Finding Your Shine

Man, it's easy to feel worthless.

I spend most of my days at home, darting back and forth between work, writing, social media, and marketing in my home office; dishes, laundry, housecleaning, and doggie duty (or sometimes 'doody'!) throughout the rest of the house; then go pick up the kid from elementary school, feed everyone, watch some mindless crap on TV, scroll through my phone, and finally fall asleep. At the end of the day, I usually feel like I didn't accomplish much, if anything. Most of what I did went unnoticed by most of the people on the planet. I can't even number the times I've thought to myself, "What difference do I even make at all?"

You dig?

Now, what if you were just an average little kid, watching friends who are good at sports or singing or academics; watching celebrities on TV or social media doing all kinds of cool things; witnessing other people win games or talent shows? Your parents are too busy to play, your teachers have 20 other students - how easy is it to think, "Do I even matter?"

We all struggle with a sense of worth and purpose at different times in life, whether we're 6 or 46 years old. We need to understand that our worth doesn't come from our accomplishments. That our purpose cannot be measured by whether or not someone notices that we are fulfilling it. That's a hard enough concept for an adult to fathom, much less a child. This is why I wrote my upcoming book, "Little Star Finds His Shine" which will be available for sale on March 18th. Here's what the back cover says:

Little Star sees so many other stars around him - everywhere he looks, in fact - and he believes that they are much more important than he is. This fills him with a lot of big feelings - sadness, discouragement, even a little jealousy. Why is he up here in the sky when it seems like nobody around him or on Earth could possibly notice his light at all? But when Sun comes up, she has a lot to say about Little Star’s place in the universe - and he finally realizes just how important he truly is.

When you’re little, it’s easy to think that nobody notices or even cares about you… but it’s certainly not true. The most valuable lesson we can learn at a young age is that each of us was created for a purpose and that we all have infinite worth.

My hope is that this new book will be a tool you can use to start a conversation with a child. To show them that, even when they think nobody notices or cares, they ARE noticed and they ARE cared for. How helpful would it be to grow up confident in your own worth and purpose and to carry that with you throughout a lifetime?

Stay tuned and don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter!

-Stephanie