When people ask me what I do or how Project Self is going I feel an overwhelming urge to shove socks in my ears and sprint away shouting “LA LA LA!”
I feel far more comfortable telling people what I’m struggling with/ what’s tricky about life/ what I’m striving towards, whereas when I end up explaining about Project Self I feel like I’m bragging or even lying or being fake when I say that it couldn’t be better and I’m the luckiest person in the world.
Same goes for when I talk about my relationship with Bloody Good Chap.
I don’t have anything non-cliched to say about either, both my relationship and my business are epic like nothing I could have imagined… of course they’re not perfect… but well, sometimes they feel like they are. But I hate how hard I find it to talk about it without feeling like a total knob jockey.
I end up feeling like one of the proliferation of “business” coaches who are constantly on about how fabulous their 6 figure life is, when underneath their glamourous grins they’re part of a business coaching MLM scheme where they’re all pretending to be succesful business coaches raking it in long before they’ve ever coached anyone on business. It’s very inauthentic, and for me, they’ve ruined the sentence “I’m living the freedom lifestyle of my dreams”.
Not that was ever a non-cliched sentence.
So when I go to say anything like it, it makes me want to throw up a bit.
Even though it’s kind of true.
Shit, my life is a cliche.
Perhaps that’s it, I’ve spent my life being a black sheep, first because I just didn’t fit in but desperately wanted to, but now because I still don’t fit in and I definitely don’t want to.
The thing is, my mind, and your mind too, is wired to focus on and readily remember the negative. Scientists call this the negativity bias. Our brains used to perking up at negative stories, gossip, news, stories of struggle and hardship.
It’s an evolutionary thing that developed to keep us alive through tigers and dinosaurs and stuff.
But then, when life does get really bloody good?
You’re not so sure you want to announce it. It feels unrelatable. And while some people’s eyes light up with inspiration, many more eyes glaze over.
I think it’s especially an issue for us females. When men state their achievements, people take notice and look up to them. When women state their achievements, people often take them to be bitchy, or they feel competitive or jealous. They even did a study on it. Which means that as females we’ve ended up OFTEN playing down our achievements just to people please, be liked, and make others feel comfortable.
I’ve done it my whole life. We all have. But it’s not cool.
I’m yet to solve this conundrum other than to stop meeting new people. Which probably isn’t a sustainable option, though I do love a bit of lonerism.
But I’m working on talking about my life proudly with no shame and no cringing.
