You have probably heard of the phrase – you are the average of five people you spend time with – (if you hadn’t it, well you know now 😀)
Now, it would be awesome if we each had a choice to select these 5 people – I would have probably chosen 5 introverts and we would be huddled in our own corner of the room with nose buried in a lovely book and probably not talking to each other – LOL!!! And if I had more control, we would probably be in Hogwarts playground under a well-shaded tree immersed in some book.
Unfortunately, it is not always in our control and it is not always possible to do that in real life.
When I was going through some rough time , one of the key mistakes I kept making is – I put a lot of weight on the voices from few people – and the voices unfortunately were constantly putting me down. I did eventually realized why they were doing that – and for most part – they were simply projecting their own insecurities on me or they lacked the knowledge.
The hardest part was – I felt I had no control and kept paying attention to these voices – because reality was I couldn’t change the relationships drastically then and there – whether it is your family or colleagues or social circle or friends – you cannot just walk away most of the time.
Because of the rough phase I was already in at that time, instead of fighting those voices, I kept going downhill, lost my confidence, stopped showing up and continued to spiral down.
Eventually, I did come out if it but only because and only after, I stopped listening to those voices.
Instead I actively choose whose voices I listen to. While most of the time we cannot change the people who we spend time with – we can definitely change who we listen to – we can choose our own special 5 voices!
(Unfair) Advantage
This is where our generation is the luckiest because there is so much resources out there and all you have to do is tune into to the right voice – whether it is a book or a blog or a podcast or an audiobook or a community forum – I can go on and on – there is millions of virtual voices and you can pick and choose the special 5 voices you can listen to and change your life around.
Here is how I approached it ::
I listed the current issues I was going through in order of priority
E.g.
- Issue 1
- Issue 2
Etc.
I spent hours and hours finding the right resources and started assimilating them.
In few months – there was considerable difference in my outlook – I started to gain confidence, identify clear goals on what I needed to focus on, reduced the guilt considerably and more importantly started showing up!!
Does this work? Past examples:
I also realized that this was something I had subconsciously applied in the past
Eg when nursing was not working and one end of spectrum implied ‘nursing is hard but deal with it and get through it’ and other end of spectrum said ‘you didn’t do enough research, nursing does not always work’
If you again constructively break down both sides of information,
- there was no tangible action item, I could extract out of these conversations and apply to solve my actual problem
- both implied that I am not doing enough (did not do research/lack of knowledge or trying to give up easily.)
- both the information was anecdotal and not backed by research or reliable source of information.
And guess which information helped me overcome my nursing issues – neither!
Which made me fell more guilty – Everything
I will not dive into intent of these conversations right now, that is a separate topic.
Eventually I started looking up nursing and pumping in different sources online and also reached out to licensed LCs. The best part in researching online, you can find the exact answer you need – guilt-free and find tangible and actionable next steps.
Why was it not working? How to make it work. How long does it take? When to quit and when to keep going? and I jotted down everything that I learned from various resources and applied them at various points and eventually things started to fall in place.
If I had stopped at listening to those voices that did not help me, this would not have been possible.
As new parents (especially moms), we are often targets of unsolicited advice and constantly made guilty for our life choices. and unless you pick and choose whose voice you want to listen to, it is quite hard to navigate through it and come out of it as a confident parent (especially moms) while doing it.
Other scenarios
It is very easy to extend this to other scenarios: Here are few examples:
- Parenting troubles – turn towards respectful parenting resources
- Productivity issues – lean towards learning productivity techniques
- Introvert or other personality trait acceptance – you got the drill – but in addition accept who you are and be proud of who you are. Learn the technique that you can learn to apply to suit your personality trait.
- Physical / external confidence – This topic deserves a book, but stop listening to voices that dissect your physical appearance.
- I could go on, but you got the drift.
Almost everything is available out there and you just have to find the right voice and choose the 5 voice you listen to.