Validation Wanted

There have been so many failures over the past few weeks it's hard to decide where to even begin. That's what I get for being such a lackadaisical blogger: backlog. So we'll start with failure number one which is not posting all the time about what I'm thinking and I'm pretty much thinking about something relevant ALL the time! But I'm tired and not prone to the marathon posts that Jon-Barrett enjoys so I'm just going to stick to one thing that's been irking me for awhile.

I'm opening a business with some friends and we've been in the process for oh, about 7 months. And after 3 (or 4?) tentative opening dates I still have no idea when we're actually going to open. There have been many, many , many...many setbacks. And mistakes. A lot of them on my part which brings me to the crux of things.

I can't remember the last time I did something that I'm really good at.

How did that happen? It used to be that I only, exclusively ( with the exception of math) did things that I was good at and luckily that was a pretty long list. I won awards, got straight A's, had my name in the paper, got the part, got the guy and looked good while doing it. Certainly things started to change when I moved to LA, but there were still some things I excelled at. At least that's how I like to remember the past.

But as soon as I peek over the rose-colored glasses I can see that no matter what I've been doing or how much outside praise I've gotten, I've always been plagued by insecurity during the process. No matter how many roles I've done, each one is a new experience that leaves me completely humbled. Ditto that with pretty much anything challenging and/or worthwhile. I don't know why I thought opening up an ice cream shop would be any different. (I've actually always really wanted to own my own business. It was a childhood dream that started even earlier than my desire to be an actress, but my first entrepreneurial foray is not quite everything I pictured small business owning to be. Of course, then again, neither is being an *aspiring* actress.) Perhaps if I would set my sights lower then I could constantly feel in control. Which is oh, so tempting! But also totally lame.

So the discomfort of having to stretch oneself and grow in pursuit of a higher goal is clearly worthwhile - or at the very least necessary. But even if I accept that, what do I do in the meantime to get that occasional and very important sensation of being a Bad-Ass?! Take up kickboxing? What if I suck? In fact, learning anything new is completely out. So what does that leave? I just watched Julie & Julia this weekend. Maybe I should consider taking up baking again as I was always quite good at that...

I guess what I'm saying is that I have an idea in my head of the kind of person I want to be, the difference I want to make and the life I want to live - but what it takes to actually become that person...well, stay tuned.