You are a badass: how to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life

By Jen Sincero

 This  book is seriously SO fantastic. It has some of the best messages I have ever read.

There is some gold in this book and I have written down some of the very best ones for you to take a sneak peek into before you get the book and dive in yourself!

It’s about having the cojones to show up as the brightest, happiest, badassiest version of yourself, whatever that looks like to you.

“The good news is that in order to do this, all you need to do is make one simple shift:
You need to go from WANTING to change your life to DECIDING to change your life.”

Someday you should wake up crying tears of giddy disbelief that you get to be you.

“You are a badass. You were one when you came screaming onto this planet and you are one now. The Universe wouldn’t have bothered with you otherwise. You can’t screw up so majorly that you badassery disappears. IT IS WHO YOU ARE. It’s who you always will be. It’s not up for negotiation.”

“When we’re born, we have an instinctual understanding of some of the most important basics of life that includes, and goes way beyond, bending at our knees, instead of our lower backs, to pick a beer can up off the floor. We’re born knowing how to trust our instincts, how to breathe deeply, how to eat only when we’re hungry, how to not care about what anyone thinks of our singing voices, dance moves, or hairdos, we know how to play, create, and love without holding back. Then, as we grow and learn from the people around us, we replace many of these primal understandings with negative false beliefs, fear, shame, and self-doubt. Then we wind up in emotional and physical pain. Then we either numb our pain with drugs, sex, booze, TV, Cheetos, etc. Or we settle for mediocrity. OR we rise to the occasion, remember how truly mighty we are, and set out to relearn everything we knew at the beginning all over again.”

Appreciate how special you are. There will never be anyone exactly like you. You were given special gifts and talents to share with the world, and even though everybody has special gifts and talents, nobody will use theirs quite the same way you do. You have a way of being in the world and a perspective that’s unique to you. You are the only one who thinks your thoughts the way you think them. You have created your own unique reality and are living your life according to your own unique path. You are the only you that will ever be. You are kind of a big deal.
You are more than enough. Avoid comparison like the plague.

DO NOT WASTE YOUR PRECIOUS TIME GIVING ONE SINGLE CRAP ABOUT WHAT ANYBODY ELSE THINKS OF YOU.

“The power of giving is so strong that the excitement and the good feelings are often greater for the giver than for the receiver. When you find your calling and you design your life is such a way that you can share your gifts with the world on a consistent basis, you feel like a rock star.”

“Every single person is born with unique and valuable gifts to share with the world. Once we figure out what ours are, and decide to live our lives putting them to use, that’s when, and only when, the real party begins. Living a life on purpose is available to everyone.”

“Everyone’s journey is unique, but we’re all trying to get to the same place- the place where we feel happiest, the most alive, and the most like ourselves.”

“Much of the time we pretend we aren’t clear on what our calling is when what’s really going on is that we’re horrified to face it because it seems too big or too impossible to make a living at or completely out of the question for us. But what if you had the audacity to leave your excuses and your shame about wanting to be huge and fabulous behind and really went for it full-on anyway? What if you decided to do the most outrageous, most exciting thing you ever dared fantasize about, regardless of what anyone, including your terrified self, thought? THAT WOULD BE LIVING.”

“Many people trade in living fully in their purpose for more “grown up” versions of life that range from the merely passable to the full-on sucking. They’ve bought into this idea that

being responsible = not having fun anymore,

that waking up feeling excited about life is for the young, and once we’re older, we need to trade that in, settle down and be more “realistic”.

YAWN.
I am talking about continuously living our dreams, no matter what stage of life we’re in, instead of settling for mediocrity because we don’t believe anything else is available or appropriate.”

“When you’re so lost in what you’re doing that you lose all sense of time, you have officially entered the Vortex.”

“Giving is one of our greatest joys. It’s also one of the most fearless and powerful gestures there is. When we trust that we live in an abundant universe and allow ourselves to give freely, we raise our frequency, strengthen our faith, and feel awesome, thereby putting ourselves in flow and the position to receive abundant amounts in return.”

“We live in a universe of give and receive, breathe and exhale, live and die, suck and awesome.
Faith is your best buddy when you’re scared shitless.
When it comes to our emotional pain, however, we’re apparently way more game for seeing just how much torture we can endure, wallowing in our guilt, shame, resentment, and self-loathing.
When someone does something awful to you, take that person out of the equation so you can open yourself up to have a more pleasant, and productive, reaction (and life). It’s not about them anyway, it’s about you.”

“You’re the author of your own life- not your parents, not society, not your partner, not your friends, not the bullies who called you Fatzilla in junior high- and the sooner you decide to write yourself a better script, the sooner you get to live a more awesome life.”

“Fear will simply give you an unlived life of mediocrity, wimpiness, and shame.
Other people are like mirrors for us: If somebody bugs you, you’re projecting onto them something that you don’t like about yourself, and if you think they’re awesome, they’re reflecting back something that you see in yourself that you like.
You people you surround yourself with are excellent mirrors for who you are and how much, or how little, you love yourself.”

OWN YOUR UGLY.

As Winston Churchill so aptly explained, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

“If you want something badly enough and decide that you will get it, you will.
There are plenty of people out there in the world living the kind of life you only dream about living, many of whom are far less fabulous and talented than you are.”

I just finished reading the book “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert.

It was a great, quick read that had some really powerful statements about setting the fear aside and just going for what you want.

I believe every single person has a gift to share with the world and Elizabeth discusses how we must be able to set aside the FEAR and create what is within us.

I first read “Eat, Pray, Love” from Elizabeth Gilbert and truth be told, I didn’t love it.

I’m more obsessed with the Brene Brown & Glennon Doyle Melton authors, but I thought I would give this book a shot. It was getting great reviews and lots of buzz.

I am glad I picked it up, because it had some great advice…..

“You will never be able to create anything interesting out of your life if you don’t believe that you’re entitled to at least try.”

“Believing that you are allowed to be here, and that- merely by being here- you are allowed to have a voice and a vision of your own.”

and my very favorite quote from the WHOLE BOOK:

Go be whomever you want to be, then.

Do whatever you want to do. 

Pursue whatever fascinates you and brings you to life. 

Create whatever you want to create- and let it be stupendously imperfect, because it’s exceedingly likely that nobody will even notice. 

And that’s awesome. 

I also REALLY liked her Court Lobster Story…..if you’ve read the book, you will know what I’m talking about.

It’s basically a story where a guy gets invited to a very fancy costume party, so he spends time and money making an elaborate lobster costume, only to get to the party and realize it was a themed party and his costume completely didn’t fit in.

Instead of being embarrased and “red faced” (haha.. .sorry, I had to!) he decides to tell people he’s the Court Lobster and then has a roaring good time making friends and talking with people.

” A young boy name Jackson was recently  diagnosed with Duchenne and is spreading the message all over the world.

At seven years old he has changed the world with his amazing and inspiring story!”  – Sydney

Recently I was able to work with a Perrysburg Junior High’s 7th Grade Language Arts Class to do a research project on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

It was such a wonderful opportunity to share our story with these amazing students. They had to get onto Joy in Jackson’s Journey Website and using that, write a paper on what Duchenne is, how they felt about it, and to share it with two other people.

I went in one afternoon and spoke with the kids….and cried, of course, because I hadn’t shared the story with anyone in a little while and seeing all these young, talented, eager students….it just made me emotional.

After speaking with them, I went back in had the opportunity to listen to them present their papers.

I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing it was watching these kids rattle off statistics about how Duchenne affects approximately every 3,500 male births. About how they told their friends and family about Jackson.

It was so reminescent of a few years ago when I had never heard of Duchenne.

These kids hadn’t either and it was heartwarming watching them learn and share about the disease.

“Duchenne is really sad and heartbreaking and I wish it never existed. You are in gym, running around. People are so much faster than you. You decide you should sit down.  You can’t. It’s too hard!! You finally sit down and then after about 5 minutes you decide to get up again. You’re having more trouble. You finally get back to gym and get very upset because you know why you can’t run as fast as others, why you have trouble sitting and standing. You have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.” – Rachel

“Have  you  ever  heard  of  Duchenne  Muscular  Dystrophy?  It  is  also  known  as DMD  for  short.  

It  is a  severe  form  of  muscular  dystrophy  caused  by  a  genetic  defect  and  usually  only  affecting  boys.  This  rare  disease  is  mostly  common   in   boys  because  they  do  not  make  the  dystrophin  protein  in  their  muscles.

First,  only  about  1  in  every  3,500  people  have  DMD.  And  that  one  person  is  someone  named  Jackson.  Jackson  goes  to  Fort  Meigs  Elementary  school  and  is  in  first  grade.  He  was diagnosed   with  Duchenne  in  2012.  It  is  often  hard  for  Jackson  to  run  and  keep  up with  his  friends.  He  also  gets  really  sad  when  he  realizes  that  it  is  hard  for  him  to keep  up  with  his  friends.”  – Bella

“I want to talk about this website called https://www.joyinjacksonsjourney.com/  It talks about this mother who finds out that her son has Duchenne and how she was sad and how she felt.”  – Cheyenne

“When she {Jackson’s Mom} read this she felt sick to her stomach and couldn’t sleep the whole night and was not feeling good the next morning either. That morning though when she woke up she had felt like it was all just a dream and that none of it was true but eventually had to accept the truth that her son did have Duchenne and would not be alive walking and using his legs. After she had been like this for three whole days she felt like a shell of a person”. – James

“It’s the stuff that we avoid because it hurts that is exactly the stuff we need to tackle.”- Jacob 

“This has been the most shocking thing I have heard, more shocking than my dad getting cancer. A child gets this disease when they get the defective gene called dystrophin. Girls produce enough protein to fight this disease if they get a bad gene. This disease makes the child’s muscle’s change when the child grows, sadly killing the child when fully grown.

This disease DESPERATELY needs a cure, because there is nothing right now you can do to fight it. I hope that there can be a cure soon, so nobody has to go through this pain. I hope Jackson is doing well and hopefully there will be a cure very soon.” – Joshua

” I hope that scientists help find a cure to Duchenne, If you don’t know what duchenne is then please look it up and support and help.” – Jude

” I feel bad for parents whose kid got the disease because it’s heart breaking news to hear. Their kids will be sad to because they will want to be able to do what the others kids do but they can’t. The parents are really sad knowing that there kid can only live for a short period of time.” – Cameron

I am SO very thankful for this opportunity to share our story with others and to help educate children on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

A few weeks later it was even featured in the local paper!

One sweet girl even knew how much Jackson LOVED Angry Birds, so she brought him a game that she used to play and wanted him to have it. She even attached a super sweet note inside that said, “Jackson you are the bravest person in the world!“

“A side note to Jackson or anyone else with Muscular Dystrophy, never give up and always keep fighting.

 Enjoy life while you have it.”  – Kolton