Give Yourself the Permission to Be Ordinary

Outer PurposeCreativity
Written By Ashley Melillo

In this article, we explore:

  1. How allowing ourselves to be ordinary accidentally aligns us with extraordinary.

  2. How striving for less paradoxically allows us to achieve more over time.

  3. Why the pursuit of internal success (as opposed to external) generates deep and consistent fulfillment.

“That constant pressure to always be something amazing, to be the next big thing, will be lifted off your back. The stress and anxiety of feeling inadequate will dissipate. And the knowledge and acceptance of your own mundane existence will actually free you to accomplish what you truly wish to accomplish with no judgments and no lofty expectations”
— Mark Manson

here’s what you’ll learn in this article:

  1. Why giving yourself permission to be ordinary leads to extraordinary shifts and gifts.

  2. The burdens of extraordinary vs. the benefits of ordinary and why Extraordinary is the enemy of progress.

  3. What it looks like to give yourself the permission to be ordinary.

🎙 If you prefer to listen instead, click here to access the podcast episode. (Note though that the article goes far more in depth and has more information than the podcast episode.)

Introduction

In this article, we’re exploring how giving ourselves the permission to be ordinary frees us to take the everyday actions that lead us to extraordinary places in the work we’re uniquely made to do. And why allowing ourselves to be ordinary introduces more joy, fulfillment, and purpose into our lives.

It's a bit counterintuitive, but many of the greatest secrets to a life well-lived are counterintuitive.

An important note: Some people do thrive with the pressure to be extraordinary and never find it to be overwhelming or stifling in any way. If that's you, then you can disregard this article. However, if you’re here reading this, it’s likely that isn’t you. In which case, let’s keep going…

What’s meant by ordinary here?

Before we dive into this conversation, let’s first clarify what’s meant by ordinary here…

Another important note: As you read through this article, think of Ordinary and Extraordinary each as being an archetype—i.e., a collective pattern of behaviors that we’re capable of embodying.

The sort of ordinary we're talking about is the type that frees us from the burdens of striving for extraordinary. This kind of “ordinary” welcomes failure, fumbles, and missteps because it perceives of these experiences not as “good” or “bad” but as informative.

It's a freeing type of ordinary then. It's doing our (balanced) best but only measuring our improvement against who we were the day before. And recognizing, too, that “improvement” isn’t necessarily linear or forward-moving.

It’s believing in the power of taking tiny steps forward day after day. And freeing ourselves from the false and dream-endangering belief that greatness is only achieved through monumental leaps.

It’s measuring success by the internal satisfaction we feel doing the work itself, no matter how the external world responds to what we create.

It’s taking action not for praise or recognition but to honor the animating energy that surges through us and seeks to find its way out into the world.

In short, giving ourselves the permission to be ordinary releases us from the pressure-cooker idea of success.

Most of us aren't built to thrive under the sort of pressure that comes along with striving to be extraordinary. When confronted with this pressure then, we often throw our hands up and choose to retreat through subtle, inconspicuous modes of self-sabotage.

When we’ve set the bar at Extraordinary, we can weave the vision of our dreams with the best of intentions and the clearest of goals, but we dawdle, delay, and procrastinate. We tomorrow our dreams away one day at a time.

Why?

Because if we can't guarantee we'll be extraordinary, at least we can guarantee the control we have over our choice to never try or to only try half-heartedly.

We subconsciously self-sabotage before we ever truly try.

The Burdens of Extraordinary

#1 The pursuit of extraordinary comes with baggage

The biggest problem with trying to be ‘extraordinary’ is that the intense pressure it elicits stops us before we ever really start. And at the end of the day, starting is everything. And re-starting, too. 

In other words, starting every single day is everything. 

But Extraordinary is the enemy of this process. But why?

At first glance, the pursuit of extraordinary appears to be a map—a guiding light to help us chart the course of our dreams. 

Unfortunately though, this map is tethered to a fleet of cleverly disguised anchors.

These anchors take the form of any and all of the mind’s favorite forms of resistance—e.g., fear, self-doubt, procrastination, monkey minded distraction, doubt-numbing addiction, perfectionism, etc.

A rare few people are tenacious (and perhaps self-loathing) enough to persist in spite of extraordinary’s heavy mental anchors.  

Most of us, though, start off determined, budging the anchors forward through sheer will, but eventually succumb to the heaviness and find ourselves stuck in place.

To free ourselves, we don’t need more strength or fiercer willpower, we need to stop aiming for extraordinary. Instead we’ve got to give ourselves full, caveat-free permission to be ordinary.

Giving ourselves the permission to be ordinary frees us from the pressures and mental baggage that go hand-in-hand with Extraordinary.

#2 Extraordinary = potent fuel for Imposter Syndrome

To the ego (which is based in duality), “extraordinary” is just another way to say "perfect". And the pursuit of perfection crushes far more dreams than it builds.

The desire to be extraordinary, although well-intentioned, is the most potent fuel for imposter syndrome. 

Imposter Syndrome (noun)

: a psychological condition that is characterized by persistent doubt concerning one's abilities or accomplishments accompanied by the fear of being exposed as a fraud despite evidence of one's ongoing success. (Source)

Sounds fun, huh?

When our energy is focused on battling the fear of being found out, there’s little left over to actually do the work.

Imposter Syndrome plays for keeps. She’s a force and the ego is her willing, obliging co-conspirator. This dynamic duo dismantles our dreams from the inside out. Slowly, gently, and insidiously… day after day, week after week, year after year. 

The tricky part—albeit good news overall—is that these two don’t touch the hope of our Soul. So our dreams, our grand visions… those remain intact, willing us forward. While Imposter Syndrome focuses her destruction on our day-to-day efforts.

When this happens we tell ourselves things like this:

I’m going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.

—Steven Pressfield

But the perpetual “I’ll start tomorrow” promises we make to ourselves are nothing but smoke and mirrors. They’re hollow, non-binding commitments without teeth. 

These lies are gentle enough, hopeful enough to avoid ruffling any feathers. They’re the lies we tell ourselves to placate that heartfelt tug of the Soul we feel day in and day out. The tug’s purpose is to remind us each and every day, without fail, that we still have those dreams. The purpose of the tug is never to shame, only to encourage. 

And yet it’s almost annoyingly optimistic, isn’t it? That tug? When Imposter Syndrome is running the show, we eventually grow tired of it… like, “Can’t you just give up on this already? Can’t you give up on me?” 

The truth:

You can cover it up, drown it out, distract yourself, and talk over it, but that loving tug of the Soul never ceases. It’s what propelled you into this life and it’ll be the first to greet you on the other side. 

And in between birth and death, that pulse that calls to you—the one that reminds you why you’re here—remains. It beats in the background of your dreams, your impulses, your emotions. And it does its best to move you forward on the journey to evolve yourself and the world through your calling. 

This pulse appears to beat more quietly behind the veils of the ego, but the only thing that’s changed is your perception of it. Although it’s dimmed by the density of your physical vantage point, it’s still as vibrant and as brimming with life as ever. 

And it will never give up on you. So you might as well make peace with its tenacity and accept its invitation. The sooner the better. For your sake, my sake, and the world’s sake.

#3 The pursuit of extraordinary undermines our superpower

Our superpower is the blended collection of aspects and traits that make us uniquely capable of accomplishing our Soul’s purpose. Each and every one of us has a completely unique purpose on Earth as well as a special collection of skills (our superpower) that’s perfectly suited to accomplish this mission.

If you think other people have your same talent, think again. What makes each of us unique is the distinct way in which we blend a variety of our talents into one signature gift (aka ‘superpower’).

In addition to creating some serious mental drag with all those heavy anchors, aiming to be extraordinary undermines our superpower.

This happens for two reasons:

Reason #1: The pressure to be Extraordinary causes the ego to defensively guard our superpower.

Inherently, we know that we’re here for a reason and have something incredibly important to do with our superpower. 

Because of this, we guard our superpower very carefully. If we were to put our superpower out there for the world to see and it failed us or we made a fool of ourselves, what would that say about us?

It would mean we're ordinary, not special, average… or maybe even a failure.

So we reflexively hide our superpower to protect our identity (ego). We rob the world of our signature gift in an attempt to preserve our perception of self. Or the limited self the mind believes we are.

Reason #2: We’ve conflated ‘Extraordinary’ success with wealth

The idea of Extraordinary is entangled with wealth. Meaning that there’s a commonly held assumption that being extraordinary in the work we do will result in financial abundance. 

While this could be the case, if monetary gain is the indicator of embodying the archetype of Extraordinary, we’re likely to approach our work in a way that undermines our *truest* gifts—our superpowers—to get there.

Why?

Because when Extraordinary is what we’re aiming for, we second guess that Soul tug constantly instead of trusting in it and allowing it to be our guiding light. 

When this happens, the mind looks left and looks right to see what all the other hustlers, bustlers, and money makers are doing “out there”.

And when we see that most people embodying the Extraordinary archetype are, indeed, focused on financial gain, the ego’s Hive-Mind program starts running. This is the program that attempts to copy-paste what everyone else is doing because it’s safer, easier, and appears to be more certain. (Fun fact: Few things shake the ego more than uncertainty.)

When the Hive-Mind program kicks in, the mind diminishes the validity and the importance of the Soul “tug” by telling us that it’s (mostly) silly or misguided. Or that although it’s probably useful for inspiring our general direction, it’s not to be trusted when it comes to practical matters like making money. 

But our superpowers are tied to the tug. When we numb out the tug, we dampen our superpowers, too. And we find ourselves focusing on external, tried-and-true formulaic methods to achieve monetary success rather than working to reveal the superpowers of our soul.

Or in the rather direct words of Robert McKee, we become a hack. According to Mckee, the “hack” is a writer or creative (fyi, we’re all creatives) who overrides the inspirations of the heart and the tug of the soul to, instead, “give the market what it’s looking for”. 

Does this approach work as intended? Sure. Sometimes. Maybe even oftentimes.

But will it keep you fulfilled? Lit up? On fire and in love with life? Doubtful.

And isn’t that what you were looking for when you set out to be Extraordinary in the first place? Weren’t you looking to fill in that hole? That emptiness within that made you feel less than or not good enough?

You were hoping that embodying the archetype of Extraordinary would open the door to the Self you’ve always known you are. Right?

But the lure of Extraordinary is like fool’s gold. Shiny, pretty, promising to fulfill our expectations from a distance and yet an illusion when we get up close and personal.

The real gold? It’s revealed day by day, ordinary moment by ordinary moment. In following the tug of our Soul, we’re led deeper and deeper into fulfillment. 

And guess what? That sh*t is magnetic. 

When you light yourself up, people notice. They’re drawn to you. They become curious about what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and why. 

And all that interest and attention you accidentally stirred up by doing what most people’s egos are too afraid to allow them to do? 

It’s valuable. 

But by this point, that’s just icing on the cake. Because you’re so filled up from allowing your superpower—the energy of your Soul—to course through you in everyday, ordinary moments that anything else is just extra.

Your superpower calls to you. It calls you to uncover and express the potency of your light beyond the comfort zone of your conditioned mind.

—Darren Starwynn, OMD

The permission to be ordinary = the permission to reveal your superpower.

Ironically, when we give ourselves permission to be ordinary, the bar drops and the pressure to achieve perfection dissipates.

Why?

Because we've squashed the ego's fears before it had a chance to get attached to them.

The ego loves its fears, it takes comfort in them. We dismantle the ego’s favorite fears not by out-running them (those little fools are fast), but by making peace with the possibility of them being true. By turning towards them and letting them wash over us.

Why?

Because once the ego’s worries have been heard, seen, and embraced, it can move on, and so can we. 

There’s nothing to lose—nothing at risk—when the bar is set low.

From this vantage point—the one of "I’m ordinary, and ordinary is enough"—we can't fail... or at least not in a way that crushes the perception of who the mind (ego) believes we are. Because we’ve already made peace with being ordinary. We’ve told ourselves it’s okay—in fact, it’s wonderful. 

In doing this, we free ourselves to pursue what we love, and we give ourselves permission to share our superpower with the world.

The benefit potential is two-fold because we’re more fulfilled and we’ve cleared the path to offer our gifts to the world (unhindered by the ego’s fear baggage).

The Benefits of Ordinary

#1 We reclaim our power over Resistance
… as well as its many sisters from other misters—e.g., procrastination, paralyzing perfectionism, Imposter Syndrome, etc.

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

—Steven Pressfield, The War of Art* p. 12

To overcome the enemy, we must first know her. And Resistance is the greatest enemy any of us will ever face when it comes to following that Soul tug towards our purpose.

If you haven’t read The War of Art* by Steven Pressfield, take this as your Divinely timed nudge to do so. And if you’ve already read it, allow this to be your reminder to review its wisdom.

I can’t possibly do this book justice here, but I’ll do my best to briefly summarize a few key takeaways that are pertinent to this discussion.

Or rather, I’ll let Steven’s insights and musings speak for themselves… 

Resistance (as defined in a selection of quotes + snippets from The War of Art* by Steven Pressfield):

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”

“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.”

“Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential. It’s a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.”

“Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. Resistance is the enemy within.”

“It is an engine of destruction, programmed from the factory within one object only: to prevent us from doing our work.”

“Resistance is not out to get you personally. It doesn’t know who you are and doesn’t care. Resistance is a force of nature. It acts objectively.”

“We’re wrong if we think we’re the only ones struggling with Resistance. Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance.”

(For the record, I battled Resistance as I sat down to write this section. Resistance wanted me to check emails, watch spiritual videos on YouTube, and pay utility bills instead. Productive distractions, yet not nearly as Soul-evolving and scary as sitting down to write from my heart.)

Why does giving ourselves the permission to be ordinary allow us to consistently overcome Resistance?

Because we’ve partially disarmed the enemy. 

Resistance softens once the pressure to be Extraordinary is released. It’s still there. Still active, yes. But it’s weaker and more malleable. 

Because we stop insisting that today’s actions lead to an Extraordinary future outcome (which revs up Resistance). Instead, we focus solely on the power we have right now, in this moment, to take Ordinary action in alignment with that Soul tug. 

In other words, our success is now Ordinary action-dependent, not Extraordinary outcome-dependent. With the permission to be ordinary, we’re free to become professionals at taking ordinary action.

Your superpower in the present moment is to do whatever it is that Resistance is most strongly leading you away from doing. 

Why? 

Because the power of Resistance has a strong positive correlation to whatever is most important to our Soul. In other words, the more Resistance we feel towards a particular task, the more aligned it is with our destined path.

So although Resistance is convincing, it’s a terrible liar. It points us directly to our most important Soul work at any given moment. 

“Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North—meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing. We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others.” 

—Steven Pressfield, The War of Art*

And all we need to do is initiate action.

The more we take action in spite of our fears, the more confidence and momentum we build. And as we build confidence and momentum, we find ourselves drifting further and further from the once dream-crushing perils of procrastination and perfectionism.

#2 We shift from ‘Surface Mind’ to ‘Quantum Mind’

When we give ourselves the permission to be ordinary, we free ourselves to take ordinary action day after day. We don’t wait for inspiration, because we don’t need inspiration to be ordinary. 

An interesting thing happens when we take action without needing to be inspired to take it…

The Universe, God, Source—whatever name we give to the Divine intelligence that in-forms our very existence—begins to whisper its wisdom to us.

When we bravely honor that Soul tug regardless of how the mind is feeling—inspired or uninspired—it’s as if a quantum homing device activates that says: 

“Hey, God/Universe/whatever it is that breathes life into existence! We’ve got a LIVE one over here! She’s fierce, she’s willing, she’s wrangled her mind enough to let her Soul move her to action, and she’s ready to run with her mission. Let’s whisper our secrets to her!”

And in that moment, we begin to receive downloads, ideas, and illuminated insights. These Divine ideas flow in effortlessly, nearly fully formed. 

It’s as if we become notetakers for the Divine, doing our best to capture the vision, the message, so that we can guide it through from the quantum realm (energetic potential) to the physical world (manifested matter).

When this happens, we’ve moved beyond what Steven Pressfield refers to as the ‘surface mind’ and into the limitless depths of the ‘quantum mind’. 

The quantum mind can be thought of as a state of consciousness that connects our ‘doing mind’ (ego) to the infinite wisdom of the zero point field. 

The ‘surface mind’ produces from and is limited by its innate capacities. It’s only connected to itself. However, ‘quantum mind’ is limitless. It receives and is in-formed by the limitless potential of the zero point field (quantum field). 

And when we tap into the ‘quantum mind’ state, we open to the co-creative assistance of the Universe. 

In essence, we become the do-er or the receiver and the Universe (Creator) becomes the director, guiding its creativity through us and out into the world. 

We become a conduit for the Divine.

*Fact: Most of this article was written from initially uninspired places which only became inspired after I’d boldly started writing anyway. Inspiration found me once I’d already started. It will find you, too… if you’re daring enough to start without it.

#3 ‘Success’ becomes an everyday occurrence

When we give ourselves the permission to be ordinary, success becomes an everyday occurrence in the form of fulfillment.

Why do we feel fulfilled?

Because we’re honoring that Soul tug and putting its energy to use as it courses through us. 

A wise woman (Brené Brown) once said:

“Unused creativity is not benign.”

If that isn’t truth, I don’t know what is.

And another wise woman (Rachel Pollack) said this:

“The life force that fills the universe is not gentle or benign. It must be discharged, grounded into something real, because our bodies, our selves, are not meant to contain it, but only pass it on.”

Oftentimes when we think we’re feeling on edge, bored, apathetic, and all-around bleh, our real problem is 👆🏻 this. We’ve let our Soul’s creativity well up inside of us, and it’s pent up with nowhere to go unless we allow it to flow.

That “emptiness” or hole that we’ve unsuccessfully tried to fill in with distractions and one-hit wonders of satisfaction? It’s not actually a hole, it’s a creative womb, full of life and ready to be birthed. It’s a void. And just like the Universe itself, everything meaningful within you is birthed from this place of nothing.

You haven’t been bored, you’ve been angsty. You’ve been angsty in anticipation of the creative birth that’s about to unfold or because you’ve been denying its impulse altogether.

But that pulsating energy where no-thingness and everything merge into one? It’s indecipherable to the ego. It interprets the energy of the Soul’s creative impulse as uncertainty, and uncertainty makes the ego uneasy. It doesn’t know what to do with that open-endedness, so it labels it “boredom” (or apathy or depression) and diverts your attention with shiny, quick-hitting dopamine highs and distractions (and sometimes addictions, too).

Don’t seek to fill in the space where boredom resides. If you sit with boredom’s emptiness, no matter how difficult it is (and my goodness is it difficult), the floor beneath its hollowness will give way and guide you back to yourSelf. Back to your Soul.

But back to our original point here: That Soul creativity that you’re not allowing to flow? It’s eating you alive. 

The creativity of the Soul is an energetic life force that’s perpetually pooling within us. The more we draw from it in a loving, gentle, humble, and revering way, the more often this pool refills. 

If we don’t draw from it often enough (or we misuse its potential), this energetic pool begins to take its toll. The energy within it has nowhere to go and begins to leak and manifest in other, often unproductive or even self-destructive, ways.

If we don’t regularly open the channel to allow our creative impulses to flow into the world, they’ll devour us from the inside out. 

With an ego at the mind’s wheel, it’s a brave act to open that channel. No need to make this endeavor scarier by piling on the expectations and burdens of Extraordinary.

#4 We experience accidental run-ins with extraordinary

Keeping at ordinary day after day, week after week, and year after year isn’t playing small—it’s playing huge. 

Because most of us are so paralyzed by the baggage that comes with pursuing Extraordinary, that we’re unable to take ordinary actions with any sort of consistency. 

We might experience bouts of manic motivation and fickle inspiration that nudge us forward here and there, but consistency is key and it’s impossible to be consistently extraordinary. 

So when the bar is set to ‘extraordinary’ we often take an all-or-nothing approach to our most important work. 

And those “nothing” days tend to be the rule while the “all” days are the exception. 

But the gal over there who’s embraced the ‘ordinary’ path? She’s given herself the freedom to chug along at a steady, seemingly average pace day after day.

So while ‘Extraordinary’ is over here stalled out on her hang-ups and high hopes, ‘Ordinary’ is way up ahead on the horizon making her dreams happen one average day at a time.

What does it look like to give ourselves the permission to be ordinary?


The image of extraordinary is formed by thousands of ordinary pieces.

In other words, it’s lots and lots and lots of consistent, ordinary (sometimes even “crappy”) pieces that go into making something extraordinary. 

Most of us don’t achieve Extraordinary by striving for it. We get to extraordinary by striving for ordinary day after day.

When we give ourselves the permission to be ordinary, we:

  1. Redefine what success looks like.

  2. Free ourselves from expectations.

  3. Reconfigure our relationship with failure.

  4. Have strong values, but adaptive goals.

  5. Get the ego’s baggage out of the Soul’s way.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these now… 

#1 Redefine Success

Success favors the consistent, not the Extraordinary.

When we give ourselves permission to be Ordinary, we redefine success. 

Success is no longer defined as a grand future outcome, but as a daily process. And the only thing we need to do to be “successful” is to have the courage to gently push out on the leading edge of our comfort zone. To push back against Resistance and to push out on fear.

Success then isn’t tucked away in some future place. It’s waiting in the wings of the here and now. Instead of daydreaming about leaps, we simply start taking steps. Our aim is to just do something, anything today that expands the boundary of where we were yesterday.

That step doesn’t need to be steady, and it certainly doesn’t have to be perfect. Heck, it doesn’t even need to be taken forward. It simply needs to be taken. 

If we’re trying to perfect the way we step, we’ll get stuck walking in place. But if our goal is simply to take a step, without caring what the step looks like or which direction it moves us, the daily battle becomes a whole lot clearer. A clear battle can be won.

Success becomes simple and predictable from this standpoint. 

Either we’ve taken the step (success) or we haven’t. Taking the step is in our control. (If we don’t let our emotions, limiting beliefs, and extraordinary perfectionism get in the way, that is.)

We might not feel inspired to step—inspiration might not even show up as we’re stepping, but that isn’t the point. The point is that we took the step.

Sometimes we step forwards, sometimes we step sideways, sometimes we step backwards, and sometimes we twist our ankle as we tumble into a ditch.

But no matter which direction we’ve stepped or what the step looked like—Runway Supermodel or Hot-Mess Express—the only thing that matters is that we took it.

And in taking that step, we’ve armed ourselves with confidence and infused our future steps with momentum.

At the end of the day, I ask myself only one question. I don’t ask myself, ‘Did I write anything good today?’ I don’t ask myself, ‘Did I write a lot today?’ I only ask myself, ‘Did I overcome Resistance today?’

—Steven Pressfield, Author (on overcoming resistance through ordinary, everyday action)

Internal v. External Success

When we give ourselves the permission to be ordinary, we give ourselves permission to pursue internal success (as opposed to external success).

Here’s the key difference between internal success and external success:

Internal success is process-oriented; external success is outcome-oriented. 

Comparatively speaking, we have far more control over our ability to experience internal success.

Examples of Internal Success:

  • Deriving immense joy and fulfillment from doing the work we love.

  • Experiencing a sense of purpose and alignment when we take action for a cause or service that aligns with our values.

  • Allowing joy to flow freely throughout the everyday journey of our efforts rather than waiting to hit ‘X’ future outcome to feel joyful.

  • Showing up for for ourselves and the work we love because the process, even when it’s challenging, is also immensely fulfilling and soul-enriching.

“Work undertaken for the sake of results is the least likely to produce them, and learning unaccompanied by reverence is unlikely to advance us far. Love for the work, not for the results, alone moves us forward.”

—Rudolf Steiner, How to Know Higher Worlds p. 105

When internal success is our primary goal, we experience recurring flow states in the everyday actions we take. Flow states tend to elicit so much satisfaction that we focus our energy on the process as opposed to the outcome. In other words, the process becomes so fulfilling that we live for the journey rather than the destination.

Examples of External Success:

  • Receiving outside praise, approval, or rewards in response to our efforts.

  • When our efforts and hard work lead to external achievement and recognition, social status, respect, or monetary gain.

Unfortunately, we have little control over this form of success. Stories of high-achieving hustlers abound, and yet for every one of those stories there are probably thousands of suffering hustlers that failed to reach notoriety and suffered along the way.

We can work day and night for years on end and create something that we’ve deemed to be truly magnificent only to have it go entirely unnoticed or perhaps even ridiculed by the outside world.

There's nothing wrong with dreaming big or reaching towards financial freedom. It's an absolutely worthy pursuit. But when it becomes our primary measure of success, we become so thirsty for it that we suffer throughout the journey. If and when we do reach our goal, the rush of excitement is fleeting and hollow. It slips through our fingers.

In other words, if we place our emotional stock solely in the outcome, our lives revolve around suffering with one-off blips of fleeting happiness appearing on the radar if we’re lucky.

At the end of road maybe everything we’ve ever created truly will be completely and totally ‘ordinary’. But if we’ve loved the heck out of the journey to get there, does it even matter?

You know what’s truly extraordinary? Loving the journey of life every single day. Money, praise, and awards can’t buy that. Big bank accounts are a dime a dozen but people who are genuinely and truly in love with life? They’re rare. And they’re usually unseen diamonds in the rough.

Point being: Stop giving your power away to money.

Money is a mind tug. Acquiring it is a goal the ego clings to because it equates money with security. And the ego is fearful, terrified of everything that isn’t safe, stable, small, and the same (unchanging).

Beyond the level of providing for our basic human needs (food, shelter, health, etc.), money doesn’t do much in terms of happiness and no amount of it will ever placate the ego’s fears. When the ego is in control, even the billionaire will find fears around money. Instead of obsessing about obtaining it, it obsesses over keeping it, growing it, etc. Wealth becomes a new identity, and the ego guards its identities with all its might.

You see the problem? The cycle is endless… until we choose to end it.

Which is why we’ve got to stop giving money so much power (and why we’ve got to stop externalizing our power in general).

All this to say:

You can love money but it will never love you back. It can’t hug you or comfort you or fulfill you in any meaningful way. Your ability to create a fulfilling life that you’re head-over-heels in love with is entirely independent from money.

The happiness (read: love) you seek isn’t in your bank account and it’s not around you, it’s within you. And as soon as you find it within, the world will reflect it to you without.

You create a life you love by following the tug of your Soul. And by refusing to be yanked around endlessly by the mind’s hollow pursuits. When we embrace this truth and embody it, no matter how terrifying it feels to the mind, we ignite our own spark. And no one and no-thing can put it out.

#2 Release Expectations + Trust the (Divine) Creative Muse

When we insist on being extraordinary, our pursuits become riddled with constrictive expectations.

“It must look this way. I must work X hours. I must reach this level of achievement or attain this status/title in the hierarchy.”

However, when we give ourselves the permission to be ordinary, we recognize that expectations are limitations. The more expectations we have, the more limited our creative journey becomes.

We make peace with the messiness of the creative process when we release expectations. In fact, we welcome the messiness because we know it’s necessary—its winding, sideways, sometimes stalled-out ways are informative.

Don’t let your mind get lost in the messiness or the in-between; welcome the uncertainty of this space. All things are born from (what seems to be) nothing.

Creating from a place of expectation stifles our ability to flow with Divine creativity. When we expect the products of our efforts to look a certain way, we narrow our creative pathway to a straight and limited line.

The straight and limited line? It’s been walked before… countless times. Yet most people are so bogged down with the pressure to be extraordinary, that they’ve tethered themselves to the well-worn path because it feels safe.

Meanwhile, Divine creativity is miles away in the thick of the woods just waiting for some courageous soul to let go and surrender to the mystery of the forest.

The best ideas aren’t linear. Why? Because creativity isn’t linear.

Creativity is a holistic, spiraling process that beckons us deeper into the unknown. Or perhaps it spirals us to a higher, wider, more zoomed-out perspective.

Either way, the point here is that creativity doesn’t have an end and a beginning. It isn’t a thread; it’s a spheric field of limitless potentials. When we treat it as such, we allow it to guide us on our journey into its unknown depths. We stand in the middle of the spiral and allow creativity to call to us from all angles as she encircles us with her warmth.

And in doing so, we stay open to creativity’s informative process at all moments, pen within reach and hand ready to scrawl the moment she begins whispering her secrets. We don’t call on creativity, she calls on us once we’ve surrendered our expectations and are willing to heed her Divine flow.

If we give ourselves the permission to take sluggish and clumsy and uncertain steps, day after day, we begin to gather momentum. And momentum builds confidence. It also builds dreams.

“Don’t worry about quality. Act, don’t reflect. Momentum is everything. Only one thing matters in this initial draft: get SOMETHING done, however flawed or imperfect.”

—Steven Pressfield

Free yourself from all expectations, including your own.

Embody the mentality of a forever-curious student—mastering as you go through practical application yet always humbly learning. Free yourself from the pressure to be the all-knowing force in your line of work or creativity. 

You’re not expected to know it all. No one does. And if they think they do, run. Because the know-it-all façade is nothing more than a chattering egoic mask.

#3 Welcome Failure

When you hear the world ‘failure’, what comes to mind? What sensations well up within your body?

We’re programmed to believe that failure is negative. But giving ourselves the permission to be ordinary requires us to reconfigure our relationship with failure. Instead of fearing failure, we must learn to welcome it.

Failure informs us… if we allow it to. 

It offers real-time feedback and redirection if we humbly heed its wisdom. It’s not an outcome but a guiding signpost along the creative journey.

#4 Hold tight to your values but be flexible with your goals

Remember your goals but prioritize your values.

Set your goals in alignment with your dreams but keep them flexible, nimble, and free. Rigid goals don’t allow for (Divine) guidance.

So when you sit down (or stand up) to work each day, allow your values to be your guiding light. Honor them and revere them in all aspects of your creative process.

For example, my core values in life and work are as follows:

Integrity.
Humility, humility, humility.
Grace.
Tenacious and humble self-reflection.
Reverence and respect for my Soul’s guidance.
Embody loving kindness in my words, thoughts, and actions to the fullest extent possible given my current level of consciousness.
Take action to be in service to humanity.
Appreciation.
Compassion.
Courage (to take up space and embody my power)
Cultivate fearlessness in my everyday actions (read: daily Fear-apy)
Have fun!
Seriously pursue my purpose, but never be too serious about the path. And see the humor wherever and whenever possible.

I have goals, too. But they’re not written down anywhere. They’re in my heart. And they shift, adapt, and pivot as my Soul nudges them to do so. 

My values though? They’re written in stone. They’ve always been a part of me, and I work to embody them just a smidgen more fully and completely every day. 

When we insist on being extraordinary, we’re so laser-focused on the outcome (or goal) that we’ll sacrifice our values to get there. But when we give ourselves the permission to be ordinary, we’re able to detach from the outcome and flow with a values-guided process instead.

Setting aside unicorn-like success stories, the majority of extraordinary accomplishments happen through ordinary levels of consistent improvement—day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year.

Hundreds if not thousands of ordinary moments fit together like puzzle pieces to form something extraordinary, but we have to be willing to do the work. And when we tell ourselves that we must be extraordinary day after day, we tend to self-sabotage or lose steam on our dreams because we don't know where to start.

In this way, the pursuit of extraordinary often leads us to indecision and wishy-washy efforts. The dream feels so big, so daunting, that we lose sight of the forest as we try to focus on the thousands of separate trees.

To reach extraordinary, we simply have to be willing to commit to ordinary improvements day in and day out. 

It's not about being special, it's about being humble and consistent. 

It's about self-reflecting and being honest with ourselves about where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. And patting ourselves on the back for showing up for ourselves and the world—even if the way we showed up was “messy”.

#5 We get the ego’s baggage out of the Soul’s way

In other words, we remember that our gift, our craft, our calling is not of us but through us. 

In remembering this, we soften the ego’s walls and barriers so that the flow of our Soul can move freely through us—from the infinite (energetic) to the finite (material world).

Final Thoughts

To wrap things up, I’d like to leave you with this quote from Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art:

“Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.” 

We need the gifts you’re uniquely designed to pull through. Don’t rob the world and yourself of what’s waiting in the wings of your heart. It’s too important.

Now go. Don’t wait. Give us what you’ve got today exactly as you’ve got it.

Sources + Further Reading

Manson, M. (2019). The subtle art of not giving a f*ck: A counterintuitive approach to living a good life*. Harper Paperbacks.

Pressfield, S. (2003). The War of Art*. Orion.

Robbins, M. (2017). The 5 second rule: Transform your life, work, and confidence with Everyday courage*. Savio Republic.

Article: The Curse of Imposter Syndrome by Susan Orlean

The Soul Horizon Podcast Episode 1: Fear-apy
The Soul Horizon Podcast Episode 7: The Permission to Be Ordinary
The Soul Horizon Podcast Episode 15: Claim Your Super-Powered Purpose
The Soul Horizon Podcast Episode 22: Stop Tomorrow-ing Your Life Away

*This is an affiliate link. Purchasing through affiliate links supports my work at no extra cost to you. I appreciate your support in any way, shape, or form!

Ashley Melillo
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