I have always been told to do my best, be my best, and when you hear everyone’s growth stories, you see people rise out of the ashes to become some beautiful strong swan from the trenches of darkness.
That’s what it looks like.
But you miss all of the in between stuff. All the behind the scene stuff.
I have grown so much and I have had so many people change their minds about me and admire the growth that I pushed myself through in such a short period of time.
To them, it seems inspiring,
To me, it was a dark dark constant messy loud battle that I sometimes concede to, but end up getting back up and trying again.
I’m fighting thoughts in my mind, I’m talking to myself the whole time. You learn to recognize all your failures, insecurities, and weaknesses. Usually people can see them more than you can. And you face each one of them head on.
And you fail. You will. Don’t ask me how I know. You just will. And you will again. But you get back up, screaming in your own head louder to drown out your thoughts.
You keep going even though you don’t believe the change in decision is actually going to do anything.
You keep going and keep making the decision to take every next step no matter how much you think it wouldn’t work. No matter what anyone says about you. Because people don’t understand the steps your taking.
Because people only think life is one step. Before and after. So they don’t see the turmoil that you go through to get to point A to point B.
So they will see it. They will see you make decisions, and make conclusions, and change your mind, and make new conclusions and new hypothesis about life, until you see yourself as the person you always imagined yourself to be.
And even when you get there. Your still gonna fight battles. It’ll look strong to other people because they aren’t doing the work. They aren’t the one making the hard decisions to stand up again.
The strength is to keep going even though your mind feels like it’s hopeless.
When you reach the beautiful point you have always wanted to be. That strong person, it doesn’t mean you are never afraid anymore. Yeah, you may be able to endure a lot. But you are still fighting a difficult fight. Your just able to last through the turmoil and the storm and make it out the other side when it finally passes. It doesn’t mean the storm is any less strong.
Just know, being a beautiful strong person in the end can be great, but not always a free easy feeling you thought it was going to be. Expect that you will always have to get back up again, and last through the end. It’s being able to emotionally self regulate. It is to find hope even though it feels there is none. It’s to recognize that life is just a series of stories. That’s what makes you strong.
See yourself through. Just last through this story. Until you get to see and experience the next one. You don’t have to like this story, but you can use it to define who you really are in times of trouble.
I used to be very insecure about what people thought about me. What other people may have heard about me, what other people judged me for and what they shared with other people about their judgements of me.
Preface
I have almost lost a good group of friends because of rumors and assumptions about me that were not true. Which has made me paranoid of every conversation behind my back.
I did not know I was undoing a previous assumption about myself until I have pushed past my social anxiety to chat with some people, and I frequently got the response of “You are not like what I heard you were like”. Quite honestly, I have gotten that quite a few times in my lifetime, and it is a bit frustrating because as I am battling with social anxiety, someone else is free to share all of their assumptions about me to anyone they want.
Thoughts
So, for the longest time, I would constantly think about what people think about every action that I made and it was exhausting to me. I would hate living in my own brain.
Until I came to a point where I told myself, The way they decide to process and understand information is not my problem.
They are capable of making their own conclusions. And trying to control the way everyone decides to process and believe things is exhausting. You have to manage your own mind, but you are trying to manage everyone else’s.
If someone decides to assume something about you and proceed spread information about you, they are that kind of person and will proceed to think that way until they are ready to change. They will do it to you and will do it to others, and people will know it.
If someone easily believes everything they hear, they have a lot more than your rumor to deal with learning. If they easily share that rumor, they have a lot more than just their opinion of you to deal with.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, people are people, and they have their own lives and their own issues that they tend to reflect upon others when they cannot deal with and need to heal with it themselves.
Not to say that to put it in their face, but to say that to understand that it is not a fight worth fighting.
The way you should ease your mind is that you should keep holding true to your actions because you are only responsible for your own actions. The people who want to understand you, will take the time to understand you and will see who you are. The people who just want to fulfill a selfish need, won’t, and that is a problem far beyond you.
Keep being kind to others, keep being the best version of you, and your actions will be louder than someone else’s words.
I have felt inferior my entire life. I believed that I wasn’t good enough to be friends with anyone. That I was just an inconvenience in someone’s life. I believed that everyone was doing me a favor by just giving me a job, or speaking to me because they felt bad for me.
Where I got this from? I am not 100% sure but I can get an inkling.
If you are someone who struggles with being inferior, I want to give you some tips about how to get out of that mindset.
1. Understand that it is just a chosen mindset. It is not reality, it is not truth. Everyone should be treated as if they have something to offer and they should never have to fight for it.
2. The way you carry yourself is the way people decide to see you. If you carry yourself as if you know you are a burden to be around, people are going to feel burdened by you. If you carry yourself with confidence, people are going to feel confident in you. If you carry yourself knowing that you are someone who has worth and doesn’t need to prove it, people will sense that.
3. Give yourself exposure to those you want to feel closer with. Naturally people like us feel like we don’t feel good enough to talk to even the average person. But if you have a hard time getting out of that mindset, expose yourself to that person often. People naturally start to feel comfortable with people they are familiar with, and familiarity comes with frequent exposure.
Conclusion
It truly is mindset. There are a million different perspectives in this world and people are living in their different mindsets. Just change your mindset about social construct and where you stand.
You are worth the time. The moment you were born, you should have never had to fight for your worth. You already have it. And once you truly understand that, is when you are kinder to yourself, and you understand that everyone else could be struggling like you.
My entire life my dad has told me every single day, “Just do your best. Thats all you can do”. And honestly, for the longest time, I did not know what that meant, because I felt like it meant I had to be the best, and my best was not as good as being the best.
But as I got older, I started to understand that my best is enough because my best efforts is all I can do, and that means I put everything into it.
As I lived through anxiety and depression, and struggled with social anxiety and issues with people, yes, I was sad and suicidal, but at the same time, it was always ingrained in me to always just do my best. And that is exactly what I have done.
To me, my best has always looked like other people’s bare minimums, but I realized that it is because I had more inner turmoil to fight than others. Which frustrated me because I hated that I had to work twice as hard to live than other people. I always just assumed everyone was hiding inner pain, but not everyone is. At least not as dark as I thought.
Conversations
One day, I had a conversation with my friend, just updating her on my life, and her life, and she said some nice things about me, but also said that she admires that I just show up and do my best.
Which was crazy because I have never been inspiring or admirable in my life. I honestly feel like I just trudge through life just doing my best, and the best is still the bare minimum for me.
But the fact that someone saw my struggles, and saw my pain, and saw me showing up everyday and still doing my best in everything I did, really taught me something.
Realization
No matter where you are in life, no matter how much you have to struggle or what chapter you are in your story compared to others, people see the effort and strength you put into yourself to pull yourself out and try everything you can to become the best version of yourself. And it inspires other people to be their best self and be a better person in their life.
And honestly, it becomes a rippling effect. You just being a trooper and doing your best everyday can have a butterfly effect and help many people and you may never know it. Cause when I heard that, I was in utter shock.
Conclusion
No matter how unfair you think life is, and how much you struggle, you can still be impacting people in the small things you say and changing lives by you doing your best to be the best version of yourself everyday.
I would have never, in a million years, thought I could be someone that people would see me as strong and inspiring because I feel like a mess all the time. But I guess the very acknowledgement of my mess and the efforts to not let it hold you back from growing is the very thing that can help someone else get back on their feet again.
You may never ever know how you impact others, so be mindful of your actions.
So I was scrolling through Tiktok I saw this video of this teacher teaching her student’s some valuable lessons, and was touched by what she shared and wanted to talk about it.
She said:
You do not have to attend every argument you were invited to.
If you are arguing with someone you love, the goal should not be to win, but to find peace.
If you argue to win, you need to be okay with losing part of that relationship.
You are allowed to grow from your mistakes.
Unless you are finding a solution, the one who shouts the loudest is usually the greatest fool.
I loved the fact that this teacher shared all of these encouraging life lessons because it truly is difficult to live in this world. So lets talk about what she said.
You do not need to attend every argument that you were invited to–
If someone tries to pick a fight with you, and start something, you have every right not to join in that conversation. You have every right to not be a part of it and take yourself out. Yes, it may go on without you, but it is happening without you. Do what it takes to find your peace. And remember that your own actions speak louder than what people say your actions are.
If you are arguing with someone you love, the goal should not be to win, but to find peace–
The only reason you would fight someone to win, is if you care more about your ego and pride than the other person. If you truly care about the person that you are arguing with, your goal should be to figure it out, to understand where each other is coming from, and is to find peace in the situation.
If you argue to win, you need to be okay with losing part of that relationship–
If you are arguing just to win, it may be peaceful after, but the other person has made decisions. They could decide that they no longer feel safe to completely open up to you and they will hide it from you. If you are arguing to win, people may not feel like its worth trying to work things out with you and you will lose meaningful relationships. Arguing to win is purely out of pride and ego, and its not worth losing people over.
You are allowed to grow from your mistakes–
I think this is the hardest for me because I can be forgiving to my mistakes and others, but because I am also a people pleaser, I feel as though, if people don’t think I deserve to move on and grow, then I should not forgive myself until they do. Which is such a harmful way of thinking. It is nice to receive forgiveness, but at the end of the day, you need to forgive yourself and learn from your mistakes to become a better version of yourself.
Unless you are finding a solution, the one who shouts the loudest is usually the greatest fool-
What this really means is that, the person who goes around sharing and spreading all their rumors and opinions about someone, is the fool because they are the ones who is trying to convince everyone and themselves of their opinion because at the end of the day, they know its not true or they feel some kind of shame or want to hide something.
it’s okay to start over-
It truly is okay to start over and be different. If you don’t like yourself, don’t wait until everyone is ready for you to be different. There will never be a time where everyone will forgive you or think its time for you to be different. Or maybe there is. But at the end of the day, no matter what, you can start over and over and over again to keep trying to be a better person no matter what.
Summary
I know it is difficult to interact with people sometimes, and sometimes, its the hardest to forgive yourself because you are the one living with your mistakes, but you can forgive yourself and move on. You are allowed to start over and change. No matter who is ready for you to change or who will believe you.
Listen to this blog with more commentary on my podcast!
There was a quote I heard that says, “Everything works out in the end, and if it hasn’t, its not the end”
And it really got me thinking.
We are all out here, living our stories and our lives, being frustrated in life because the result.
We begin to make conclusions about our lives, and we are always constantly complaining. We think that we aren’t deserving for more, or good things don’t come to us.
Why things seem like they aren’t working out
There could be several reasons why things may not seem like they are working out for you.
It is not your time yet – Maybe whatever you wan’t, is not time for you yet. You may need to learn and grow in order to be ready for what it is that you want. You may not necessarily be ready and life is holding things back for now.
It may not be the way you think – Just because you want something to work out, does not mean that it will work out the way you want it. Be patient, because things may work out, in an unexpected way. And it may work out even better than you could have imagined.
Patience is a virtue – The best things, truly do not come quickly. As you wait, work on yourself to be the best version of yourself, and in time, things will unravel.
What is meant for you will come to you – If you really want a job (literally me right now), you need to realize that just because you really want something, and it inherently may sound good, it may just not be for you. Or it may! Relax, if it is meant for you, it will come to you. If not, there is something waiting, and you just need to be patient!
What Now?
In the meantime, focus on yourself, your growth, becoming a better person that you would want to be friends with, or be the person that you would want your future significant other to have high standards of, or refine the skills that you would want to hire if you had a job you needed to hire for.
You don’t lose anything from refining your skills and getting better as a human being. You just level up in life as a person, and create more opportunities for yourself, even if the one you want does not work out.
So, off of first hand experience, I wanted to write this article because I have seen my entire life change the moment I took action in taking active care for my mental health, physical health, and spiritual health. I don’t know what you believe in, but whatever you believe in, I believe that if you continue striving to be your next best self, whatever good is meant for you, will come to you.
Preface
I have been in a difficult depressive state, unable to control the external factors of my life for the longest time. Trying to figure out the next best move to alleviate the world around me through my actions. Sacrificing what I need to sacrifice to make everything better.
My world was falling apart, and I did not know how to hold my husbands world together either. Because the issues were effecting both of us. So we were just trying to hold everything together, taking responsibility of everyones emotions and trying to make a living and keep our peace at the same time.
What now?
We were so tired of it. We couldn’t understand why everything was the way it was. So we stopped. We stopped trying to take care of everyone else’s emotions, and we started to take care of ourselves.
We kept our distance and kept our peace. We started to take care of our own physical, mental, and spiritual health. We recognized what we had to do to keep our mental health stable. Well mostly me. He was actually doing okay. He was doing better than me, I think.
I accepted my reality, and focused on me and making myself the better self of myself.
I also worked on my spirituality because peace is so important to me. I don’t know what you believe in, but I do believe that you attract what you give out to the world. And the more I bettered myself, and loved others, and became the best version of myself.
This means, being humble. Recognizing where you are weak and what you need to work on. Recognizing your imperfections and being okay that you aren’t perfect, but knowing you are working to be a better version of yourself. Going after things that give you life and happiness rather than forcing yourself to do what cultural and societal standards tell you to do. Just loving others, and being there for others because you know that life is not easy.
Basically living your life to preserve your peace and happiness, and loving others.
The moment I chose this life, regardless of the storms around me, good things began to come to me. I live with peace, I stand by my worth, and the world is reacting to it.
End Result
When I started working on myself, not letting anyone take my self worth from me, and doing what I can to keep the peace in my heart, the people began to change towards me, and people’s reactions started to change towards me.
I am not really ready for the change, and I am kind of shocked still. My reality has changed now, but keep working on yourself. Don’t expect anything from anyone. Just keep being the better, kinder, stronger, empathetic version of yourself.
Go out there and live your life. You are the only one who can allow self care. Move forward cautiously and hopeful. Every single part of life, is a season. And it may seem like it takes forever, but you have full control of how you heal and change and grow. And your change, changes other people.
Something I wish I knew as I was getting older is, when you change, you will most likely experience a new response from the people around you.
Preface
Life is not an easy experience, and nobody really admits it. But it is. It is a whole mess. For mostly everyone. And as you are living in this life, you are growing, and changing (hopefully) to becoming a better and healthier version of yourself everyday.
There are people around you who will also grow and change. They will grow with you, or faster than you, or may not even grow for a long time because of their stubbornness and pride.
So we are all just living in one difficult world and trying to survive.
YOU
In this world, there is you. You are the only one who is living your life and your timeline. As you grow, you change to become what you want to be, what you feel most comfortable to be, or you may just be exploring different parts of yourself. You could also be in a dark period of your life. Regardless, you will change.
You will find your boundaries, find your new hobbies and interests, find out what makes you feel happy, and what makes you feel uncomfortable. And you start acting on those new discoveries.
At the end of the day, you are living your own life, and discovering what would make you feel the happiest and most fulfilled in life, and what is your most authentic self.
Other People
When you change and grow, there are three types of people:
Person 1: People who will love your growth and grow with you
Person 2: People who will hate you for your growth
Person 3: People who will try to adjust to your growth
You want to stay around the people who love and encourage your growth. They love you the most. They want you to be your best self, and do whatever it takes to keep you happy.
The people who hate you for your growth may feel resentful towards you. Tell you that you think you are better than them, and reflect all their insecurities on to you.
And the people who will try to adjust to your growth are pretty non problematic. They will just reconstruct their idea of you from a distant and go with the flow.
What if it is negative change?
In our lives, we are constantly learning and changing and trying new things. So what if we are trying something that is negative. What are the responses?
Person 1: Will always have your back and be by your side, no matter what changes are made. They will tell you their concerns but have your back always. They will always be there for you because they love you.
Person 2: Will shove in your face that you are changing and being a bad person, and maybe even leave you because you did not live up to their standards of what they want you to be.
Person 3: May whisper concerns behind your back but not really do anything about it.
Why
Why am I talking about the three different types of people? Because I want you to identify what is normal in your life. This happens, people respond in all different ways. I am sure there are more different types of people than this, but these are the most typical responses.
Person 1 is the person you want to be friends with. They will always be there for you through the thick and the thin, and they made their choice to love you unconditionally. That is a person you need to cherish.
Person 2 is the person who loves you under condition. They want you to be what they want you to be. They refuse to accept any version of you that is not what they have always known, and there is a good chance that they won’t accept your change because they themselves can’t change.
Person 3: This person isn’t bad, but they are just there. They aren’t really your friends. They care about you but not enough to be someone you keep close.
Moral of the story
These responses are normal. When you change, there will be a shift in your environment. You can’t do something different and expect no kind of reaction and change. But you cannot stay the same forever at the same time.
So when you choose to express yourself and change. Mentally prepare yourself for it, and expect it. Expect the responses and instead of seeing it as rejection or approval, see it as an indicator of who you need to filter out of your life and who you need to cherish.
If you have been throwing a pencil at the wall for quite some time, you can’t expect the same outcome if you decide to throw a bowling ball. If some factor changed, there will be a different outcome.
Expect change when you change. Use it to reveal who you want to keep in your life.
So, you have social anxiety. And you so badly want to be a part of a friend group. I know it. This was me for the longest time. You spot a friend group and want to be a part of it and be comfortable for that matter.
But your social anxiety is what is keeping you away from it.
Mentally, if you are ready to attack this challenge and finally make friends with a group of people, this is what you are going to do.
1. First, find the right group of people
When you have social anxiety, the biggest thing you fear is the people around you. When scouting a group of people, look for a group that is accepting of differences, and open to more people in their friend group. Those are the kind of friends you want to open yourself up to. It is better to be alone than be with a friend group who is going to make your life more toxic. So be very picky when you choose a friend group.
2. Find something relatable to start the conversation
Listen, you have nothing to lose here. If they think you are weird, they were never the right group for you anyways. Compliment their outfit, or their hair, or ask where they got their shoes from. Something. Figure it out. Approach them and fake it till you make it. Act like approaching people is normal to you. They don’t know you. They have no difference to judge you for.
3. Ask them questions
People love it when you talk about them. When you don’t know what to say, just ask questions and react. “Wow! You have great style! Are you in fashion? Or do you just like it?” Then they will respond, and keep asking them questions. People love it when they feel good about themselves and will want to hang out with you more if they feel good around you.
Eventually, if it seems like you guys have had a great conversation that feels like a friendship, ask for their social. It is less intimidating than their phone number to hit them up.
4. Target the person
This sounds creepy, but it’s not. This is how I made all of my friends. They think our friendship happened organically but I honestly did all the work. Hit up the person on social media and strike up a conversation related to your previous conversation. Continuing with this fashion example, ask for their fashion advice!
Say, “hey! It was so great meeting you the other day! You have really great style, I was wondering if you could give me your opinion about my style. What kind of style do you think would look good on me? I would love to know!”
Strike a conversation. The more exposure they have with you, the more familiar they become with you. You wan’t them to be exposed to you.
If you don’t want to strike a conversation yet, start with liking their posts and eventually commenting a compliment on their instagram post. Then strike that conversation about an instagram post that you can easily start a conversation with in their DM’s.
5. After enough exposure, invite them to hang out
If they haven’t asked you to hang out with them, ask them to hang out with you to a place that has to do with the topic you bonded over. Maybe say, “hey! I saw this really awesome boutique the other day, I thought of you because of the style they had. I am thinking about going next Saturday, would you wanna come with?”
After that, if they say yes, make that plan. If they say no. Don’t ask for another hang out. They can ask for it. Don’t make it look like you are desperate to hang out with them. It becomes way too much pressure on them to become your friend at that point and nobody wants that pressure.
6. Keep up the communication once in a while
Match their energy. Keep up the communication just as often as they keep it up. I know, I know, it sounds like you are playing a high school game. But there is a reason to it. You want this friendship to be organic, and it does not look organic if you are trying too hard, and they may be disinterested in becoming your friend if you are not reciprocating.
Send a tiktok, instagram post, youtube video every once in a while and say it reminded you of them!
7. Build your friendship
Build your friendship with this person. Keep up the interaction with them and eventually they should invite you to their group. If they don’t, you can offer another hang out that is group appropriate, like an amusement park, or a city trip, and tell them that they can invite other people if they want!
This is at the point when you guys are already friends and feel comfortable with them. If it seems like they don’t want to put you in their friend group, it is okay. You still made a friend out of this, and you can keep going with this same process and make more friends, and build your own friend group.
Just invite one more friend at a time to your hang outs so that everyone is familiar with each other.
Remember, you can have multiple friend groups. It is very normal.
8. Group Chat
Whether you jumped in someone else’s friend group or you created your own by doing these steps over and over again, create a group chat to share a Tiktok or a meme of something that you guys have had a conversation about or experienced, and just keep it up. Then the friend group with naturally become a friend group the more that they get exposed to eachother.
In a friend group with a good dynamic that will last a long time, you should not be putting in all the effort. That means, other people should naturally just join in and chat with you. But do not put the expectation of keeping the friend group alive on others and be disappointed in them if they don’t. There is no expectation and it is not a true friendship to care about one another when you are getting mad at them for not putting in the effort.
Summary
Being in a friend group the way you want to, is not easy and it does not take a short amount of time. It could if the other person just invites you to their group and the entire group is so welcoming that they add you in their group chat and they love everyone, which is a gold mine. I experienced that twice actually. My social anxiety made it hard to drive to the hang outs, but eventually I got there, and when I did, everything was fine.
It could happen, but does not always happen. But there are always options. There is always an open door. You just need to be creative.
I love corny movies, so yes, I watched Tall Girl one and two on Netflix.
When the first Tall Girl came out and everyone watched it, the movie went viral on Tiktok because the tall girl was saying that there was nothing worse than being tall in highschool.
Then everyone started to come at the movie saying that cancer is worse than being tall, or poverty, or literally anything. There were so many Tiktoks spiraling around about it.
Then when Tall Girl 2 came out, they discussed it when she had her audition, and the director asked her, “what makes you think that your problem is bad?”
And she basically says that, yeah, all those issues are bad, but it doesn’t diminish her problem and her experience.
If your friend had an achievement and won an award, does that mean you don’t deserve to be proud of your B+? No, because we don’t need to be comparing ourselves to other people for any achievements or for any problems.
If you have an achievement in life. You should celebrate it, regardless of what anyone else is doing.
If you have an issue in life, you have every right to mourn your feelings, regardless of what else is happening in the world.
You are living your own life and experiencing your life. Should you just disregard your life and your experiences for someone else’s life? If you do, what is the point of you being a whole human being? Who chose them to have their feelings and experiences validated but yours aren’t allowed to be?
There is always someone out there in the world who has it worse than someone else, and there is always someone out there in the world that has it better than someone else. But everyone is living their own life and timeline. Every pain that you feel, and every joy, is validated. You don’t need to make it a competition.
The experience happened. You reacted for a reason.
That does not mean your actions are justified. You have every control over your emotions and actions, but what I am saying is, if you feel a certain way, it means something and you don’t need to disregard it because someone else out there is in the hospital.
Summary
Your feelings are validated regardless of anyone else in the world. Stop comparing your life to other people’s life. Everyone has a different story, and different circumstances. It does not make sense to compare your life to someone else’s.
You are 100% allowed to feel your feelings and feel sad about it. It may not seem as bad as someone else’s situation to you, but it does not mean it did not make you sad. And you are allowed to feel that way.
