5 Ways To Embrace Your Authentic Self Without Being 'Too Much'
Don't let your stories of happiness sabotage your future.
designecologist | Unsplash When you start living a life you're proud of, you want to share the secrets with your friends, family, and loved ones. However, they do not appreciate your efforts to make their life as great as yours. But why?
When you do the work and learn how to love your life and yourself no matter what’s happening, Naturally, you want to share your tips and tricks with friends. Unfortunately, as much as you desire to spread joy and wealth, sharing how to love your life and yourself can be self-centered, narcissistic, and annoying. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Here are 5 ways to embrace your enthusiastic self without annoying others
1. Accept others for who and where they are in life
Even when you witness that a friend is miserable, wanting her to love her life and herself isn’t enough. The only path to continuing to love your life is to accept others as they are. You can come across as irritating when you point out how others may not be making good choices. And because they're already in pain, it can cause more pain. They may also resist any changes out of sheer stubbornness.
With an attitude of loving your friends as they are, you continue to be a happy person, and they can see you as a source of love and light rather than someone people want to avoid. When your friend is ready to make changes, she can feel you're a good source of advice because you’ve been modeling how to love your life and yourself in a way that feels inspirational and doable.
Photo: Mentatdgt via Shutterstock
2. Recognize when someone doesn't want to change
Do you ever feel that sometimes people seem to like being unhappy? Yes, despite complaining about how they wish their life were different, they seem to thrive on being a downer. They look for what’s wrong rather than what could be right in their lives. If you want to know how to love your life and yourself, then learn to recognize when a person secretly doesn’t want to be happy.
Want to know other ways to recognize people who (secretly) thrive on being miserable?
- They tell tales of how they were done wrong (aka playing the victim).
- They don’t want to celebrate any of your successes or even her successes.
- They act as a martyr, always taking care of others and telling folks how indispensable he is to everyone.
Despite any of these types of people saying they want happiness, in all honesty, they will likely never do the work to be happy. So when you share how to love your life and yourself, you'll always annoy these people. And in turn, they will make you feel a little miserable when you leave them.
3. Consider letting go of toxic people in your life
Just like the downers in your social circle, you meet many people who are flat-out emotional vampires. Unlike people who seem to like being miserable, these people tend to thrive on the unhappiness of others. They want to hear your stories so they can gather information on you. Because they love to gossip, or because they spread drama, and they love pointing out when others are wrong or flawed.
When you share your stories of loving your life and how you came to love yourself, you annoy them. Because they only like to hear the stories of when you feel unhappy. You may not be able to recognize those friends because you're caught up with friendships and good relations with them. But, after some time, you will start feeling the toxicity between your relationships.
It is essential to recognize the dramatic or fake friends in your circle before they throw your life into an awkward or chaotic situation. You are better off having no friends than having lots of these friends. Because even if you’ve learned how to love your life and yourself, their influences on you will eventually eat away at your joy.
4. Don't overshare
When you are happy and satisfied with your life, you want to share your stories of triumph. Because, of course, who doesn’t like a feel-good story of overcoming challenges, right? Not everyone has earned the right to hear every piece of your story. This is two-fold.
First, it’s important to protect the tender parts of our experiences until we’ve healed. Otherwise, we risk halting our healing when we share from a super vulnerable place, especially with people we can’t trust. This means: yes, tell your coach. Or your best friend who truly has your back. But no, do not tell the frenemy, share the story on social media, or with an acquaintance. As an act of self-love and protection, it’s important to protect some of the pieces of your life.
Secondly, some parts of our experiences feel like too much information to some folks. And yes, when you’re proud of yourself and your hard work, it can be tempting to share all the details. This can cross the line into oversharing. And honestly? That can be annoying.
5. See yourself as a friend
There is great value in seeing yourself as a beloved friend. And the best way to connect to a beloved friend? A journal. Writing in a journal allows you to explore all facets of your story. This allows you to remember the harder pieces of your journey. And how you overcame them.
Better yet. When you get in the habit of reflecting on the good moments in your life, you will give your brain all the reasons to love life and yourself.
We live in such a pessimistic society these days and too many people can’t live their lives or themselves because they constantly feel bombarded. When you go out of your way to appreciate others and acknowledge not their good deeds and their humanity, it goes a long way in helping others see they matter.
If you genuinely want to understand how to be your happy and authentic self, kindness is the key. That’s because when you come from a place of being kind to everyone you interact with, you spread happiness and joy.
Rather than telling people how great your life is, you get to be a kind individual. That allows you to access a deeper sense of joy that people will naturally gravitate toward. This allows you to be the friend folks can count on. Not the annoying friend people avoid.
Even when you learn to love your life and yourself, you will always be a work in progress because life is changing. And as such, we have to continue to work to roll with change. And keep evolving ourselves. We have to commit to continuing to do the work that helps us live our lives and ourselves today, next year, and ten years from now. That’s why, my dear, learning how not to annoy your friends is a way of learning the boundaries you need to protect yourself.
See, all how we could annoy others with our stories of reinvention and triumph can sabotage our happiness. And you deserve better than that. Remember not only do you deserve to love yourself and your life? You need to nurture and protect it as well.
Debra Smouse is a life coach and author whose work has been published in TIME, Huffington Post, MSN, Psychology Today, and more.