Other people’s feelings are not your problem

I recently reflected on why it’s important for women to stop feeling guilty for choosing ourselves. Throughout a big part of my life, that guilt (often doubled with shame, anxiety, or fear) stood in the way of what I really wanted.

It kept me small. Silent. Like it does with so many other women. And for good reason.

We’ve been conditioned to think that we must bear the weight of the world on our shoulder, and do so with a smile, simply because it comes with the territory of being a woman. However – as I reflected in my previous article, incorporating values, and nurturing healthy boundaries will call on you to take responsibility for your own life, to demand more for yourself, to have more self-respect, and ensure that others do not trample on it.

These rituals will lead you to realize that while it’s your responsibility to control your emotions and direct your life down the path you want it to go, it’s not your responsibility to do the same for anyone else. This will be a hard concept for many women to grasp, but as you grow into self-love and self-trust it will become easier.

When you enforce your boundaries, you take your power back.

You’re not Superwoman. Your duty isn’t to save the world. It’s not even to save your loved ones. Your duty – if ever there was one – is to be a caring and loving human. That’s all anyone could ask for. Even so, in the past, I often felt it was my responsibility to be the everything of the people in my private, and professional life. Perhaps you do to…

Making sure everyone around you is happy – at all times
Show the world how capable, reliable, always willing to help you are.
Never come across as too busy, or too tired
Especially not when you are – in fact – exhausted, stressed out, ready for a really long nap.

As you commit yourself to living your truths – making your own decisions, pursuing your dreams, creating your own path – you’re going to upset some people. In fact, you’re going to upset A LOT of people, especially if what you’re going for is bold and unimaginable to them. That’s precisely when you have to remind yourself: how others feel about who you are, the way you live your life, or what your dreams are is not your business.

You are not in charge of other people’s feelings.

Like me, you may have been socialized to believe that as a woman you exist to bring some kind of joy, support, care (insert expectation of choice here) to others, based on the roles society has tried to box you into. Understanding that you’re not responsible for anyone’s happiness but your own is a liberating experience. Often we don’t realize how the people around us suck the joy out of us when you overextend ourselves for them, breaking our back to be at their every beck and call. Living this way will drain you. I know, because I’ve been there.

It may take some time for people to come around to the fact they’re not somebody else’s problem but their own. In some cases they never will, and you’ll have to walk away, or see them leave when you no longer *make them happy* (in my experience often used as code speak to say you’re no longer able or willing to cater to their every need). Again, believe me, I know.

How to stop making other people’s feelings your responsibility?

• When people start demanding that you do things their way or blame you for how they feel or how their lives are, you don’t need to respond to them. This is a hard one for any people-pleaser, isn’t it? So if you feel the urge to go there, the conversation should be about boundaries, personal responsibility, and freedom. Not about what they need from you, or how you’re lacking in giving it to them. Because, well, it’s NOT your responsibility.

• Sometimes when people ask unreasonable things of you and have grandiose expectations, you may become so overwhelmed that you simple react instead of respond. It can help to ask yourself some questions: is what they’re asking something you would expect them to do for you? Is it fair to yourself to say yes when you know you should (and totally could) say no?

• When you’re being tested, remember to breathe and allow your emotions to flow through you. Oftentimes you’ll feel guilt, shame, or fear when you’re being put on the spot for someone else’s feelings. Don’t fixate on any thought. Instead, give yourself time to process what’s happening, and simply *pause*. It’s important to guard your heart and protect your soul. After all, you are YOUR OWN responsibility.

Not making other people’s feelings your responsibility requires courage, dedication, and discipline. I’ve been practicing this kind of detachment for a long time, yet I still fall back into my old ways so easily. Affirming my boundaries and being true to myself helps me to bounce back quickly, and recognize the signs when guilt or shame show up.

In the end, what works best is to remind ourselves that we’re responsible for how we’re feeling. Nothing more. But always.

Making that your priority will be so liberating. I promise

I’d love to what your experience has been with other people’s feelings. Let me know in the comments below.

5 mindset shifts to help you stop being a good girl (and harness your inner badass instead)

Over the past few months, as my coaching business has really started to take off, I’ve found myself coaching and mentoring more and more women to help them go for what they want in life, and grow their businesses. While I’ve witnessed the incredible results these amazing women have created for themselves I’ve also taken note of what I believe is a deeply ingrained pattern common to almost all women: our need to be good girls. Something I believe is holding many women back from going after their most cherished dreams, and creating amazing lives for themselves.

I know this pattern very well because for the biggest part of my life I was a good girl too.

When being a good girl sucks

Whatever the situation, I would always be more concerned about the well-being of others than my own, worrying about what other people thought of me but certainly not about what I really thought of them! I would feeling inadequate, never good enough, and I would put myself under exhausting levels of stress by setting unattainable standards of perfection for myself.

As a result…

• I lived a big part of my life for others and not me,

• I struggled with severe anxiety, worry, and fear,

• I missed out on a lot of things I wanted to do,

• I attracted the wrong people into my life,

• I didn’t love myself.

Good girls are bad for business

But those are only a few of the many issues I experienced from trying to be a good girl all the time. Because to be a good girl you’re forced to suppress your authentic self, and your desires there are many more downsides to it. Like losing sight of who you really are, of not having any boundaries. And that’s without counting all the struggles I had in my career, and my businesses. And that perhaps you’re experiencing too. Like:

• Earning way less than my equal male counterparts because I simply didn’t ask for more,

• Letting interesting contracts slip my fingers because I didn’t want to look greedy,

• Unhappy clients because I failed to set clear boundaries,

• Hiring mediocre team members because I believed I didn’t deserve better,

• More than 15 years building a career, and businesses I didn’t really like.

Whether you’re struggling with being a good girl in your private or professional life doesn’t really matter, at the end of the day trying to please everyone never works, and it will end up making you feel miserable.

There’s an inner badass in all of us

It’s hard to chase your dreams, and go after what you want when you’re always putting other people first. It’s even harder to build a career, or a business. Believe me – on all accounts, I know. I’ve been there. Being a good girl keeps you from having what you want. That’s why it’s time for a mindset shift so that you can harness your inner super woman instead. She’s the one you want making decisions in your life, because she’s the one who has your back, isn’t afraid to speak up, and knows what you truly want.

So in what follows, I list the five main mindset shifts I made to go from always trying to be a good girl to become the much more at peace, self-loving, and self-confident woman I am today.

With those mindset shifts I became much happier, and fulfilled. Absolutely. But they were also instrumental for my career, and business success. Through them:

• I fell in love with myself, and my message,

• I created new, heart-centered, and profitable businesses that work for me,

• I attracted the right people in my life,

• I set strong and clear boundaries both in my private life, and in my business,

• and I became very clear about who I am, what my desires are, and what I stand for.

Mindset shift #1:
Turning not feeling good enough into I am more than enough – and stop the hopeless strive for perfection

When you’re a good girl, it’s easy to feel like you’re not good enough. In fact, that’s precisely what being a good girl does for you. You have your own dreams, and desires but the world keeps telling you to be a totally different human being, with wants and needs that are not your own.

The truth is, we all think we’re not good enough sometimes. It’s one of the most basic fears we all share – women especially. A mindfulness teacher once told me that I am not my thoughts. An absolutely liberating concept for me, that’s been helping me to put things into perspective ever since.

So first recognize that what you think does not define you, a.k.a. that you are not your thoughts! Accept that you have desires of your own, and that you are worth pursuing them. Then try to shift your focus outward instead of keeping it on you. Whatever it is your undertaking, think of what good it will bring into the world, the people you’re helping with it, the difference you will make instead of thinking you might not be up for the job. What you’re creating is the proof that you’re more than enough just as you are. And finally, choose progress over perfection. If you wait for that absolutely perfect moment where you’ll feel totally ready before doing anything, you’ll end up waiting for it your entire life. That moment will never come, simply because perfection does not exist. We all know this, yet we have such a hard time acting on it. But once you do you’ll have a much easier time believing you’re more than good enough, which in turn will help you overcome your need to be perfect all the time.

Mindset shift #2:
Moving from yes into no – and finally have a clue about healthy boundaries

When you’re a good girl, it’s hard to know where you start, and where you end. For a long time I didn’t have a clear set of boundaries. Not in my private life, and not in my businesses. The result of that was that I often pushed myself outside the limits of what felt comfortable for me in my relationship with others, and that I accepted way more than I should have. In my personal life this caused a lot of heartache, in my business it was exhausting, especially with demanding clients.

Once I embraced saying no rather than saying yes, really became clear on the things I would not accept, my life became so much easier, and my businesses really took off.

Mindset shift #3:
Ditching your fear of conflict for a passion for collaboration – and finally stop being afraid to upset anyone

When you’re a good girl, conflict is the last thing that you want. Because if anyone is mad at you, that means you’re not being as good as you’re supposed to be. So you try your hardest to avoid upsetting anyone, even when it goes against your own best interest. But because of this you’re not living up to your own dreams, and certainly not getting what you want.

The point is that all relationships you’ll have with other people will at some point include conflict. We’re all different, and come with our own set of beliefs, values, things we want to achieve. So when you’re looking after yourself, upsetting someone else is bound to happen at one point or another. The trick is not to avoid conflict (like I tried to do for so long), but to embrace it, then transform it. To do that you need to show up as your authentic self. Because when you come from an honest, authentic place, meeting the other person in the middle, there’s a much better chance you’ll both get out of it without being upset.

Of course this is not something you’ll learn to do overnight. But the more you practice standing up for yourself, and expressing your needs, the more it will start to feel a natural part of you, and the less guilt or shame you’ll feel when stepping out of the good girl persona.

Mindset shift #4:
Transform putting everyone else first into becoming your own champion – and never putting yourself last again

When you’re a good girl, it’s easy to forget your own needs in favor of the needs of everyone else on the planet. No wonder, since that’s exactly what being a good girl is. The problem is that by always putting yourself last, it becomes much harder to achieve anything. Because there simply isn’t any time, or energy left to do so.

Rita Pierson gave a beautiful talk about why every kid needs a champion. I totally agree with her. But I also believe that every good girl needs to be her own champion as well. Good girl Uni teaches women to care for others, but not for ourselves. It tells them to root for the success of everyone, except their own. Or worse, to find satisfaction in the success of others, but not their own. The only way for good girls to abandon that mindset is to start championing themselves.

Learning to give yourself the attention, the care, and the love that you so freely give others is essential to harness your inner super woman. Again, she’s the one who’ll help you reach your goals, and achieve the success you want. Not the good girl.

Mindset shift #5:
Going from never expressing what you think to saying what you really want – and finally knowing what that is   

When you’re a good girl, you learn early on that saying what you think is a big no-no. You’re thought that there’s things to say, and things not to say. That accommodating others is more important than expressing what you really mean, because you don’t want to offend anyone right?

So the final mindset shift I want to address might well be the most important one: saying what you really want. Even if you set healthy boundaries for yourself, learn to say no, believe deeply that you’re good enough… if you’re unable to express what you really want you won’t actually get it. I know that saying what you stand for, expressing your thoughts can be really scary, especially if you’re used to being a good girl. It took me a long time to get there, and I still struggle with it sometimes. But I’ve come to believe there’s not really any other way to be, if you want to harness your inner super woman. It takes practice, and a bit of courage too. But the more you do it the better it will feel, and the more rewarding it will be.

That’s it for this one. Now it’s your turn. In the comments below let me what mindset shifts have made a difference in your life, and career or business. What big a-has do you live by? I’d really love to know.

5 effective ways to overcome your need for approval

For a very long time in my life, and for as far back as I can remember, I was always looking for people’s approval. After years of introspection and learning how to love myself, though, and overcome the hardship I had been through growing up, I was able to let go of that constant need for someone else to approve of my life.

If you’re anything like I was, you are longing for a different life, one in which you are sure of yourself, and where your intuition tells you where to go and how to get there, as well as one where other people’s opinions of you don’t matter that much – or even at all.

I’m proof that such a life is possible, and I know that you too can have it. Yes, it can be hard, and yes, it requires you to dig deep into yourself, but believe me: the rewards outweigh the effort a thousand fold.

On my personal journey to self-love, digging deep into myself, I learned a few effective ways to overcome this constant need for approval that I had lived with for so many years. And today I’m sharing what I learned with you.

1. Be attentive and notice your behavior.

The first step towards any change is taking an account of where you are now. To change your need for approval, it’s vital that you take note of when that behavior occurs and how. Try to be conscious about your actions throughout the day, and for a few days this week; take a few minutes at night to review your day and write down all that you’ve noticed about your approval-seeking behavior. Reflect and think of ways to avoid or change that behavior. And when you feel ready, start the process of change by putting some of those ideas into action.

2. Ask your friends and family for support.

When you have become more aware of your approval-seeking behavior, think of someone you are willing to confide in and ask for accountability when it comes to the changes you are trying to make in your life. Tell that person what your findings are and what you want for yourself, and ask them to help you by monitoring your behavior around them. When doing this, it’s important to also tell them how you want them to let you know what they notice – and ask them to only be positive, loving, and encouraging, but never punitive or negative, as this could in fact increase your needs for approval instead of helping you to move forward.

3. Rewire your brain.

One of the main things that helped me get out of my approval-seeking behavior was focusing on actively rewiring my brain. Through practices such as meditation, visualization, and yoga, I have realized that we are capable of changing our thought patterns and our beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world around us. This knowledge was a key element in getting me from a place of fear and unhappiness to the wholehearted and true life which I live now. Going back to step one, take a look at the list of your more prominent approval-seeking behaviors. For each of them, write down the belief that is causing the behavior. Once you have done this, rewrite the belief into a positive affirmation. Make a habit of going over your list on a daily basis – I do it every morning right before my morning meditation – and feel your brain change as a result of this habit.

Here’s an example from my own list.
Approval-seeking behavior: When someone does something or says something that hurts me, I keep it to myself.
Negative belief: If I speak up, people won't like me.
Positive affirmation: I'm a very likeable person. When people do or say something that hurts me I owe it to myself to speak up.

4. What’s the worse that could happen?

With the need for approval comes a lot of fear. Before I learned to really love myself, my life was filled with fear. I was scared of almost everything and everyone, and most of all, of myself. I was constantly on the look-out for people getting mad at me, and so I was trying to keep myself as small as possible around others in order to avoid conflict at all costs. But one day, I couldn’t do this anymore. I was sick of the mask I was wearing and I needed to let go of all pretenses and just be me. While I was on my path to self-love, there was a question that wouldn’t let go of me. Over and over, I heard myself say: What’s the worst that could happen? Finally, I decided to answer that question, and when I did, I realized that whatever might come my way, it wasn’t nearly as bad as living a life of pretenses.

5. Practice, practice, practice.

After I realized that the worst that could happen to me wasn’t all that scary after all, I set out to test this new version of the world. Whatever I had to do, and whomever I was going to interact with, I decided I was going to be as true to myself as I could be, not thinking about the consequences and just seeing what would happen. I called this my experiments. From that moment on I would tell my friends when I felt our relationship was out of balance and I wasn’t getting my share of the friendship. Or only say yes to things I really wanted to. The results where liberating! Of course, some people didn’t like the new me. But most where supportive and even grateful that I was finally being the real me. Thanks to practicing being the real me so much, I was quickly able to create a new mental library of positive experiences that made my fears and my need for approval slowly but surely fade away. And the process to get there was fun and engaging, too. The more I allowed myself to be me, the more I attracted cool people into my life. As a result, new friendships were made, existing ones were deepened, and a new sense of happiness, love, and compassion for the world emerged.

I hope I’ve been able to inspire you. If so, I would encourage you to pick something you want to work on today, and take off the mask to let the real you shine bright. You are beautiful and amazing. You don’t need to be perfect. You are just right the way you are.

And if you feel like it, let me know how you’re doing below – I would love to hear from you.

May you love yourself unconditionally, always.