What does your inner voice say to you?
"What's wrong with you?"
"When you do this, then you will feel successful."
"She has it altogether. Why can't you figure it out?"
"You could finally live up to your potential if you would just follow through."
"Who are you to think you can change the world?"
"You will never be good enough."
But you know what?
I never felt successful after I did the next thing. I didn't feel good enough when I got faster or better or skinnier. I still didn't feel like I was living up to my potential even when I followed through. Sure, from the outside it looked like I had it altogether. I had degrees! People liked me! I had a great job and a great family! I was the person who could do it all!!
If only they really knew what went through my head day after day.
I was a perfectionist and a chronic overachiever always chasing after another hit of external affirmation because deep inside I didn't believe I was enough. I didn't own my worthiness. I looked at my life as a constant stream of "you can do better than that" experiences. I was always comparing my life against what I thought it should be. I even treated motherhood as something I had to prove I was amazing at to everyone...including myself.
Until one night I found myself lying on my son's bed long after he was asleep, crying because I felt like I was failing - failing as a mother, failing to do my best, failing to have it all figured out...
failing to be perfect.
As I laid there listening to his breath, I finally stopped thinking so hard about what I should be doing, and got still enough to listen my true inner voice. The voice that has always been there, but I just couldn't hear it. The voice that told me my son doesn't need me to be a perfect mother, he needs me.
He needs me to be present and joyful, not beating myself up all the time because I’m not and never will be perfect. He needs me to mother him in the way that only I can, even if that looks different than every other mom I know.
As I laid there I realized I didn't need to be better, I just needed to be me. To honor my worth right now. To love myself right now, not if or when,
BUT RIGHT THIS MINUTE.
Since that night, I have developed a practice of everyday worthiness in my own life. My practice has grown and evolved as I have learned more about how to release my old protective shields of perfectionism and chronic overachieving, and replace them with vulnerability, courage, truth and love.
Once I accepted my own imperfections and owned my true worthiness, I was able to see that I had big dreams. Dreams that could actually come true. A vision to change the world by supporting other women who were also holding back on their big dreams because they don't feel good enough or because something is just keeping them stuck.
If you are ready to start listening to your inner wisdom, let's connect. Let's see what it would look and feel like to work together.
Professional Bio
Kelly Covert is an author, speaker and inner voice coach with a passion for helping women listen to their inner voice and own their worthiness. Through her intuitive, heart-centered approach, she teaches how to create kinder habits that allow growth and transformation, while cultivating personal enoughness every day. She believes everyone can live a fulfilling life of purpose by connecting deeply with the wisdom that is inside of them - their inner voice - without feeling burnt out and exhausted. She helps women step into their enoughness, own their imperfections with grace, and embody their innate worthiness each and every day.
She is the creator and host of In Her Voice, a podcast for women who want to live a fulfilling life of purpose guided by their inner voice. She is the author of The Enoughness Planner and Give Yourself Permission -- a pocket-sized notebook of permission slips.
Kelly is also a professional flutist with Symphoria, the professional orchestra of Central New York, a wife, and the mother of 2 boys, 18 and 15, and 1 adorable beagle named Piper.You can learn more and connect with Kelly at www.kellycovert.com.
These are a few of my favorite things (sung in your best Maria voice)
my adorable beagle, Piper
coffee...but only decaf please!
my super secret guilty pleasure - reading romance novels
rainy days on the couch with a book and a bowl of buttered popcorn
reruns of Friends and Schitt’s Creek
crisp white bedding on a bed that hardly ever gets made
taking morning baths in my soaking tub
sleeping with the windows open
the sound of my kids laughing
a really sweaty workout