Author Rachel Hollis stated one of my favorite quotes in her book Girl Wash Your Face:
Someone else’s opinion of me is none of my business.
Do you know how freeing it is to say that? Do you also know how difficult it is for me to believe that? One of my passions and what I spend my free time doing is motivational speaking. For a long time, I thought my ability to attract an audience to hear me speak was based solely on influencing the way people see me, also known as their opinion of me. I was focused on representing an image and a brand that would be appealing to the largest demographic of people. In creating that brand, I lost sight of my opinion of myself and began to solitarily focus on other people’s opinion of me. I lost sight of the fact that people came to hear me speak because of who I already am, not who I want people to think I am.
Over the past 2 years, I have focused on re-branding not who I think I am, but who I know I am. I started focusing on being authentically myself. Being open and honest with the fact, that I am quite literally the only me out there, and if someone has a problem with that, well then that’s their opinion and it is really none of my business. If you’re like me, a chronic people pleaser you will waste hours of your life striving to be the perfect version of yourself that will cause the least amount of negative backlash. FRIEND… take it from me, let that go! Be you! Who in the hell cares about being perfect, when you can just be the only version of you that could ever exist.
Now don’t go cursing people out and losing your mind because you just don’t care. Instead, care about sharing who you are with those around you. So how exactly do you do that? How do you stop caring about people’s opinions of you and focusing on your authenticity? With time and practice. Every time you think to yourself “oh I wonder what she/he will think of me” or “I saw him/her do it this way maybe I should change the way I am doing this”, I want you to challenge yourself to boldly say in your head or even out loud “I have got this. This is about me and nobody else. I will not let anyone’s opinion of me take away from the amazing, authentic beautiful person God has created me to be. I will listen to what I think is best.”
The more you can have your own “I am the only me” mantra, the more you will be able to discern what is truly best for you and what will drive your success and greatness. You have the power and control to be the best version of you. The version of you that is open, honest, sometimes insecure, funny, makes mistakes, sometimes talks too loud, sometimes screws up royally, but is always you and only you.
