In the world we live in now, perception is the order of the game. How people see us, what they think of us, how they rate us is now more important than how we view ourselves. Some time ago, I got into a relationship, which I honestly thought was the one. Well I am still single, so it obviously was not.
Disclaimer: Now this post is not to dissect what I did or who was wrong or right.
I did a lot of stuff right I think, I mean I cooked, cleaned, prayed, dressed up and looked cute, apologised intermittently, sulked to get my way, smiled at unfunny jokes and laughed out loud so peace reigned lol. Good girlfriend stuff right. Well that is how I was taught.
To get and keep a man, you have to do these things so I did them. I wanted to be married and society said you had to do these things.
I did not realise how drained I was until it was eminent that we would break up. When I decided to move on, I did not call him or text. I was sad but very much relived. It was as if a whole weight left off my shoulders. Time passed before I understood why I felt such relief.
I was doing good things not because I wanted to but because I wanted someone else to mark me right. I was so focused on selling myself to someone else; I forgot how it felt to be just me. I did not believe that being just me was enough. How could it be?
Therefore, I put in lots of effort into making the other person happy and I forgot all about me. I became sad all the time, grumpy if I did not have my way, upset that I was doing too much and it showed in my responses and attitude. You could tell I was fighting to stay afloat, little wonder we did not make it.
Many times, we focus on selling ourselves to others and we forget to sell ourselves to us; I have found out that the reason why we struggle to make people believe stuff about ourselves is because we do not believe in ourselves enough.
That type of mentality is draining and exhausting, it is not sustainable and one day you would call it quits because you cannot go on anymore.
So how do you prevent such burn out?
- Know yourself: discover you. Get to know you, fall in love with you. Learn to live with you. Like yourself very much. Discover your strengths and harness them, learn about your not so strong side and fine-tune them. Know yourself inside out, no one should know you better than you know yourself. Take yourself out and spoil you. Listen you cannot give what you do not have. Know yourself
- Sell yourself to yourself: Pitch yourself to you. Would you buy you? Potential is not the same as pattern. You might have the potential to do and be something but lack the reality of it. So talk to yourself, encourage yourself. Hype yourself up. Tell yourself what you want to hear from others. Stand in front of the mirror and love yourself.
Listen people would say no, people would not agree with you, people would doubt you, people would try to tailor you and if you do not believe in you enough, you would fall for anything.
Read 1 Sam 30 the whole chapter. King David, mighty David never lost a battle David came back from battle and Ziklag had fallen. What I find amazing was the fact people who knew David, who knew the kind of mighty King he was talked of stoning him. Imagine, your friends, family, colleague who celebrated your every victory all of a sudden turn on you because of a challenge.
Verse 6: ….but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.
I believe this is where things began to turn, after he spoke to himself and reminded himself of how he fought the lion and bear in the fields where no one was, and how he killed goliath etc. He knew that explaining himself and trying to sell his previous deed to the people now would do no good if he doubted himself. I want to believe he stood up and shook himself. Fresh ideas began to pour in; he called the priest, prayed to God, overtook and recovered all that was stolen from him.
It took that relationship for me to realise that I come first. You don’t have to wait till something like that happens.
So let me encourage you, focus on you first. Do not be in such a rush to convince others of your abilities at the expense of yourself. Love yourself enough to choose you.
Sell yourself on your abilities on your courage on your strength
When you believe you, others would. That way when people do not see what you see about yourself it does not change your perspective of you. You do not sulk because someone disagreed with you as I did lol. You say, “Okay that’s an opinion” and move on. Until you have the courage to do you first the society and other people would dictate you and that would make you lose yourself.
Keep pushing yourself…..Transcend yourself
Do you
Be you
Stay true
I love you and I am rooting for you.
Your bestie
Dr.Jessimiela