What better person to explore this question with than Veronica Young, reinvention power leadership coach, actor, and singer! In my weekly Little White Lie Live show Veronica shares her own Little White Lie – that she felt she was too old to start singing again after 10 years.
The voices in her head taunted, “Who’s gonna want to see you? Who’s gonna want to see you perform?” You can watch the show here:
Veronica realized that her dreams now are a little different than they were 20, 30 years ago. She’s always loved being a singer, to share her feelings and influence feelings in other people through singing. That part of her dream hasn’t changed. What did change was her early dream of being a superstar. But she shifted her thinking, “bit the bullet” and made her new dreams come true, started a country music band Crystal Whiskey with her partner Eric Anderson, performs regularly, and is loving it!
What made the difference – is it a matter of being realistic? Or realizing that our dreams change and we want to go after different things?
“I think it’s a combination of both,” says Veronica. “When I was growing up I wanted to be the next huge superstar, Christina Aguilera or whatever. Right now my passions are different – It’s my coaching work, and performing to smaller crowds. I know now that success is really a frame of mind – what’s successful for me. So when it comes to our dreams, WE always define what our dreams are. And if you want to go big, go big. If you don’t want to go big … don’t go big! Just decide and take the next step.”
We in the LWL Movement talk about the effect that societal influences regarding age have on our confidence to go after our dreams. Let’s say now we’ve decided and we’re going to do it.
How do we get past those societal influences that tell us we’re too old?
Veronica: “It’s a matter of knowing who you are … knowing that you’re fabulous. You ARE fabulous. It’s saying to yourself, ‘I can do this!’ And doing the little steps that will move you out of uncertainty.”
It all starts with making ‘conscious choices,’ meaning to search your soul to find out what the reality is for you, what is really important – and why?
Veronica recommends a technique called the ‘Seven Whys:’ “When you are faced with a choice to make or want to determine how you feel about something, ask yourself ‘Why?’ And then ask yourself why again. Then ask yourself why again. And why again – seven times. By doing this, you get down to the core of what your choice is all about. Then you can really, really make a conscious choice, because it’s what you believe, what you feel, and you’re going to go for it!”
Do choices get more difficult as we age? Can we make our dreams come true?
Veronica, at 60, believes her conscious choices are becoming easier because as she’s gotten older she’s realized that “my choices define who I am, and if I really know who I am I can make those conscious choices and move into that direction.” She has shed all that past stuff of ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda, supposed to, and why didn’t you?’ She gives us an example: “I saw a show the other day about what women over 50 should wear. I’m going, Really? I don’t know about you but I still shop at Forever 21 because I love their clothes.”
Amen, Veronica!
That’s how this whole movement started. We got sick and tired of being told what we can and cannot do – we can be Forever 21 if we want to be!
Veronica leaves us with this inspiration: “Don’t let age or past trauma or abuse define you. You’re wise, beautiful and passionate. Youth is in your passion. Go and get it!”
To get yourself some more juicy Veronica Young (including Crystal Whiskey music videos): http://crystalwhiskey.com/
As always, let’s keep this empowering conversation going! Share your answers, questions, thoughts on Facebook. Don’t forget to use the hashtag #LittleWhiteLie whenever you put those posts out and that way we can find you all across social media.
AND … You might have heard about the launch of the Little White Lie Digital Magazine. You can get the premier issue here: bit.ly/LWLDigitalMagazine. Stay tuned for more exciting details (spoiler alert: we’re nearing the one-year anniversary of the LWL Movement…)!
Thanks for joining the Little White Lie Movement!