Episode Description
Be unapologetically you – Break free from societal pressures and own your extraordinary!
Show Notes
Be unapologetically you – Break free from societal pressures and celebrate your unique journey!
I learned about external societal pressures through conversations I had with people, what I saw going on online, and the episode of the Samantha Leith podcast. We often internalize these external pressures, thinking that we are flawed or broken, when in reality, it is the system that is broken. The pandemic allowed us to take a break from these pressures, like keeping up with the Joneses or making sure we look a certain way. We shouldn’t compare ourselves to others and instead focus on what we want and what makes us happy. We should make decisions that make us happy instead of allowing society to pressure us into doing something.
“Have the courage to be who you want to be, doing it the way you want to do it.”
In this episode, you will learn the following:
- How has the pandemic granted us a “get out of jail free card” from societal pressures and comparisonitis?
- How is the world of external messaging making us feel “not enough” or “not worthy”?
- How can we make sure that we are making changes to ourselves and our lives for our own benefit and not due to external messaging?
Chapter Summaries:
[00:00:09]
Samantha League podcast, episode 18. Yay, 18. What a great year in our lives when you’re becoming an adult. And my daughter is 17 and we’re starting to have so many more conversations about what that greater next part of her life is going to entail.
[00:00:47]
Sometimes we feel not good enough. We feel like we’re flawed or we’re broken in some way. I want to stress to you and have this conversation with you until you assure you even that you’re not broken. The only way to live is to work for yourself and have your own business.
[00:06:46]
We look to out the external world and then internalize it as we’re not good enough. If we’re going to talk trends, I’d encourage you at any point to not follow trends that are particularly body based. Always be wary, especially those kind of trends.
You’re listening to the Samantha Leith podcast, episode 18. Yay, 18. What a great year in our lives when you’re becoming an adult and you’re all of a sudden got your sight together and you know what you’re doing and where you’re going and oh, no, hang on, that Sony and movies really, isn’t it? We’ve got no idea at 18. Interestingly.
And my daughter is 17 and we’re starting to have so many more conversations about what that greater next part of her life is going to entail. And she’s wiser than I was at that age, and I thought I was wise. Whole other story. Today’s, just a little bit of a chitchat episode. Had many conversations recently with people about things, part of this topic and also with what I’ve been seeing going on online. And I just want to stress to you and have this conversation with you until you assure you even that you’re not broken. The system is.
HOW HAS THE PANDEMIC GRANTED US A “GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD” FROM SOCIAL PRESSURES AND COMPARISONITIS?
Honestly, I think, COVID. The pandemic gave us this almost a get out of jail free card or a bit of a buffer from societal pressures like the keeping up with the Joneses or making sure I’m doing this or looking like that, or I’ve finished this or I’ve created this, or ticket boxes as you go. We kind of eased off the breaks a little bit. Well, I know for myself I did, and for many people I know, that was our experience. We lost a little bit of that comparisonitis also that we’d been going through really a lot, especially in the online world.
Oh, they’ve put out this product. I’ve got to put out that product. They’re going to this show. I’ve got to go to this show. They’ve got that suit.
I need that suit. And they’ve asked us that size. My ass needs to be that size. All of these things that are external, that make us and look at ourselves and go, somehow I’m flawed. And I don’t think it matters often how much work you’ve actually done on believing that you’re not flawed and that you’re perfect just the way you are.
Sometimes these things still seep in. It’s a bit like, I’m sure you’ve all heard the story of the frog and boiling water. And if you put the frog and boiling water, straight away, the frog is going to go, what the hell, and jump out of that water really, really quickly. But if you put the frog in nice cool water and you swim it around, go and rive it, slowly but surely, the temperature just gets going up and up and up and up and up. Eventually it’s going to boil and not notice.
HOW IS THE WORLD OF EXTERNAL MESSAGING MAKING US FEEL “NOT ENOUGH” OR “NOT WORTHY”?
And I think that’s what a lot of this stuff, and I’m using inverted commas here, going on in the world does to us. It just slowly seeps in and then all of a sudden we feel not good enough. We feel secondary. We feel like we’re flawed or we’re broken in some way. I want to highlight recently there’s been a whole lot of stuff going on with Sam Smith.
Now, I think Sam Smith is a phenomenal artist and they have recently been going, I’m just loving who I am. I’m going to show the world who I am. And they are wearing corsetry and nipple covers and great music. And if you haven’t listened to the jewelry he doesn’t they do rather. So I apologize.
They do? With Ed Sheeran. You must do. It is absolutely beautiful, isn’t it? These guys.
I’m actually singing it and my next gig, it’s stunning. Anyway, totally got sidetracked there. They have been putting themselves out there and you can see it in their eyes and hear it in their music that they are loving life and who they are. Then they get slammed on social media about what they’re wearing, about their messaging, about what they’re doing. And if there had been a tall, sexy, blonde chick wearing the same outfit, singing the same song with the same nipple covers, no one would have said a word.
And I’ve actually got nothing against Harry Styles, and I think it’s been brilliant that Harry Styles has been bringing a lot of femininity into his work and been changing up what he wears and shows and throwing on a skirt and things like that. But there was a photo comparison of something that wasn’t that dissimilar to something Sam had done and no one said the same terrible things about Harry. But we live in a society where there is still homophobia and satisfobia and then we go into the thing. We have gender dysphoria ourselves or we have body dysmorphia and there’s racial inequality. There’s so many things going on and all this noise that we take in makes us sometimes feel not enough or not worthy or that we’re broken or that we need to do better.
Going back into more of my world’s, entrepreneurial world, I have a friend who recently got an amazing contract offer and they’re taking it, which is incredible, which is great. So yay, team, go for it. It really suits them. I know other people that have gone from struggling as side hustlers and oh, you know, everyone says the only way to live is to work for yourself and have your own business and run your own show. Some people are born for that.
So they struggle and struggle and struggle, feeling imperfect, flawed, not worthy, not good enough. All those words I’m going to keep saying throughout this episode because they think that’s what everyone else is doing, so that’s what they have to be doing. And then one day they go, it’s too hard, it’s too hard. They’ve beaten themselves up too many times, they get a job and they’re happier. They’re great employees.
HOW CAN WE MAKE SURE THAT WE ARE MAKING CHANGES TO OURSELVES AND OUR LIVES FOR OUR OWN BENEFIT AND NOT DUE TO EXTERNAL MESSAGING?
Everybody in business needs great employees. The world doesn’t need everybody to be in business. Get me? Two of the ones I want to highlight at the moment. But there are so many more ways in which we look to out the external world and then we internalize it as we’re not good enough. I know I do it myself with I’ve done it for many years, on and off with my body or my business.
I’m a singing or insert whatever it is I’m working on at the time. And now I have to ask myself the question when I’m starting to feel that twinkle of doubt of, no, I’m not quite there, I have to ask myself, but am I me? Am I happy doing what I’m doing or wearing what I’m wearing or saying what I’m saying or whatever it is that I’m struggling with in that particular moment? How does that feel to me? Take the noise away, not start thinking, oh, my God, but X, Y and Z has just made so much more money than me and their funnel is so much better.
I’ve got to change my funnel. But hang on, am I happy with my funnel? If I’m happy with my funnel, don’t change my funnel. It might just be that I want to do things a little bit differently. And I know we can’t shut off from the world.
This is not me saying, you just got a drink of water. You need to shut off from the world and not listen to all the noise and just be you, because you can’t shut off all the noise. We don’t live in solitary confinement. We live in a world where we have millions of messages coming to us every single day. Visually, auditory, auditorily, I’m going to say that word wrong.
You know what I mean? It’s everywhere. The messaging is everywhere that there’s this ideal of what we need to be or who we need to be. Just take for women listening to this podcast, if we were to look at our bodies over our lifetimes I’m 49 in a couple of months, and everything’s been in fashion or I’ve been alive. There’s been heroin chic, there’s been the curse, there’s been the big butts of the Kardashian era.
There’s been a really, really, really thin eyebrows when I was in school, and without even knowing it. This is actually quite funny. I remember going to places with my friends to get their eyebrows plucked and waxed at the time when we were in school, and they’d get it done and they’re like, oh, yes, I want this thin brow. I can’t even remember the names of the models at the time, but they all had these really thin brows. And I’d be like, no, I like my big brows.
I like getting them shaped, but I like having big brows because round face, I like the way my big brows look. I like making them look stronger, etc. I had no idea at the time that that was me making that little tiny step towards being okay with who I was and actually thinking about what I wanted and what I liked, as opposed to what the world told me I should do. And 30 years later, I’ve now got friends that are madly putting that growing stuff on their eyebrows to get more hair, or they’re getting them tattooed and things like that because they overplucked them so much, because that was the trend at the time.
If we’re going to talk trends, I’d encourage you at any point to not follow trends that are particularly body based, because the ramifications for that on your mental health and your physical health are extreme. You can take an exercise habit and ease or food habit and easily turn it into a disorder if it goes too far. So always be wary, especially those kind of trends. A trend of a new shape heal and you actually kind of like it. Go for it.
I have to think, if you went to an art gallery anywhere in the world, you walk through the gallery and you look at the walls and you can see, even though we’re inundated now, you can actually see that throughout history, this messaging has still been there. You look at just the portraits of women over the centuries, and their body shapes have changed. And then you look at the 20th century, women’s body shapes changed what they had to do with careers, changed how they acted, changed how they saw themselves changed. It’s always going to change. They’re always going to be the messages from everywhere for all of us.
So I just want to encourage you, and I know this might just be a bit chit chatty, this episode, but that’s what I want it to be. There’s no task for you to do. I don’t want you to download a worksheet and get to work getting something done, because I don’t want you to think you need to fix anything. You don’t. You’re not broken the system that continually has us thinking that we would be better with or better for or better than if we did something or added something or changed something.
That’s what’s broken. I promise you, the most successful you can be in whatever it is you want to do in life and whatever part of you it is that you may want to do some work on, the only way for you to be successful in any of it is to do it the way that’s truly in your heart right for you. We wouldn’t have an Oprah if she had always sat there and gone, oh, no, I just better do what everyone’s telling me I should do. We wouldn’t have her. We wouldn’t have many people because they had the courage to actually stand strong and be who they wanted to be, doing it the way they wanted to do it.
So today, if you’re looking at yourself in the mirror or thinking about what you do for a job or what you’re wearing, and think, my life would be better if I did it like so and so. Stop and ask yourself, is what you’re doing what you really want to be doing for yourself? And if it is, then I’m going to be clapping you from the sidelines going, Hell, yeah. Now, it’s not to say you can’t change or inverted commas. I’m looking to use inverted commas.
Just improve things about yourself the way you want to do. If you want to get healthier, get healthier because you want to get healthier. If you want to change your hair and change your hair. If you want to change your job, change your job. Do it because you want to do it, not because of all this messaging telling you that you’re going to be a better person for doing it.
Okay, have a wonderful week, my friends, and chat to you next week. Bye.
Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Samantha Leith Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and wanna dive deeper into the world of personal development and what’s possible for you, then I’d love to invite you to join the club. It’s my monthly membership designed to guide and support you with the tools and the coaching you need to be extraordinary. Head on over to samanthaleith.com/theclub for more information. I’d love to see you on the inside.