Do you ever cover up how you genuinely feel? Do you ever say what you think you "should," say, based on how you want others to perceive you?

Do you ever think you "should" be a certain way?

Why?

I’ll share with you why I did in past. I "thought" I "should" be a certain way, say certain things, act in manner that I "thought" would bring me either results I was attached to, or acceptance of those I wanted.

How powerful was I? About as powerful as a spineless wimp.

When my behavior was incongruent with how I sincerely felt, all I did was give away my power. I then felt less powerful than before.

If my energy went into trying to live up to a fictitious image I "thought" I "should" be, then what I was doing in actuality, was depleting myself of my genuine, authentic power.

There is nothing more powerful than BEING who you really are.

Being strong enough to say what you really think, show how you really feel, and act way you really feel like behaving is called congruency.

This takes guts.

It requires self-respect.

When you are aligned with yourself, THEN you are authentically powerful.

For instance, you could decide not to breathe! That would affect rest of your life! You could decide to take a risk and step out of your comfort zone to speak to person of your dreams standing next to you in line at store. You might even find that this person might be looking for you! Would that change your life? You bet!

How about a decision that is more consciously made? What if you thought you needed to move to a new place, find new work, find a new mate, or thousands of other life altering decisions you could make?

My question to you is: How do you make those decisions? What tool or tools do you use to help you make a decision that will affect rest of your life, not to mention those lives you might feel responsible for like your spouse and children? Such a tool, if used correctly, might possibly be one of most important to own.

Here are two tools. I’ve discussed them before, however, given their importance, here they are again in case you missed them first time around!