Other's Opinions

Life is a non-stop learning experience, and to follow up on my post yesterday, one area I am learning that I don’t excel in is making decisions that fit me and my life regardless of the opinions of others. I have a crazy need to make decisions based on the impact they will have on the people around me and I spend way too much time trying to make everyone happy.

Part of that people pleasing aspect of me means I am constantly looking for approval from others. There is nothing worse to me than thinking someone doesn’t support or agree with something I have decided to do.

Yesterday, I was a part of a discussion where someone in a leadership position in my life was given the opportunity to support me and my abilities but instead they chose to demean the way I wanted to handle a specific situation and question my commitment.

It was a conversation that left me feeling inadequate and questioning whether or not I work hard enough. I was very upset after that conversation ended.

So upset in fact, that I almost let it ruin the rest of my day.

Isn’t that horrible? Someone who clearly doesn’t have my best at heart and who doesn’t even know me well was able to almost completely de-rail my day. It was an eye-opening experience.

Josh was still home when I got off the phone and as I tried to process what happened and explain to him where I was at in my head, he watched me start to lose it. And he did his absolute best to help me see it from another angle and provide his support and encouragement.

It wasn’t until he asked me (out of pure frustration) if I was going to just mope the rest of the day. You can bet that wasn’t received well right off the bat. But once he explained to me that if I don’t learn to let go of the worthless words and opinions of others, situations like this have the opportunity to ruin future moments in my life. His first example was Valentine’s Day, where he pointed out that if that call happened prior to our date it would have been the sole focus of the day and ruined it. Which would of course make me more upset for letting it. Then he brought up our future kids and said that I would hate it if a call like that could ruin a day with our kids.

And he is so right!  (It took me a while to come around to fully grasping this and feel better, but nonetheless he was right).

My new goal is to let stuff roll off. I don’t want the opinions of other people to continue to have the power to cage me. To make me feel amazing or like a failure. I know I work hard and am an excellent leader, the opinions of anyone else don’t have a place in my life anymore.

I know it will be a hard process to let go of this way of thinking I am so accustomed to, but it will be so worth it and so freeing!