I’ve been opening my laptop over and over and achieving nothing. I’m not in love with this blog right now. I’ve lost my mojo and my momentum. I think most bloggers must go through this. Almost 2 whole years in, I’ve been doing this for a while. And hearing statistics like most blogs don’t last more than 6 months, makes me proud. Proud enough to battle through and write something.

I know the only pressure to keep to my schedule comes from me and I am happy with letting it slide but because I’m busy, not because I’m being lazy. I reckon if I write about something that has been playing on my mind recently, I might get something decent down, so the subject is…me. Obvs. This is my blog!

To be more specific, how I perceive myself and how I think others perceive me. I’ve always just worn what I wanted and had my hair like I wanted. I’ve had enough confidence to do that. I, at least, know what I needed to do to feel like myself. But as much as I had that part of things down, I would always worry about what people thought when they saw me. As I’ve gotten older, it’s lessened because I realise that I have no control over what other people think.

I could rock up somewhere styled exactly the same as the person next to me and an onlooker could have different reactions to both of us. They’re life experiences, the things they’ve done, places they’ve been, people they’ve known, will shape how they experience me. I have zero control over that. A stranger could describe the perfect person for them, how they look, how they act, every little detail. I could force myself to become this perfect person and still be wrong in their eyes.

So why try to force myself into a little box to try to escape other people’s perception of me? Why worry about what someone else thinks? It’s so easy in this day and age to do things that aren’t healthy for your self-esteem in the hope it will bring acceptance from other people. At the end of the day, you are the only person that needs to accept you. And no one on this planet is so weird and different and unusual that there isn’t someone out there for you to be a friend, a confidante, a partner. It may be hard to find them, but they are out there if you’re open to looking.

There is no one thing you can do to just remove the anxiety and stress that comes from worrying about what other people think or what you think. It takes time. Repeating to yourself positive words. Faking it until you make it. Change takes time. And if you’re really down on yourself, it takes a lot of time.

Ultimately, you have to be who you are, wear what you want, say what you feel. There are times where that’s easier said than done, times when it is inappropriate, spaces where you don’t feel comfortable, around new people, around people who know the old you. But that’s okay. Sometimes you have to pick your battles because you won’t win or you will win but the damage it does to you isn’t worth it.

It would be so easy to just say “I don’t give a flying f**k.” That is the ultimate goal but is there anyone who is so sure of themselves that they can say that in every situation? I’m not sure. Self love is a term that’s thrown about like crazy these days and maybe it’s a trend. But it’s a trend that makes you think about who you are and what you need to do to make you happy. Not all trends are useless. Spending all day worrying about what other people think is not going to get you to that place.

Plus the stress is going to give you worry lines which will only make you look worse! Ha! Kidding.

Just not caring is not something you can switch on or off. However, you can dull the voices of doubt and criticism by just not listening to them as much, tuning them out to the level of a dull hum in the background. Give yourself a damn break and just be you. It’s so much easier. Conform to your own standards. Have your own kind of happy. Love yourself and every little positive (and negative) thing that brings.

Basically, I could have compressed this post into the next ten words – Don’t worry about the haters and just do you, boo!

But I like words…(shameless link to my other blog!)

Let’s keep growing together!

(And that was pretty painless, another post down, the blog lives!!!)

xx Lee xx

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