Your Mindset is Setting You Up for Failure

The internet is full of confusing mixed messages. There is the message of “be yourself! You’re beautiful no matter what you look like!” Then there is the message of “You must look this exact way in order to be considered beautiful.”

Neither of those are necessarily true. Beauty is a standard and everyone has their own idea of what that looks like. You don’t meet everyone’s criteria and not everyone meets your criteria. That’s just how the world works.

This makes personal improvements tricky. When we hear things like “get in shape,” or “get dressed up,” or anything relating to becoming beautiful, our minds often go straight to models of some kind, whether Instagram or Victoria’s Secret. Some beauty standards presented to us are impossible, and some are not.

We often get overwhelmed by what we want to change about ourselves. We want to be perfect, but no one is perfect. We don’t like ourselves, but we don’t know what or how to change what we don’t like.

Instead of saying to yourself, “I want to be beautiful, I want to be skinnier, I want to be happier, I want to look like a Kardashian” ask yourself this:

What does the best version of (insert your name here) look like?

This question takes all outward influences out of the picture. You don’t have to look like the models you see everywhere you look, you can look like you. You can look like the best version of you, and you don’t look like anyone else.

The best version of you might be ten pounds lighter, you might be ten pounds heavier. You might have zit-free skin, you might have the perfect winged eyeliner look. Maybe you drink more water and eat more bacon. Maybe you write in your notebook every day or smile at strangers more often. Maybe you give your friends gifts more often, or call your parents more, or go out only Saturday nights instead of Friday through Sunday. Maybe you finally do that thing you’ve been dreaming about for months.

Don’t lie to yourself and say, you’re perfect just the way you are. No one is perfect. No one ever will be. Do you really want to cheat yourself out of personal growth?

Set some goals for yourself. Daily, weekly, whatever. Just push yourself towards that better version of you.

People will still have their judgments to pass on you, even when you’re steadily working to better yourself. If you listen to them at all, take what they say with a grain of salt. What you do does not concern them, and your happiness does not rely on them.

The important thing is to remember that you don’t look like anyone else, inside and out. There is a “best version” of yourself in you somewhere, even if sometimes it’s hard to find.

Don’t think about what others might want to see. Think about what you want to see from yourself.