Sometimes, you know that you’re taking yourself too seriously but… You don’t really know what to do about it!
It makes you feel stressed and fragile!
Let me share with you what can finally help you out when it comes to taking yourself too seriously…
What’s happening when you take yourself too seriously?
What do we even mean when we say that we are taking ourselves too seriously?
It means that we are maybe overthinking things or that we are over-analyzing situations.
For example, we are afraid that if someone talks to us with a certain tone, it may mean that they don’t like us.
Also, we might take things personally! Someone is mad at something else and they are talking to us in an angry way. Right away, we think that WE did something wrong!
You might be taking yourself too seriously when you’re feeling very stressed in a situation and you’re feeling A LOT of pressure…
What is happening is that your mind is getting in your way!
You think something of a situation and the problem is that because of all the thoughts in your head, you are completely freezing! You cannot take any action, because you are afraid of what might happen!
It’s typically the kind of situation in which you’re asking yourself: What did I do wrong? Why is it happening to me?
Good question! 🙂
Why is it happening?
Actually, taking ourselves seriously means having opinions and standing up for them, doing something. It’s something good! 🙂
It’s important to take yourself A BIT seriously! 🙂
So this part is indeed important, but not when it’s stopping you from taking action…
When we take ourselves too seriously, it’s because we are putting on ourselves A LOT of pressure. We have a lot of expectations towards ourselves and it’s really stressing us!
The self-coaching model can help you!
Let’s start by saying that if you follow the self-coaching model of Brooke Castillo, you can see that everything is happening in your head at first.
Your thoughts create your feelings, so if you feel stressed and fragile, it’s because of what you think in your head! 🙂
The first step is to become the watcher, to look at the 60’000 thoughts you have every day and to become more self-aware.
Then and it’s not the easy part, you need to work on that unconscious you that is having these thoughts and to create new ones, that you truly believe, of course, otherwise it won’t work! 🙂
The work on changing your thoughts can really be a great topic for another episode so, I’ll keep this for later! 🙂
Back to taking yourself too seriously…
What can you do about it?
Also, what really helped me take myself less seriously is what I’m going to share right now.
As I said before, it’s essential to know what makes you happy (so you can create more of those moments!) and to have goals that you want to reach.
But… You shouldn’t put so much pressure on your poor shoulders!
When you take two minutes and really think about it… When you imagine yourself on your death bed, looking back at your life, you understand that small details won’t matter or even that stress about this situation.
Also and this was everything to me, it was a real “Aha” moment. Here’s the thing…
When you know that we are 8 billion people on that planet, of course, you are important and unique but… There are so many people out there! You are not the center of the world! 🙂
I really feel kind of relief when I think of that, I’m like “it’s true! I’m important, but there are so many people out there and I’m just one of them!” Also, I will die in the end, so of course, I’m important again, but why so much pressure?
Even more, if it’s not helping me in getting the results that I want (freezing because of stress and not able to take any action), what’s the point of this pressure I’m putting on my shoulders?
If at least, taking myself too seriously was a huge help, but it’s not! 😉
As I mentioned before, when it comes to relationships too, we can really suffer from taking things personally.
We are imagining that someone said something against us, that people are angry at us! When actually remember, it’s never really about YOU! Everyone is trying to have their own needs met. When you think about it this way, you won’t take things personally anymore, you understand that everyone is pretty much self-centered and thinking of themselves in the first place…
So, the thing to do is to do your best, always and not to overthink too much! 🙂
You won’t get out alive of this life anyway! 😉
The examples of Flight Radar and Captain Fantastic
I love using the example of this website/application called Flight Radar.
Basically, you can see EACH and EVERY plane that is currently in the air, all over the world.
There are soooo many of them! It’s like when you’re stressed on a plane because of the turbulences.
But so many planes are flying at the same time that you are! 🙂
Just like people! There are so many people in the world, I feel like it’s really helping me to take myself less seriously…
The second example that I like is a scene from the movie Captain Fantastic. Have you seen this movie?
Actually, I can share with you what’s happening in this scene without giving too many spoilers…
This movie is about a family that lives outside of society, deep in Washington state.
The parents are educating the kids with skills to survive in the forest, they also help them build a critical mind to think by themselves, etc….
At one moment in the movie, they have the ashes from someone to “bury”. The deceased person wished their ashes to be flush down the toilets! So they are doing it in the toilets of an airport.
And what is amazing is to look at this scene in which every kid of this family (6 children) is looking down the toilets as they flush down the ashes.
When I saw this scene, I was thinking “this is it! We can just become ashes being flushed into random toilets of an airport” and you agree that when you think about it, you then feel kind of relief from all the pressure we might put on ourselves! 🙂
Here, I’m not talking about what’s happening to our soul or how we should or not scatter ashes, I just want to point at how it’s possible to just be “flushed down” the toilets.
How to help someone that is taking themselves too seriously…
The funny thing is that when you think about all of this, you will see others taking themselves seriously! 🙂
And here, you really need to have different behavior. Do not tell them how to think or what to do… Remember, everyone out there is trying to have their needs met! 🙂
So, just be there for them! Listen to what they have to say. No need to tell them “never take yourself too seriously”, it’s not going to help… 🙂
Sometimes, we tend to give advice and to tell them “it could be worst!” and of course it’s legitimate that we want them to realize that it’s not as bad as it sounds, but still… It’s not what they need at that moment! 🙂
They need a listening ear and some support! Be the comfort one here, not the judging one! 🙂
To sum up!
As you can see, it’s important to take yourself seriously and to try to become the best version of yourself! 🙂
But think about what I said… Do not put on yourself too much pressure! Try your best and don’t let your thoughts stop you from taking action! 🙂
I hope that all of this helped you to stop taking yourself so seriously! 😉
You can do this and you are good enough!
To your less serious SELF! 🙂
