Who would you be if no one else’s opinion mattered? Have you ever asked yourself that? It’s a tough, yet extremely powerful question. You’ll want to read the whole post to get a good understanding of your own opinions vs others and how you may be living a different life than you wanted.
Validation and reinforcement
It’s no secret that we’re human and all want validation and reinforcement from the outside world. We crave acceptance and some of us act as people pleasers more than others.
In my last post I discussed how the dark side of reinforcement can be so dangerous to our well being. It involves the opinions about ourselves from others.
But what if we stopped caring so much about others’ opinions of us and started caring about our own?
Fear of others’s opinions of me
Today I write to you from a very different life than I could have even three years ago. I write from a place of freedom, love and acceptance for myself, but that wasn’t always my story.
In my past life I was living the traditional societal narrative of a young person with the house, family, big corporate jobs and flashy cars. From the outside, I appeared to have it all. On the inside, I was suffering, struggling and hurting.
I was so unhappy with where my life was at but was confused because I thought I had everything I ever wanted. On top of that, I was being congratulated left and right for the life I was leading.
The strong urge to be a role model for others
Every time I did something that was perceived as good by others, I felt this strong urge to do more of it because of other’s opinions. I felt the need to be a role model for them and not let them down.
I was diving deeper into a life that wasn’t my own. Every time I had those “what if” feelings when something didn’t feel right I would shove and burry them deep down inside of me and end up convincing myself that my own opinion was wrong.
The breaking point
I ended up doing this so often that everything came crashing down. The start of my breaking point was when I got divorced. I told myself that I was going to work really hard at changing every aspect of my life that didn’t belong or serve the person I was made to become.
I knew I was put on this earth to help others with my gifts and I also knew it was time to start listening to my own opinions and stop listening to others.
The change
Through lots of therapy and self reflection I slowly started to do the work and peel back the layers of everything that didn’t belong. I started with areas like my spending habits. I evaluated what I was spending my money on vs where it should be spent to achieve the life I wanted.
When you’re used to spending money on a certain lifestyle it’s extremely hard to undo it. Over the last three years I’ve been consciously focusing on spending money on experiences and not so much as materialistic possessions. Don’t get me wrong, I still love clothes, makeup, etc but my life is so much fuller with rich experiences with my family.
Summary
What I can tell you now is while I’m always going to be a work in progress, I’m much happier in this life than the life I was living before. I challenge you to ask yourself who would you be if no one else’s opinion mattered?
Are you living life for yourself or everyone else?
Share your thoughts in the comments below or on Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook. Follow me while you’re at it, I love to connect!
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