintroduce myself to myself and stop leaning on the stories I was told about myself to create my definitions and perceptions. I was forced to get to the root of the issues, establish my own value system, and then go to the source for inspiration, edification, and restoration.

God showed me that what they think is none of my business and, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. His opinion and mine are the only ones that do. So, I pulled myself out of some toxic environments and I ended some one-sided relationships. I started to seek purpose in every assignment, conversation, interaction, and opportunity. I decided that I was enough, too much, and too little all at the same time, and that was totally okay. I was exactly as He created me to be.

And while I’m still figuring all of that out, one thing is for sure: I don’t believe He brought me this far to leave me. I have what it takes to connect the rest of the dots, get all He has for me, reach my destiny, and help others to do the same as I go. I’ll die empty, not because they drained me, but because I put in the time, energy, and effort to discover everything in me, and then worked intentionally to sprinkle a little bit of it everywhere along the way.

So, yeah, besides God, sometimes, all you need is you. Do you believe this?