NOT CARING WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF YOU – That’s what this week’s challenge is all about. How to be yourself. And Oh – it’s a tough one! But when we learn how to not letting other people’s opinions impact our behaviour and actions, boy is that a good life. But it’s not easy, and the cost might be high. But the price is worth it. Read my text from last week on this topic:
Every day, Monday through Friday, put in a serious effort to go into every situation as your real self. Voice your opinions and stand by your values and believes. Being silent could be just as much of a statement as agreeing with something you don’t agree with.
Take at least one action each day were you push yourself and show who you really are in a social context. Then very briefly write this down and how you felt about it. This gives us the focus of accomplishing one thing daily, and the act of writing it down makes it concrete! Then in the end of the week, if you’d like, share it in the live weekly evaluation video. Friday Swedish time, lunch time – 12.00
I have no commercial gain or copyright rights to the videos I “borrow” some pieces of. The full videos can be found here: ( And I recommend you to watch them as well )
Imagine yourself not being controlled by other people’s opinions of you. To show up as, and act in accordance with, who you truly are in every situation, in every context. No paranoid thoughts to taint your mind. Trusting yourself enough to be vulnerable and exposed, because you know on such a fundamental level that this is when life happens, and this is the only way to be. Yourself. Wouldn’t that life be great?
You see, not only will it grow your self-esteem like crazy every time you act from a place within, not impacted by external factors and how you think the “world” would like you to act. But It will also release you from being addicted to confirmation and fitting in. It will enable you to truly belong to yourself, which opens up a world of belonging for real.
“You are only free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”
Not only is this the story the social scientist and author Brené Browns shares in her latest book ‘Braving the Wilderness’, but after looking at my own life through these new glasses the book gave me, it all makes so much sense to me. I’ve had to face the truth that I intentionally choose not to talk about things that is the most precise representation of who I am because of the fear I feel of what other people will think of me.
An example of this is the topic of my YouTube channel, which basically has been my life for the past 1,5 years. With friends, and work colleagues, I don’t go there often, because I’ve just realized, I’m a shamed of it. SHAME. Furthermore, I don’t dare top post all my stuff on Facebook, because I’m fearing other people’s judgement. I’m ruled by external factors I can’t controlled. Uncertainty. Fear. Judgement.
And this is not easy to admit, buried on a deep subconscious level, and it has required some serious self- consciousness to realize. But hiding such a fundamental piece of who I really am creates a sense of loneliness – at times. That’s why I can feel the furthest away from loneliness when I’m at home creating, and on the other side of the spectra be the loneliness person in the world at a social gathering I’d do anything to get out of. But it’s not those people’s faults. It’s a matter of taking responsibility for myself, my life.
When we spend time with people and not showing who we really are, that’s hiding. From ourselves, and from the world. And when we hide, loneliness is the result, even if we are surrendered by an infinite amount of persons. Or what we really seek – the solution – the need to belong.
“Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance…
…True belonging is not passive. It’s not the belonging that comes with just joining a group. It’s not fitting in or pretending or selling out because it’s safer. It’s a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are. We want true belonging, but it takes tremendous courage to knowingly walk into hard moments.”
But it’s not only a ‘desire to be part of something larger than us’, which deprives us from feeling joy, happiness and a sense of fulfilment. It will also increase the likelihood of you dying with 45 %. For me, that’s just such a huge motivational factor, being the health guy trying to increase my chances with food and training almost absurdly, and the realizing those things are only marginal impacting my health in contrast to feeling lonely. That’s just a game changer. But you have to look at what’s driving your motivation, and use that as fuel. Maybe you just want to enjoy hanging out with people without paranoid thoughts.
So how do we do this, ‘being our true selves’?
Just saying ‘be yourself’ won’t change things. We know that intuitively. Usually I do facing fear challenges, – working on facing our fears and push ourselves in social situation like approaching a girl and telling her she’s cute. Because this do relate to fear, in fact fear is just an expression that stops us from being who we are – or want to be! So that’s why we are strengthening this ‘being ourselves’ muscle every time we do these facing fear challenges.
But so, this week I want to aim the focus more into the people we are interfering with on a recurrent basis, the daily interactions with the people around us. Family, friends, work colleagues. Because it’s one thing to do it with strangers we are not so invested in – less to lose. But with friends and people we are going to see again, then we feel a greater cost of losing their view of us. The thought of people disliking us is tough, even more so if we must face them daily! And that’s why this week’s objectives are to remind ourselves of expressing our true selves in every single interaction we’ll have this week. ONE FOCUS, ONE OBJECTIVE.
Now both you and me now this won’t always play out this way. And that’s okay, you, me, we are enough as we are. But if strive for improvement, if we set out to at least try our very best and repetitive put in small actions that takes us a little bit closer to where we want to go, the results will come. Slowly, progressively, but it will come. And we will like it. It will open a new world, which will give us new glasses to look at the world with, or boots to walk in it. And that taste of life will create a positive spiral to make you want to keep doing this practice. But for now, in the beginning, it will require you – me – to turn on that fighting spirit! Because it will be so freaking scary and unconformable. But that’s the only way through, to the new world. The only way to start belonging to yourself, to the rest of the world, our world.
In order to remind ourselves trough the shit storm of everyday life that will happen, we are going to equip ourselves with a small token. I’m going to wear a bracelet that will be my visual que. You should try find something visual too; a bracelet, a ring or, perhaps the changing the wallpaper on your phone. Something that can remind you to get the focus back on what’s important this week!
So that’s it, that’s this week’s challenge. I owe it to myself to focus in on this, and I know this is the only way forward right now. This is a hurdle I need to overcome to grow in other areas of my life.
To further deepen my understanding of the topic I’m going to read the book the village by Susan Pink, which is the researcher that did the health and longevity studies on the effects of loneliness. And I’ll properly share the insights of that book in the coming weekly evaluation on Friday.
I’d love to hear if you have an easier time being true to yourself when your with strangers or with people in your surroundings?
Do you often feel alone? Is loneliness just something we’ve created as a result of the social norms or is it actually a fundamental human need we must satisfy?
Being an introvert, I love to be alone. And short micro moments of connection can last me long. But once and a while I get overflown with a feeling of loneliness after isolating myself for too long.
I If you look into the shame researcher Brené Brown’s latest book “Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone”. She differs one being alone and feeling alone, it will tell you that it’s far more dangerous to be alone, than it is to be smoking. Damn.
So, with a curiosity dying to be satisfied, my quest of the week is to deepen my understanding of the topic. Not only because I want to share it with you guys, but I need to find answers to adopt better to cop and adapt better with my own relationship to loneliness.
So the challenges of the week will be to read this book, and look into other sources, and try to share my take on it in the Friday live evaluation.
BUT, also, personal growth is mainly built through ACTION. That’s why I’m also taking on some facing fear challenges, doing at least one social push out of my comfort zone every day. However, I’m starting of this challenge with a big one, going out there in the real world, asking real people what their take on loneliness is. Now this is for sure going to result in some rejections, and that’s great! It’s Great because getting use to handle rejection is invaluable ability to have.
So if you’re up for some social challenges – commit to me in the comments and make this week become a week of personal growth.
Youtube video will be posted in the week!
See you in the next one,
/Alexander
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Check out my Rejection Therapy / Facing Fear Challenges:
Hey guys! In this video I talk about my personal experience to social hangover, being an introvert and how self-love proberbly can fix a lot of these things – Hence the challenge of the week is to get a understanding of how to practice self love. The objevctive of the week is to read the book Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It, by Kamal Ravikant, adn start practicing the ideas from it.
The book is only 8000 words long, and the audiobook only about an hour.
Everyone has a truth that they need to live and share. For the author, that truth was committing to the daily practice of repeating the phrase “I love myself.” When you love yourself, life loves you back.
Step 1: Mental Loop
A thought loop is a pathway laid down by constant use. With enough time and intensity, if you repeat it again and again, you start to create a mental river that controls you. You believe it is automatic and the reality you live in, but really it is just a mental loop you have repeated too many times.
You can reverse this process. You can create your own focused mental loops. Repeat, “I love myself” again and again and again. Lay the pathway for that loop to run over and over. Eventually, it will take hold whether you believe it or not.
You need to create a groove that is deeper than those unhappy and unhelpful grooves you’ve laid down over the years.
Step 2: Meditation
Each day, the author listens to a 7-minute piece of music that he likes and thinks, “I love myself.”
Pattern: Inhale > Think “I love myself” > Exhale > Let out whatever thoughts you have.
Step 3: Question
“If I love myself truly and deeply, would I let myself experience this?” The answer was always “no” for the author.
This question gently shifts your focus from wherever you are to self-love.
Can you say, “I’m in love” and have it simply be with yourself? Of course you can. If you love yourself, you naturally shine. You get a spring in your step and your smile comes out.
Beautiful irony: fall in love with yourself and naturally express yourself and the world will beat a path to your door to fall in love with you.
The more you think about it, the more you feel it, the stronger the memory. The more you recall something, the more it strengthens. The emotions you focus on are the same. The more you focus on negative aspects of your memory, the more they take control. They more you focus on the positive thoughts and loving yourself, the more they take control.
Most of what we fear is not useful and not real. When fear arises your job is to remind yourself of this. “Not useful. Not real. Continue on.”
Don’t let yourself coast when things are going great. “It’s easy to wish for your health when you’re sick. But you need to be just as vigilant when things are going great.”
If you love yourself truly and deeply, you’ll commit to the practice. You won’t get lazy when things are going well.
Loving yourself is like putting your oxygen mask on before helping the person next to you. Loving yourself softens your own ego. Fear hardens your ego. It’s easier to be helpful and kind when you love yourself.
Instead of reading loads of self-help books, we should just focus on one thing. Put all our energy toward that. And place a bet on one thing. For the author, that one thing is “I love myself.”
The one key that makes all of this work is this: make the vow. Make the commitment and make it on paper. Make the vow to yourself to live your truth. Write down whatever it is that speaks to you. The words don’t matter. Just make sure it comes from you and it is in your own words. That’s how the magic will happen.
If you have any questions, just hit me up down there in the comments and I’ll get back to you!
/Alexander
A video I strongly recommend you watch on the connection between Self- Love and Self-Esteem.