When I sent a survey to you a few months ago asking, “What’s your biggest challenge as an introvert?” one of the biggest topics that came up was acceptance.
You said your challenges were things like…
“Acceptance that it is okay to be me.”
“Accepting myself as God has made me!”
“Accepting what I have to offer is as valid as an extrovert.”
I can relate to all of those statements. When I started publishing books and speaking over a decade ago, I told myself, “Now I have to be an extrovert. It’s just part of the job.” I pushed myself to the brink of burnout. At the end of a year when I had traveled twenty times, I sensed God whispering to my heart, “It’s time to go home.”
I knew this meant, yes, go home and take a long nap (I certainly needed one). But I knew He was also saying it was time to go home to who he created me to be. I started a long process of healing that included counseling, confiding in supportive friends, changing my schedule, and finding out everything I could about what it really means to be an introvert.
I discovered I’d believed so many myths, like that extroverts make better leaders or have more to offer. But the research says otherwise. Study after study shows introverts perform just as well and contribute just as much as extroverts. We just do it differently, in ways that are needed more than ever before.
During that season of healing I thought often of these words, “In quietness and confidence is your strength” (Is. 30:15). I’d believed lies like in being more outgoing and confidence was my strength, in changing who I was and confidence was my strength. Maybe you’ve done the same?
If so, I want to extend the same invitation to you my heart received years ago: If you feel insecure about who God created you to be, if you’ve put pressure on yourself to be more like others you admire, if you’re worn out and weary from not honoring your own beautiful limits—it’s time to go home.
Acceptance begins with recognizing you’re already enough. Not simply because of your humanness but because you are a divine masterpiece, dreamed up in God’s heart, woven together by His invisible hands, and placed in this world for a purpose.
There has never been and will never be another you. Either we get what you have to offer to the world through you or not at all. There is no Plan B or back-up strategy. There is simply you—imperfect and fully loved, entrusted with gifts even on the days you can’t see them, an extraordinary introvert who is here for such a time as this.
Cheering You On,
Holley
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If you’d like more encouragement along with insights, brain science, and practical strategies to help you embrace who you are as introvert you’ll find it in The Powerful Purpose of Introverts: Why the World Needs You to Be You. AND when you get your book, you’ll also get $20 off my popular 7 Ways to Thrive as an Introvert course.
Are you on Instagram? I created an Introvert Purpose account for all things introvert! I’d love for you to join me there!
