Psychological methods to Live for yourself and not others

Are you stuck on moving further due to fear of what other people will think or say to you?

Do you make your choices based on what others say is right for you or can’t say no to people even if you want them to?

I was also in this state of analysis paralysis of what other people might say to me if i start dancing

or choose a carrier that is different from the job culture.

And that is how I sabotaged my life until a few years back by being in control of other people’s judgment or comments.

As a member of an Indian family criticism and screaming about starting a new thing is normal here.

That’s how I got my body inferiority and low self-esteem problems,

I was pushed to a point where I slept in the bathroom to avoid meeting relatives at family gatherings.

But the good thing is that I decided to change because I can not live like this for my entire life and studied psychology + spiritualism, all kind of self-help books I can find,

and applied in my life to get me out of this problem of living for others, not myself

What living for others feels like

If you are in this state then you already know what I am talking about but I am going to express it as honestly as possible.

Living for others is a paradox that many religious people consider a virtue.

But from my observation, that person who is killing his feelings and choices for others can not be happy inside.

Only when a person is happy with himself then only he can help other people not the other way around.

How can a person who can not express and live with himself help other people grow?

The guilt that followed after not doing the things we want and things that we really don’t want to do is a different kind of suffering in itself.

What are the actual reasons that hold us back?

 Reason 1 ) Parent’s behaviour toward the child

Parents are child’s first teachers, even though each parent is god’s blessing to children,

but they do something unknowingly that kills the child from the inside, which they love the most.

And by god, I mean the living quality that lives inside every living being, not some picture or which is normally considered as god.

So parents criticize and stop children from doing what they want by pointing out their weaknesses and saying unpolite things that kill curiosity in children.

It becomes a meme of Asian parenting that really represents how controlling and damaging parents can be to children.

This produces an inferiority complex and low self-esteem in children and they suffer when they grew up.

 Reason 2 ) Toxic friends

Although good friends help you to overcome your weakness but very few are blessed with such friends.

Most friends have a superiority complex or inferiority complex so they start criticizing you to make them feel good about themselves.

So it’s difficult for the person to be just who he is and instead of becoming a unique personality he/she ends up becoming a copy.

 Reason 3) Comfort zone

A Comfort zone is supposed to keep us safe but it is also very harmful to our potential growth.

And it is imperative to ask the question is being safe is the best thing we can do with our life or whether we find out who we are by exploring ourselves.

The Comfort zone is a full stop to becoming the best version of ourselves.   

How I broke this pattern of self-torture and be myself?

1 ) Learning to be with me alone to understand who i am really

Let’s say you want to understand some person, what would you do?

Obviously, you will spend time with him/her, but all through life we try to understand everything else except ourselves.

Because we have assumed what we are based on what other people say about us but that may not be true,

so you need to walk with yourself 1hr every day and observe your thoughts, feelings, and everything outside without judgment or condemnation.

In starting I too had to face things i want to ignore but the solution to the problem is through the problem not away from problem.

2 ) Meditation ( tool for understanding the reality of yourself and life)

By meditation I don’t mean that stupid ritual people are following through like

repeating a mantra, sitting in the room, and sleeping while sitting, that is not real meditation.

Meditation is actually an observation of your thoughts, your behaviors with other people, your reactions toward situations, your beliefs, and all that 24*7.

And it is imperative to ask who is the observer in us that observes everything in us, but if you look into yourself deeply,

There is no observer apart from our past memories which are combined with a name.

There is no difference between the one who sees anger ( which is a sensation in our body ) and anger itself.

When there is complete anger you become angry and forget yourself, after the time has passed you come back and say I was angry.

Understanding the game of mind and thoughts brings insight but not by knowledge since knowledge is borrowed information even a computer can do that.

But understanding is a different thing that brings clarity and peace of mind.

3 ) Acknowledge your positive and weak points yourself honestly

Your mind can either become your best friend or your worst enemy .

If you only listen to thoughts without counter-question and verification then you are doomed.

One thing you need to realize is that your thoughts are not always right,

thoughts are just reactions of knowledge nothing else and knowledge can not be 100 % correct every time.

for example – before 16 th century it was considered that the sun revolves around the earth Copernicus did not point out the real fact.

Same way observe everything carefully before accepting it. 

And by that comes the acknowledgment of your actual positive and weak capabilities.

Dont feel bad if you are not that good at one thing because you are great at other things, you just need to find it out by trial and error just like children.

Just as I found out that I do quite well in dancing which I couldn’t think of as an introvert but I found out by trial and error.

Nobody in this entire world can be good at everthing except its a movie or anime lol.

4 ) Getting to a state of not giving a fuck when you are not doing anyone harm

This state of mind comes with exposure and coming out of your comfort zone slowly but surely.

Before doing any challenging task mind try to put it on hold by giving excuses.

I always ask does it harm other people , and if the answer is no then i stop listening to my thoughts and do it and believe me it is worth it

You don’t have to be perfect to start but you need to start to become good and having fun in that.

Lets talk about Challenges

1) The most challenging part is no motivation to start the actions right now

This is the challenge I too faced myself when I introspected myself.

My mind procrastinates a lot and the reason is that although the goal or vision should be big that is not a problem.

But when you want to start action the goal seems very hard to do right now

so we procrastinate on smaller tasks such as watching youtube videos.

And the trick to start action is to make the task very easy to start for example-

If I think about writing the full blog which has multiple steps,

the task becomes very hard to start but if I just make a task of just writing a paragraph then this cycle breaks.

And the beautiful part is that once you taking small action motivation starts following and before you knew it the task is completed.

2) Doubts

Doubt is a very powerful tool if used correctly.

Just like a dog on a leash, it must be left free to roam around sometime.

But over doubting can damage your capabilities and potential growth so use it with great care.

3) Fixed mindset 

This is the most harmful mindset.

In this state of mind, we made fixed assumptions based on some wrong information,

and rather than being open to seeing new options we try to protect it as if we are protecting ourselves.

So in place of this, a growth mindset is required which also doubts but is open to see new point of view.

Takeaway

Some personal advice –

@ Aim big but make the easy-to-start tasks that can be done right now.

@ Be kind to yourself as you would to another person who is trying his best

@ It takes time so be patient and there is always a ray of hope, you just try to find it in times of crisis.