The Truth is – You Are NOT Perfect

There are so many songs telling you you’re perfect the way you are. There are so many self-help books telling you that there’s really nothing to change. There is definitely no shortage of motivational speakers who tell you, “You are complete.”

You need to set all that aside. In fact, if I wasn’t being polite I would call them lies because that’s what they are. They are lies because the more you believe in that, the more you wall yourself off from a meaningful change in your life.

I’ve got bad news to tell you. The only constant in life is change. That’s the only thing you can bank on. That’s the only thing you can rely on and can safely come back to again and again. It was true in the past. It’s true right now. It will continue to be through long into the future.

Change is the only constant in life and it’s a good thing because, with change, we can improve. Change is actually a promise. It doesn’t matter how small you feel, how defeated you think you are, and how incompetent, ugly, and desperate things may be to you. With change, you can turn things around.

When I used to travel a lot for work before Covid, I met a homeless man on the streets of San Frencisco. His only possession was a newspapers as his bed.

He said something that really blew my mind.

He said, “This too shall pass.”

I looked at him. I looked at the situation and how desperate things seemed. And then it hit me like a crystal bullet in the heart. This too shall pass.

There I was wearing an expensive suit, a nice pair of shoes, holding a Burberry bag…..and I realized that his words, his truth, connected us ALL.

What we think our reality is now will pass because of change.

Instead of something that’s scary, instead of something we have to run away from, it’s something we should work with.

How do we do that?

How do we make the deep and profound reality of change work for us instead of against us?

Well, it boils down to assumption.

Choose your thoughts carefully because when you assume that you’re perfect or that things are good now, you will become comfortable and unprepared. Believe me, I am speaking from my own experience here.

You cannot deny that change always happens. It’s like a fire. We can’t intimidate it. It will continue to rage. It will continue to burn. It will continue to march forward.

So don’t get burned;

Never stop learning and improving in every area of your life

Expect change, don’t get comfortable

Stop blaming others for your situation

Accept that life is giving you lessons and opportunities and everything is happening FOR you

Whatever is happening now, good or bad, beautiful or ugly…this all too shall pass.

Fearing Success?

Success is more complex than failure.

It’s can seem easier to deal with your life as it is than to become successful.

The more successful you become, the more visible you become.

You’re more exposed to criticism.

You have more responsibility.

You may have to live with more pressure.

However, as the famous quote says:

‘Are you willing to live a few years of your life like most people won’t, so you can live the rest of your life like most people can’t?’

Beam me up, son

Due to yesterday’s country-wide cell and internet outage I was forced to take the day off. After discussing the plans with my teenager, we decided to spend the day together (I hardly get that pleasure any more lol)

We did many fun activities including laser tag…I felt so badass running around with the laser gun

Spending this precious time with my adolescent son made me feel alive and also made me think.

People say all the time:

‘I would die for my kids’

and I ask:

‘Would you live for them’?

Make better choices,

Spend quality time,

Take better care of yourself,

Show them by example how to live life to the fullest … ?

You see, our kids don’t need us to die for them.

They need us to LIVE for them!

Create your best life

I read this today as wanted to share:

1. A bottle of water at Costco is $0.25.

2. The same bottle in the supermarket is worth about $0.50.

3. The same bottle in a bar costs $2.

4. In a good restaurant or hotel it can be worth up to $3.

5. At an airport or on the plane, you may be charged $5.

The bottle and the brand is the same, the only thing that changes is the place.

Each place gives a different value to the same product.

When you feel like you are worth nothing and everyone around you belittles you, change places, do not stay there.

Have the courage to change places and go to a place where you are given the value you deserve.

Surround yourself with people who really appreciate your worth.

Don’t settle for less

#womanempowernment #bethequeen #dontsettle

Pay the Price

What are you willing to sacrifice to get what you want?

Naysayers are always so quick to point out the things you don’t have…or won’t have…if you’re busy chasing after a dream. They love to tell you how much something will cost in terms of time and energy. The hard part about this? It’s very likely true, to an extent.

With any big goal, there’s going to be a commitment of resources. There’s going to be hard work, time spent, and sometimes even monetary investment to get where you want to go. The critical thing to remember here is whether or not the goal is worth it.

Remember, giving up something now will generally mean a fantastic payoff later. So, who cares if you’re doing things a little differently or might not have as much free time as you used to?

Remind yourself where you’re going and throw yourself into giving everything you’ve got to get there.

How women can empower their feminine energy for success in business.

Have you ever made the mistake of thinking that you have to abandon your feminine side and embrace all things masculine in order to get ahead in your business?

Or that the role of hard-headed businessman or a pushy salesman is the only way to succeed?

I know I have.

The truth is that most businesses and services have more than enough of this type already and the business world needs us to bring our true essence to balance things out.

Think about it, if you are pretending to be someone that you’re not, no matter how amazing your strategy and your hard skills are you will never be truly happy and therefore really successful in your business.

Even if you are dominant in A- type personality traits, like myself, you can still empower your feminine approach to have a beautiful balance in your successful business.

Feminine energy is a lot less rigid and tough. It is softer, more creative and flexible. Feminine energy goes with the flow. It doesn’t try to redirect the river.

Graceful, feminine flow is the belief that everything will come to us naturally. It’s not about us chasing the things we think will make us happier and more successful.

Flow is about accepting what is good in life without wanting more or pushing it away because we might think we don’t deserve it.

It is also about attracting the good things in life through correct action like working smarter rather than harder.

It is about a vision of how things can be better organically.

I love seeing how this powerful approach changed my own business and it is changing businesses and lives of my female clients.

Many of them were ridden by anxiety, worry and even approaching burn out. Now they are flourishing, having more fun, more family time and more profits then ever.

If you also want to work 4 h days and 5X your profits while embodying your feminine in less than 4 months, message me at: anna@annadowe.com

Why are we so afraid of failure?

I was speaking with a client of mine last week and she said; ‘Anna I am ‘sitting on the fence’ in regard to a decision that I need to make in my business’.

I, of course, asked her why?

She said; ‘because I am scared I will make the wrong decision’.

How many of us can relate to that statement? LOL

Tony Robbins explains it beautifully;

‘People are afraid to make the tough decision because the want to make the right decision, so they make no decision …. which is a decision. Yup, read this again!

So, I say, make the decision as fast as you can.

The faster you’ll make it the faster you will know if it was the right decision or the wrong one.

If it was the wrong decision, make another decision. As simple as that

Don’t wait.

Time is running out.

This single thing can hold you back from your greatness forever, if you let it!

Choose progress not perfection

High achieving women entrepreneurs take pride in their drive to be perfect.

Oh, how well I know this to be true. I struggled with this one for the better part of my life … and I didn’t like it 😫

Doing a good job isn’t the same as seeking perfection. Seeking perfection can be a curse.

Understanding and implementing the steps bellow can help you avoid perfection and accomplish more 🔥

🤜 Perfection isn’t possible. Nothing has ever been perfect in the literal sense of the world. You might as well go looking for a unicorn.

🤜 Perfection is a waste of time. You’re not allocating your primary resources intelligently if you’re trying to be perfect.

🤜 You get less done. When you try to be perfect, you cut yourself short of enough time to get everything done.

🤜 The need to be perfect is a sign of insecurity. When you believe you aren’t good enough as you are, it’s common to believe that doing everything perfectly will prove that you are capable and adequate.

🤜 The need for perfection leads to procrastination. It can be tough to even take the first step if you believe that the outcome must be perfect.

🤜 Perfection is unhealthy. Perfectionists are more prone to heart disease, anxiety, and mental health issues.

🤜 You can’t work well with others if you need to be perfect. People have little patience for perfectionists. Everyone else wants to get things done and get on with their lives.

🤜 Perfection is an enemy of success. Perfection is the desire to avoid failure. Success often includes failures along the way. Perfection and success aren’t compatible.

🤜 Perfection is rooted in anger. Perfectionists feel contempt for anything less than perfection. This isn’t healthy. It also makes you unpleasant to be around. No one will ever meet your standards and your anger towards them isn’t appreciated.

Perfectionism requires tremendous amount of time and gets in the way of happiness and success. No one wants that, right?

Let’s put our best food forward ladies and let’s make the next part of our journeys smarter rather than harder.

It wasn’t our wedding anniversary

Thank you everyone for wishing John and I ‘Happy Anniversary’ on my last post.  

It wasn’t our wedding anniversary LOL!  

The post was a background story on how we went from break up to a fulfilled relationship…

Starting a new relationship is full of butterflies. 

Re-starting of an old relationship is full of butterflies; a sense of familiarity and at the same time it can feel terrifying as you remember that things didn’t work out the first time around.  

Now imagine re-starting a PTSD relationship where you need to navigate all the mental health aspects of it as well.

Let me tell you it definitely was a journey!

We have done so much work on our relationship because we both believed it was worth it for us and our kids.

We have seen the professionals and received their support.  We have worked on our boundaries, we have worked on our communication skills, we silenced the ‘what if’s’, we dealt with the opinions of others and everything in between.  

However, the single biggest component in our journey of getting back together was – Fixing Ourselves First Before We Could Be a Couple.

This is how I did it:

• Looking Inward

I DECIDED to be happy!  I suspected that what was happening in my marriage and the break up was a reflection of me.  As hard as it was to admit I realized this was happening for me and not to me. 

Knowing that I had to change in order to become a better, more desirable version of myself, I looked for help.  I hired a coach; I started seeing a psychologist, I read every book, listened to every podcast, watched every video, took every course on self-improvement that I could get my hands on.

 As I started applying the new knowledge, little by little my life started shifting.

I started to forgive John and I started to forgive myself. 

I started to look at John with compassion and love.  Even though I wasn’t longing for him or being with him I reminisced about our life together. 

I started to let go of the resentment and stopped the judgement towards John.

• Stepping Out of Victimhood

It would have been so easy for me to solely blame John and his PTSD for the break-up of our marriage and just to move on.  But the key here was to discover my part in it.  

Maybe it was me who ‘attracted’ people who ‘needed fixing’ at the first place?

Maybe I was the enabler of John’s certain behaviours by not respecting my own boundaries for example?

This is where I have done a ton of work on healing my childhood traumas.  I finally understood, how my younger years shaped me to be the co-depended person who relayed emotionally and psychologically on my spouse. 

• Changing-To Be A Person I Would Love To Be With

I started observing the people who I admired. I started to cherry pick the qualities they represented and installing practices for myself to be more like them. 

I literally checked on myself daily on behaviours I demonstrated and if they were in line with the person I would want to be in a relationship with. 

This was the start of the biggest transformation for me.

I then decided that I wanted to share my new knowledge and tools with the world and work with women, so they can create the same results too.

I authored a bestselling book; Bent Not Broken.  Finding your Power, Passion and Purpose.  A Family’s guidebook to Surviving PTSD.

And during all this time John was going through his own metamorphosis. He also has done a ton of work on himself that let him to be the man that I love and admire today. 

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not encouraging anyone to get back with their ex.  I am not encouraging anyone to stay in a toxic or abusive relationship ether. I know that it is very rare for a couple to do what John and I have done and we definitely took the harder way to happiness. 

All I am saying is that if you want to be in a loving, fulfilled relationship with your partner you need to have a loving and fulfilled relationship with yourself first.  

Here is the link to my original post 🙂

https://bentnotbroken620.wordpress.com/2022/01/10/is-it-more-difficult-for-high-achieving-women-executives-to-find-success-in-love/

Is it more difficult for high achieving women executives to find success in love?

Is it more difficult for high achieving women executives to find success in love?

Do they tend to attract partners that aren’t best for them? 

What if they are already in a relationship and their partner is battling a mental health challenge?

Back in 2015 when my 10-year marriage to John failed, I would have never thought that we could be friends again, let alone a couple crazy in love again who builds a second marriage full of respect and gratitude…

That’s right, I married the same man twice lol!

How It Started

It all began in 2001 in South Korea. We fell in love, traveled the world together, got married and became parents to two beautiful children.  John was a military man, a veteran paratrooper who had served Canada honourably.  He was also loving and compassionate and had my heart from the very first day.

However, that was also the first day of living an incredible battle between my head and my heart. John was suffering with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)

As we began living our lives together I learned about feeling deserted while sleeping with a total stranger. I also was to learn and experience many other new disruptions in life as I discovered what it is like to be in a PTSD relationship. 

I learned how to scramble financially and deal with companionship loss. 

I learned how to snatch my kids away from perceived danger and to sleep with a knife, covering all bases. 

I learned the everyday struggle involved in surviving while also raising two small children and running a business. 

I felt extremely alone and developed a lot of shame around not having the ‘picture perfect’ family I always dreamed about.

Fast forward to 2022, John and I will be celebrating our 4^th wedding anniversary (in our 2^nd marriage), loving and respecting each other more than ever and bringing our relationship to new heights. 

So how did we do it, you ask?

If you are interested, please drop the word ‘more’ in the comment section below and I’ll share the work that was needed to be done to get to where we are today. 🙂