How to not care about what other people think

Hi sweethearts,

Today it's my birthday so I thought it'd be fun to share some things with you guys, things I've learned lately. I'm feeling like giving back to you, since you guys already gave so much to me. So here are a couple of life lessons for you. The general theme is about caring less about what other people think of you (online). This will empower you and make you a lot stronger.

First of all; accept that not everyone is going to like you. When being active on social media, it's easy to create some kind of character. Never use this persona as an actual reference to who you are. On social media you can't show everything of your personality.

And in the real world, it's just a fact that not everyone is going to like you. You can be kind to all, but please don't be fake. Just be you, work on some flaws but find a balance in accepting flaws and working on them. Especially the superficial parts.

For working on yourself, you have to like yourself first. This only can be quite a struggle. It means that you have to accept who you are and what your situation is. How to do that, is an entire different subject. I"ve blogged about this before though!

Being on the social media, I've learned a lot about letting go hatred. I had to deal with a lot of negative comments before. One thing I've learned is to not reply on bad comments on social media. It's just not worth it. You can give people advice or opinions but to be honest, even that isn't easy online. You're missing out on a lot of context. First of all, you can't see how people are saying these things. It might be meant to be humoristic, but you can't read the face of the person writing this... so you have no idea about the emotion behind the comment. Also, I don't care about opinions from people that I don't know. I don't know their intentions and I don't know how these people usually express their feelings. I'm missing the context... And without context, I can't put things into perspective. This will usually lead to me getting mad.

Another lesson here is that when people post hate or say hateful things to you- they're a lot of times projecting. It's better not to reply, to be the bigger person. And if you feel like commenting, make sure that there is a lesson to learn for them, from this situation. Maybe you can respond with asking why they're saying hateful things, that it's hurting you. When saying what you actually feel, people will hopefully feel more empathic afterwards and maybe it'll make them think twice about posting these bad comments. Being online and saying bad things online is easy, you don't know the people and you don't have to deal with their feelings afterwards. With expressing your feelings, you make it a lot harder for haters...to hate!

What we need to learn, in general is to stay super kind. Being the bigger person is always the best option. This is something I'm learning all of my clients at work too. To be honest, this is super hard to do and I don't even succeed at it all the time. But I'm working on it. When you inspire the other person, rather than throw back hatred in their face, as told before, it's easier to let them learn about this situation. What also works is when the situation is heating up, is to show the reaction that they're not expecting. You need to be even extra kind. This will shock them and maybe even make them feel bad. The didn't succeed at bringing you down.. And you've shown them that you as a person are stronger.

Something else I want to talk about is perfectionism. We really need to relativate everything around us. All those photoshopped-instaperfect travelphotos, are not reality. We need to let go perfectionism. You can edit your instashots, but you can't edit your personality. Not everything always needs to be perfect. It's okay to mess up things sometimes. It's also okay to post shots that aren't perfect.. Maybe you're posting the shot because it's a beautiful memory.. or it was a beautiful moment... maybe not perfectly captured but that's okay too!

And if you don't want to care about what people think of yourself, maybe it's time for you to stop overfocussing on yourself als well. To not really care about things means to let things go too.

Another important lesson is to not focus on your physical appearance but to focus on your inner growth. I gave up caring about my physical appearance and this felt so liberating. I ofcourse like to dress up and feel pretty but that doesn't mean that I have to be perfectly dressed all the time. I blogged before about how to look beautiful without makeup... and I still believe in what I wrote there.

Looking beautiful doesn't have to be something you see on the outside. It's a cliché that beauty is on the inside but it's the truth. When you feel confident, your inner beauty shows on the outside too. You smile more, you spread more joy and you just glow! Stop looking at yourself all the time. A mirror is no reflection of who you are. It's only a reflection of a small part of yourself.

X Steph!