Life Lesson From Ms. Bear on How to Be Yourself

So! I witnessed a great life lesson from Ms. Bear last week that I just had to share with you all.

She had an interview to be on the library board. When I wished her good luck before she left, she replied, “I’ll just be myself!”

Wow, I thought to myself. In fact, those four words stuck with me for the next few days, rolling around in my head and, surprisingly, giving me quite a bit to think about. It was one of those moments where you walk away thinking, “You know, that is such a simple piece of advice!” And yet, how come it’s not something we typically think of right away?

Sometimes, I feel like we spend our entire lives running in the opposite direction — away from the happiness, away from the optimism, away from anything even remotely positive! We work so hard to be, well, hard on ourselves at every turn. We even treat it like an Olympic sport. Who can be the hardest on themselves? Who can win that gold medal? I often wonder what exactly we think we’re going to accomplish by doing this, you know?

And I’m totally guilty of this too — far more often than I actually care to admit! I tell myself things like…

*”Melissa, why don’t you get up earlier?”

*”Melissa, why don’t you send more writing pitches out?”

*”Melissa, why don’t you get that HUGE pile of magazines read already?”

See, it’s a never-ending cycle, isn’t it? So. Much. Self-sabotaging. So when I heard my mom’s positive refrain, it dawned on me: We should all live life with that kind of “YAY, ME” attitude!! We should grab onto it like a life-preserver and discard all that negativity. Because that negativity is what’s really weighing us down. And we don’t deserve to do that to ourselves. Ever.

Are you with me, friends?? How do you keep from being too hard on yourself? Do you catch yourself slipping back into old habit sometimes? Let’s encourage each other in the comments…what do you say?? xoxo