Everything you need to know about following other people
I see so many people who are desolate because they’ve tried everything they can think of to get their life under control … and they feel like they’re always failing. They are constantly looking around themselves and seeing everyone else with what they desire: their lives under control, a flourishing trajectory to success and a seemingly effortless ability to seamlessly manage everything that comes their way.
These people end up on my doorstep stressed, exhausted and ready to give in. Why? Because they’ve spent way too long handing over the responsibility for their lives, their health and their wellbeing to other people.
Somehow, as a society, we’ve become a flock of sheep – all following along behind someone else in the mindless hope that they will lead us to the destination we desire. Living like this is now endemic and I see it so much that the first thing I work on with people is their ability to stop and reconnect with their lives, their path and their health.
Before you can reconnect, it’s really helpful to understand a few simple things about the way we now live:
- The speed of our life has increased exponentially – and, it seems, on a daily basis – and we’re connected 24/7, with little respite from the noise.
- We’re left with physical symptoms associated with being constantly stressed, including digestive and gut problems, an inability to sleep and physical aches and pains in our body.
- We’re extraordinarily busy, and we constantly take on more than we have time for.
- There is so much information available to us now – right at our fingertips – that we almost don’t know where to start looking for the things we need to know.
- We know we need to make a few changes for ourselves, but we don’t know where to start. We don’t have time to think about it, we don’t want to do anything that might impact others around us and we’re so exhausted we can’t bear to think about things that might add an extra load to our already heavy burden.
Because of these things, our head is turned and our eye is caught when we see someone that seems to have an ‘incredible’ or ‘inspiring’ outcome around something that we think we need – especially if it is being presented to us in a neat little package that claims to be easy, with the caveat that it works as long as you follow everything they say.
To anyone who is stressed and exhausted constantly, a solution that seems to be as simple as following a process step by step – and has no thinking required – seems to be a godsend. However, it’s really important to understand what you’re signing up for if you choose to go down this path.
The first step in this process is always understanding what happens when you follow other people instead of listening to yourself. Having spent almost two decades helping people navigate the maze of their own lives, I can tell you that while everyone is a unique individual there are common themes that show up.
So, here’s what you need to know about following other people:
- There are so many channels available to people to share their experiences with the world that anyone can literally post whatever they like and wherever they like … and most of them are uncensored, untested and there is no real science or evidence behind them, except for the results that one person has achieved for themselves.
- We see the results that someone else has achieved and we think that we want what they have, AND that we therefore must do what they have done to get the same thing.
- When we follow the steps that someone else has taken to achieve their results, we hand over the responsibility for our lives, our health and our wellbeing to someone else. Doing so could mean that we create even bigger health and wellbeing issues for ourselves, because we have completely ignored the fact that we are all unique individuals and we may have very different requirements than the person whom we are following.
- We see only a small portion of someone else’s life – even when we know the person personally – but especially when we follow the person through a virtual reality. Following what they do based on the small portion that we see could mean that we significantly reduce the quality of our own lives.
I know it can seem really easy to follow exactly what someone else has done to get something we think we want. But there is another way for us to get the things we NEED in our lives.
The reality is that no one knows what we need better than we do ourselves. It is only when we stop and reconnect with ourselves that we find the space to actually discover what those things are.
Reconnecting with ourselves is as easy as learning to ask a few simple questions so that we can quieten the noise and find out what it is we really want. When you know what YOU want, you can stop your head from spinning. All of a sudden you won’t be impacted by FOMO (the fear of missing out) which means you will consciously choose the things you love doing rather than spending your life doing the things that others tell you that you should be doing.
Stepping away from a life full of stress and exhaustion to one that is calm and full of energy is as easy as choosing to find your path back to you.
Want more info on ways that you can easily find your own path? There are loads of tips and tricks on living and thinking differently in my book ‘Keep It Super Simple’ – you can buy a copy from my website www.sheiqlife.com.
Want to chat? Email me on info@sheiqlife.com or call me on +61 438 624 868 and we’ll set up a time!
Bronwen Sciortino is a Simplicity Expert, Professional Speaker and the author of ‘Keep It Super Simple – Tips from a Recovering Perfectionist’. Join the conversation by subscribing to the tribe at www.sheiqlife.com; Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
