Stop Chasing Other People: Here’s Why You Should Focus On Yourself Instead
This guy said, “ You know what I like about you? You’re usually just minding your own business. You can sit at a single place in silence just doing your own stuff. Not fluttering around everywhere just to get seen like other people here. I like that vibe.”
It was a kinda funny statement.
The truth tho is I wasn’t always having this ‘chilled out vibe.’
I remember just a few years back when I was all over the place. Chasing other people.
Chasing friendships, acceptance and even love.
Those days of secretly (and not so secretly) stalking your crush to see what they’re up to even though you know they don’t want you.
Them days of begging for parental love. Doing anything to impress your parents just so they can finally love and accept you.
And the most relatable, spending hours on end on IG browsing your notifs to see if you still have 3 likes on your photo while actually wishing it’s 1000 likes.
And because it’s still 3 likes, you get miserable and depressed wondering why you can’t be like all these picture perfect people living their awesome perfect lives.
Yeah, am sure we’ve all been there.
It’s not easy to stop looking on the external world and focus on ourselves.
Everyone’s life is beautiful and glamorous while ours are dry and boring.
How can we accept that?
But it’s important.
First off, chasing other people makes you very insecure and weak. After all, you’re measuring your worth or lack thereof by standards of another person.
It also makes you forget yourself. You forget your needs, shelf your dreams to live someone else’s and generally makes you a very mediocre person.
Focus On Yourself
To be you and just do you, you must learn to be comfortable alone.
This is a certain kind of self dependence. Therefore it demands courage forging this path. You’ll have to learn to listen to your inner self, and you’ll have to do what makes you happy.
Do away with the need to impress people. The truth is very few people truly care about you.
Don’t trust me? Take a 1 or 2 week break from everyone and everything. See how many people actually miss your absence.
Everyone is busy caring about themselves. Besides you who’s caring about them.
The interesting thing is, once you stop chasing people and instead just focus on you, people start being interested in you.
They want to know what you’re up to, who you are and even may want your company.
Why It’s Important To Focus On Yourself
1: Your goals get clearer
You remember what you want to do in your life and actually start doing that. You don’t care about other people at this point so you just live your life like you’re the only person around.
Focusing on yourself doesn’t mean you’re being selfish. It just means you’re okay being you. Doing all the weird epic shit you want to do without fear of judgement what other people think of you.
It means doing stuff you love and listening to your own advice.
Of course, it’s great to seek peoples advice.
Just:
Never take anyone’s advice as the gospel. Even the best and most well meant advice, question everything and see if it makes sense to you at a deeper level.
You can listen to advice from people who don’t live your ideal lifestyle. But Question Everything.
You have a brain. Use it well.
2: You get more confident.
Since you’re okay being alone and listening to your needs, you now know what you want and what you don’t want.
You know your worth and aren’t afraid to vocalize your opinion on something.
You’re not the 13 year old who was always told she’s ugly and unlikable by your parents and peers.
You now know you’re better than that. You’ve accepted yourself just as you are. And that has made you stronger than before.
3: Less Comparison
At the end of the day, we’re social beings. Therefore it’s only natural that we’ll compare ourselves with others.
How can you know you’re not all that great and awesome until you meet someone who’s even greater and more awesome than you?
But at this point — by being and doing you — you’re okay with your life and your progress.
There are less insecurities and jealousy over another person’s life because you’re living and loving your own journey.
So when you see someone else happy with their life, you’re okay with that.
Someone else’s journey motivates you to get better at yours — without the jealousy baggage.
4: There’s more peace.
Imagine if on Saturday night, instead of stalking your ex to see what they’re up to, you just spent the evening listening to soft music while getting a massage.
You just saved yourself the heartache of seeing them with the partner they cheated on you with. And perhaps a possible homicide.
On the flip side, you’re now happy, invigorated and ready to conquer the world once more.
5: You attract better.
You raise your worth. You know what you want, the kind of life you want and even the people you’d rather have around you.
So when those shitbag ex-friends who ditched you come around, you’re not afraid of giving them the stink eye.
And also, your ideal kinda people come around because you’re now vibing at their level too.
Magic starts happening in your life simply because you now dance to your own tune.
6: More time for yourself.
Since you’re now okay saying NO to things and people you don’t want, there’s more time for you.
You just ditched that instaworthy shopping trip that would’ve left you dead broke for the next few weeks.
Now not only do you still ha e extra money in your pocket, you’ve saved yourself the 3 or so hours you’d have spent shopping and the anxiety of scrolling your feed every 3 seconds to see if enough people like the outfits you spent buying and dressing for them.
Now go ahead and draw that portrait. Or just sleep.
How To Focus On Yourself
It’s relatively easy to start focusing on yourself. You simply need to just focus on yourself.
The problem is staying focused. You know, sticking to minding your own business when all you want to do is see what everyone else is doing.
Just keep on doing You. Keep focusing on just You.
1: Reduce distractions
You’re never moving out of that couch as long as the TV is always on and your bowl of chips is right there.
So turn it off. If that’s hard, cut off the subscription.
Sometimes you’ve got to go cold turkey.
Decide today to cut off everything around you if it’s draining you of time you’d have spent building yourself.
And remember, stick with it.
Don’t replace one junk for another more ‘glamorous’ junk. IG for YouTube anyone?
The moment you have free time, do the things you’ve always wanted to do but ‘never had time.’
2: Learn to say NO.
Learn to prioritize you and your time.
Look at everything from the lens of how it’s influencing your life.
That friend you love dearly but too shallow for your liking? How about you say no to another episode of BTS gossip. You don’t even know or bother to care about BTS anyway.
3: Do more of the stuff you love.
Stuff that builds you and makes you a better version of yourself.
Not watching reruns of KUWTK.
Doing more of what you love produces the chemical dopamine which makes you feel good about yourself.
It’s the body’s ‘feel good' chemical that’s responsible for your memory, focus and feelings.
The more you do what makes you happy, the more you feel good about yourself and improve your outlook of yourself and life.
4: Get an accountability partner.
Surround yourself with people on the same path as you.
It’s really difficult for most people to stay on track alone. That’s why you should find a support group of a few people.
Share your ideals together. Motivate each other and keep each other accountable.
Apparently over 92% of goals are not achieved simply because of a lack of accountability buddy.
There are several places online (like Reddit) or offline to find like minded people who want to keep each other on track.
Most people are easily distracted in nature.
The main reason why you must make a conscious effort to mute out distractions and focus on you is that, at one point you’ll realize years just passed you and you’ve got nothing to show for it.
You spent all your time ‘out there' yet not only do you have nothing tangible to show for it, but you’ve also not changed for the better as a person.
You’re not living forever. This life is too short as is. Make it count.
