Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 305 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I feel like we’ve been having some come to Jesus episodes lately but I just really feel like the thing that helps me the most is when someone simply tells me with love of course, the truth. When someone tells me like it is. When you have things going on in your life that you know don’t feel good or you know you want to improve and you hear someone that is well meaning say “you’re perfect just the way you are” they mean well but you know that’s not true because you can tell by the way you feel that something needs to change. Jordan Peterson says no-one wants to hear someone say “you’re perfect just the way you are” especially when you’re having a rough patch, because you know you don’t want to stay there so of course it’s not perfect and you know it deep down. So I love you and you should love yourself as you are but also know that the ability for you to grow and improve lies with one person…YOU
We each have something very very unique from the rest of the billions of people on earth. Unique only to us. And that is that our world revolves completely around us. No one else has your exact experience. No one. Not even your twin sister because one of you was the one that came out first or the funny one or the favorite. Theirs always something that differentiates you and develops your uniqueness.
You might be thinking this is quite different from the title where I said it’s not all about you. But here’s the thing. Because we each take us with us every where we go, we have a tendency to shape every experience into being something about us. Someone is having a bad day and is grumpy, we wonder if we did something to them. Someone is casually talking about their experience and we inject our same experience into the conversation. Someone has something really good happen to them and you wonder why those things never happen to you. Your friends or family are going on vacation together and you feel left out that you weren’t invited. Whatever it is, there we are subconsciously or even consciously factoring in what this means about you or how it affects you.
Now this is human tendency, I just want us to start realizing we are doing it because it often leads to hurt feelings, comparisons, anger even in some cases.
My mom and dad started talking about their upcoming vacation with my aunt and cousin. They are going on a cruise. I’m so excited for them. But as soon as they started talking about it, my dad said and Heidi this is right around the time you go on your sailing trip, tell us about that. And I said no I want to hear about your trip. He didn’t want my feelings to be hurt by them all going together so he jumped to wanting to talk about my trip. Now, I was not thinking about wishing I was going with them. I was genuinely happy for them. But here’s the thing I realized, I was super proud of myself for that, the old me would have felt a little left out because I was so unaware that I tend to take every situation and make it about me when it had absolutely nothing at all to do with me. I realized how often It has caused a lot of hurt feelings on my part unnecessarily.
99% of what other people do or say has nothing to do with you or me, but there we are sitting there making it about us somehow in our head.
And the reason this matters is because it can be the source of a lot of pain for us. And if we are aware of it then we will notice when we are doing it and maybe catch it before it has us comparing ourselves or creating a story that gets us upset or making something mean something about us when it totally doesn’t.
A few examples where we might do this. Speaking from experience here. You’re feeling pretty good about yourself and your outfit at a party and someone shows up in an outfit that is amazing and now all of a sudden you’re outfit doesn’t seem so great. Or you go to lunch with a friend, you order the hamburger and they order a salad, now you’re thinking they are probably thinking how unhealthy you are or you start thinking ugh I should be eating a salad too and start beating yourself up in your head. Now they might in fact be thinking you should be eating a salad too but what does that matter to you? So what? I was listening to Mel Robbins and she said the good things you do don’t inspire people they confront them. In other words because your friend orders a salad, it confronts your choice of a hamburger, it causes you to think about your choice and only you can decide if you want to change. We are constantly gauging everything from our point of view.
Again there’s nothing wrong with you. We all do it. My point is. And I heard a therapist say this once and I’ve never forgotten it. When you’re taking something personally, you are never the main character in someone else’s story. It’s truly NOT all about you. YOUR life is all about you but no one else’s is. It’s humbling and freeing to know this.
As a side note, It’s also informative.
Your thoughts about what someone else is eating or drinking or wearing or the amount they work out or how they handle their finances, these are all a clue as to areas you may want to take a closer look at, areas you want to improve but are holding yourself back…because if you’re really interested with what someone else is doing, it may be because thats confronting you. It’s a clue that maybe your inner guidance system is telling you “hey we can improve here”
The other reason it’s informative is this..
The amount of attention someone gives you is in direct proportion with how important you are to them. There’s good news in there. We are self centric but we make time for the people that are important to us. You see the opposite of love is not hate, it’s in-attention. If someone says you’re important but makes no time for you then you aren’t as important as they say. That’s why the old saying watch what someone does not what they say rings true because it is true and we all know it.
So to sum it up. You’re unique and your life is created by your attitude. Your attitude is deeply affected by your thoughts which is why you desperately need to be in control of them.
Life is hard enough without us making them worse in our head. The reality is and if we are all being honest, most of the time it’s way worse in our head than in reality.
My challenge to you this week is to notice how often you are confronted when someone says or does something, how often are you making it mean something about you when in fact it may have nothing to do with you and if it does so what. If you did something wrong apologize, if you didn’t then don’t make someone else’s issue mean anything about you. It’s not all about you, remind yourself that as often as you need to. I love you guys I’ll talk to you in a few days.
