There’s something important that I would like to share with you this week.
Something that has come up for me personally, and often comes up in my work with Clients. And that is, fear of JUDGEMENT.
My Clients are reluctant to start living the life of their dreams because they are afraid of what other people will think of them.
They are afraid of being judged.
I find it sad that so many talented and capable women hold themselves back because of this. And don’t get me wrong. I am not immune. Even I have fallen into this same trap at times.
We are so afraid of the opinion of others that we allow this fear to stop us from taking risks and going all out to create the life we truly desire.
My Clients tell me, they are afraid of what their family will think, what their friends will think, what their boss and/or their colleagues will think.
So many of us spend our lives living trying to control other people’s opinions. And that’s a waste of energy, because we cannot control the opinion of others.
Some of you may think you can. But I assure you, you cannot.
Because their opinion is based on their view of the world, their own conditioning and filter.
It is based on their experience of life. You can be the most amazing, kind, awesome person, and somebody can have a negative opinion about you.
Perhaps you have blonde hair and they ‘don’t trust people with blonde hair’.
It doesn’t matter what you do, how nice you are to them, how supportive you are of them, you have blonde hair and they don’t like or trust people with blonde hair. (I’m sure they have some very solid reasons for not trusting women with blonde hair!)
The purpose of this simple example is to illustrate that you have no control over how people view you; what you do, what you say, and what you mean. Is this bad news?
NO! it’s great news.
Just imagine how much your life would change if you were able to accept that you had no influence over someone else’s opinion of you? Pretty cool huh!
Sometimes we are afraid that others will be turned off by certain aspects of our character and so we try to hide those characteristics in order to present a version of ourselves that is more acceptable.
Let’s say for example, you are AMBITIOUS, and your goal is to be the CEO. But when you share this with family members or colleagues, you hear things like “she’s deluded”, “who does she think she is?” “she’s getting above herself”.
Or, we are afraid to share our hopes and dreams with others because of a fear of what they might interpret this to mean about us. “I would love to start my own business” may be interpreted as “She is not committed to this Organisation”.
It’s an opinion sure, but often, far from the truth.
And so, we let go of the grip of the ambition. We start to hide the parts of ourselves that others might not like or approve of. We change our thought process and we change our language. And what happens when we do that? We stop liking ourselves because we are no longer being genuine or authentic. And then when it’s clear that someone does like or approve of us, it matters little, because we realise that they don’t really know us at all.
They don’t know us to like us.
People are always going to look at you and judge you.
They are going to judge you because of the way you look, because of your hair colour, because of your eye colour, because of your weight, because of the colour of your skin, because of the clothes you wear, because of the car you drive, the stories you tell, the lipstick you wear, all of it.
There is nothing that any of us can do about it. But if you let it go and then you just ask YOURSELF if you’re all in with your own opinion of you, do you like the car you drive, the clothes you wear, what you do, where you choose to live? What matters is not whether they like you or don’t like you. Surely the only thing that truly matters is whether YOU like you and the choices you make.
If you do, then frankly no one else’s opinion matters. Let their opinion of you be just that. THEIR opinion. At least you can be sure their judgement is based on who you REALLY are – not who they perceive you to be.
And with that, comes FREEDOM.
Freedom to really be who you are.
You get to decide how you want to show up every day. You can really start to dream again. And care not about what others will think. What matter is what you think.
At least you were courageous enough to take a chance on life. And you will succeed, you know you will.
So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to ask yourself this question: what is your opinion of you?
And how strongly are you willing to commit to it? Are you willing to have your own back when someone else speaks negatively about you? Because if you believe in YOU, truly believe in you, then what someone else thinks will have a lot less impact on your wellbeing.
BE YOU. BE UNAPOLOGETICALLY YOU.
Live your life, your way.
x Until next time, sending you love x
I would love to get to know you more, connect with me here.
