I recently had the chance to catch up with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. After a few minutes, I could tell she had something heavy on her mind, so I asked her about it. She began describing, in exhaustive detail, all the people who were talking badly about her and how upsetting it was to her. I don’t blame her! No one likes to be gossiped about.
I was happy to let her vent, but after about 15 minutes, it occurred to me that her energy was becoming MORE distraught, not less. That’s when I realized just how much of her precious energy was being sapped by focusing on what these other people thought of her.
I also realized this-
If she could somehow harness all that energy and focus it on HERSELF instead of on their opinions, she would realize just how limitless she is, in spite of the naysayers!
You see, every moment we spend worrying what other people think of us is one moment less we’re spending focused on OUR dreams and what makes us happy!
It’s one less moment we're focusing on the people who love and support and believe in us, and for whom we do the same. The POSITIVE people. The UPLIFITING people. And… OURSELVES.
THAT is where our energy is best spent.
I recently read Marie Forleo’s new book, Everything Is Figureoutable. (Seriously amazing book BTW)
In this book, Marie mentions chocolate. Who doesn’t love chocolate, right?! She says to imagine you have a friend who doesn’t like chocolate. (Wait, what?!) Does the fact that your friend hates chocolate mean chocolate sucks?! NO! It just means that ONE person doesn’t like chocolate.
Now think of the chocolate manufacturers. Are they obsessing about the handful of people who dislike chocolate? NO! They're focusing all their attention on the people who love chocolate.
I will add to this two other things the chocolate manufactures are NOT doing:
They are NOT changing their recipes to please the chocolate haters and
They are NOT giving up on making chocolate altogether, just because some (crazy) people don't like it.
What does chocolate have to do with us?
There will always be people who don’t like us, or something about us.
Does this mean we suck? 100% NO!! Does it mean we "change our recipe to please them?" NO! Does it mean we give up on our goals just because someone else thinks our goals are silly or unattainable? NO NO NO!
Think of all the time and energy and resources the chocolate manufactures would be wasting by trying to change the chocolate haters’ minds. Think of all the amazing chocolate that would never make it into the hands of the people who genuinely love and appreciate chocolate in this world.
That would be a tragedy!
The same applies to us. By focusing so much of our time and emotion and energy on the people who are most likely INCAPABLE of loving and appreciating us AS WE ARE, we are cheating those who DO… including ourselves… Those who truly deserve our time and emotion and energy.
We are literally hitting the pause button on our dreams by wasting time obsessing about what others think.
We can’t focus on our dreams AND the haters at the same time.
Which means that every time we worry what others think, our focus moves away from what we truly want in life.
So how about this? Instead of wasting our time and energy dissecting every way someone has wronged us or insulted our dreams, LET'S TAKE OUR ENERGY BACK and focus it on moving closer to what WE want… and let the haters think what they will.
Because truth be told, no amount of us kicking and screaming will change their opinions anyway.
But by seeing us making our dreams come true, maybe they'll start to believe in their OWN dreams, instead of trying to talk us out of ours.
Onward!
Xx Jen