Stop listening to other people

When I was a young boy I always listened to my parents, my relatives, and my teachers. I think that was a good behaviour, dictated by my insecurities (bad) and my awareness of not knowing much (good).

I still think that kids and impulsive people should really understand how to stop acting on their own will and listen to wiser people’s advice. Too many bad things happen because of misjudgement or lack of reflection.

But there are many things that people and circumstances tell us: what we can do and what we can’t. I bet you can recognize situations in which somebody told you something you couldn’t do and you did not agree with that… those things are easy to spot. What I’m referring to are those beliefs that you don’t even doubt about: this is your life and it will always be like that, you’ll never be successful, you need something particular to be happy, and so on…

I’m not a guru, and I don’t wanna be one. But I want to tell you something. As always, I’m telling these things for me to listen to them, as I’m always struggling to internalize my own teachings.

I’m still not living the life that I’d like to live, not completely. I have a lot of things about myself to work on too. But looking back to the past, I can tell that many beliefs I had were so f*****g wrong and toxic. Here are some examples:

• I was told that I wasn’t good at all in physical activities. After a few years I was appointed “Athlete of the year” in my high school.
• I’ve always seen myself as a very shy guy (and that’s actually pretty accurate). Now people don’t believe me when I tell them I’m actually a shy introvert that’s not really comfortable in social situations, ’cause it doesn’t seem so!
• I was told I’m not good at singing (and I actually still believe that). Yet several people during the last years complimented me.
• I know my ex boss was telling that after a few months on my own business I would have came back to get my old job back. 6 years now. Fuck you.
• I thought that if some important relationships would have ended, my life would have been sad. The opposite happened.

This list of self-celebration is actually a good exercise that you can do to build a little bit of self esteem, to understand that things are not actually as the world make you thing they are, and that you were already able to reverse some situations that you simply didn’t like. What else can you do?

So, please, stop to believe all those bullshits you (and other people) tell yourself.