Hey guys!
So I am feeling sentimental today because it is Lavendaire's fifth birthday.
Yes, it's been five years since I started Lavendaire.
And as the fifth anniversary celebration, I wanted to revisit
the first video that I ever posted on Lavendaire, which was
"How to Stop Caring About What Others Think of You",
and kind of give my updates on my new thoughts after five years.
The reason I chose that topic as the first one to post on Lavendaire was
because it's a key foundational step to creating your dream life.
You have to let go and stop caring about what others think of you,
simply because if you are going to live your dream life,
you have to live for yourself and not others,
and that was a huge lesson that I had to learn in my early 20s.
And that's why it was so important for me to share that one first.
I had so many great points in the first video, which I'll recap really quickly right here.
So how do you stop caring about what other people think of you?
Well, #1: Learn not to take anything personally.
I learned this from the book "The Four Agreements".
The point is: If you don't take anything personally,
then you are immune and nothing and nobody can hurt you –
which brings me to #2: Love yourself.
You have to first and foremost love, embrace who you are and be super confident in that,
because you don't need other people to tell you what you're worth.
You should already know how wonderful and awesome you are.
It should come from within and that inner confidence is what shines,
and it's what kind of makes a statement.
#3 is to: Stop being paranoid.
Stop being paranoid.
We think that we're so important that people are always thinking about us
and talking about us, when in reality, most of the time,
other people are too busy worrying about themselves
and their own lives to even let you cross their mind.
#4: Don't waste your time and energy trying to explain yourself to others.
People already have an idea of what they want to believe,
and so they only hear what they want to hear.
And everything else is subconsciously filtered out,
so it's a waste of time and energy to try to convert one person,
one person's thought about you,
when you already have a set of people who love and accept you for who you are.
Honestly, when I look back at that video,
I was a little awkward and shy in front of the camera.
And I was recording in my tiny bedroom that had no natural light.
I always had to have artificial lighting.
But the content was good.
Those points are still so valid,
and it's so concise and simple that I'm like, "Yeah, I still believe that."
I've wanted to remake this video and re-address the topic,
but I feel like I already did a pretty good job.
To be honest, the core lessons are the same,
but now I can speak to the topic with more depth and more life experience.
Five years ago, when I created this video and I was learning this lesson,
it was because I was finding my way and I was trying to create my dream
instead of living out the dream that other people had for me –
my family wanted me to do certain things, my peers.
Society kind of pushes you in a certain direction
and I wanted to go outside of that direction,
so I really had to learn to be strong and believe in myself and forge my own path,
which is why I had to learn to shed all of that judgment.
Also, at the time I made this video, I was doing a lot of random, creative things.
My channel was really small, I had zero credibility,
and I felt like everyone was judging me for not being successful in their eyes.
I was a broke artist, basically.
And me coming from a background of going to business school at USC,
where all my peers were getting high-paying jobs straight out of college,
I had to learn to not care about what they thought of me
taking this really random broke route of being an artist.
So I had to learn that.
Fast-forward, here we are five years later,
where I am so grateful that I took that choice and took the risk to carve my own path.
I created Lavendaire, it's amazing, I have you guys here, and I just love my life.
I'm so happy and grateful to be here.
And you know what?
When you've become successful yourself, you believe in yourself so much that –
of course, everyone around me now supports me and believes in me.
But it came at a point where I didn't need it anymore,
because in the beginning you have to be the one to give yourself that support.
And you get everyone else's support when you're already a winner,
and you don't really need their support, but anyway –
I'm lucky now that I've grown, I have the support of my friends and family around me
and I've overcome that hump of not caring about
what this inner circle thinks or how people judge me.
And now, where I am in my journey,
I am still learning this lesson of how to stop caring about what others think of you.
But it's change in that now, it is me vs. the internet,
because when you put yourself out there online,
everybody's criticisms and judgment just magnifies –
and that is something that, in the past few years, I've learned to deal with.
I've just experienced so much criticism, judgment, misjudgments,
and I'm still learning to not try to defend myself or explain myself to everyone.
If they have a wrong impression of me or if someone criticizes me in some way,
I have to learn to let it go, rather than feel the urge to comment back
and defend myself and explain myself.
I'm sure you guys have seen mean comments everywhere on the internet.
It's not really the mean ones that hurt.
But the ones that hurt are the ones that have a little bit of truth in them, a little bit of –
you kind of agree with what they're saying, and it hurts.
Let me explain, for example:
The comments and criticisms that hurt the most are the ones that are like,
"You're not a real minimalist.
How can you call yourself a minimalist if you have so many things?"
or "You're so wasteful.
How can you make this video about reducing waste
when you have these lights in the background that are unnecessary?"
Basically, in areas that you care about and you're like,
"No, no, I do care! Let me explain myself!"
And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you explain yourself or not.
People are going to judge you no matter what.
And with the internet, it's just amplified.
I'll get thousands of the same types of comments, misjudging me, and I'm like, "Ugh."
I can't answer every one, and it's pointless to.
And what I've learned is: People on the internet kind of hold you up to a very high expectation.
They expect you to be perfect, and if you're not perfect, there's something wrong with you.
And so they comment and criticize on what's wrong with you
because why are you not perfect?
And hearing these comments and criticisms,
I realize that the reason why they hurt is because they all boil down to a basic message:
You're not good enough.
And it hurts to hear that you're not good enough
because you and I both know that, even in our self talk,
we can get into that negative space where we tell ourselves, "I'm not good enough."
And it hurts even more when other people tell you you're not good enough.
And I realized, this is kind of the same thing when your peers and family around you
don't believe in your dreams, when they don't support what you're doing.
They're telling you: You're not good enough.
You can't go for that dream because you're not good enough.
What it really is, is: They're projecting their fear on you because they worry about you.
They don't want you to fail and get hurt.
And from these comments that I get – some of them are mean,
but some of them actually come with good intentions that push me to be better.
But it comes off in a way that says "You're not good enough",
and nobody needs to hear that.
Nobody needs to hear that you're not good enough.
And that's why it's so important to learn to shield yourself from other people's opinions
because people are always going to have an opinion.
People are always going to criticize, they're always going to judge you.
It's only natural, and at the end of the day,
what I've learned – what I'm still learning and practicing is:
The only thing that matters is what you think of yourself.
That's that.
If you approve of yourself, if you think you're doing okay,
if you live aligned to your own values and you're happy with yourself and everything,
then you're good.
The only time you need to change is when you don't feel like you're being your best.
It's not what other people are telling you, it has to come from within.
There is a part of us that wants to people-please.
There's a part of us that wants everyone to like us.
It's a part of being human because you want to be accepted into the tribe.
And also, depending on your childhood,
if you had a childhood where you had a lack of love and attention,
then you're going to want to seek that love, attention, and approval from others
by being a people-pleaser and saying yes to everybody.
But to live for yourself means to shed that need
and to give yourself all the love that you need
so that you don't seek it from people outside of yourself.
And if you can truly give yourself all the love and approval and acceptance that you need,
then it doesn't matter what other people say or think about you
because like I said, it only matters what you think about yourself.
I think that is one of the biggest breakthroughs in my life,
to learn to not live in what other people want for you
and what other people are telling you you should do,
but to actually listen to yourself and live the way that you want to live.
Honestly if I listened to all of the criticisms that I get on this channel,
I would probably change my hair color to whatever people are telling me to change it to.
I would be a perfect minimalist which – what does that even mean?
Or I would be a perfect zero waste person, which definitely, I'm not.
I would be a perfect vegan, which I'm not as well,
even though in these areas, I care and I'm making progress.
But nobody's perfect.
I'm not perfect, for sure.
And what I've learned from all of this is how important it is
to strive for progress, not perfection.
And recognize everyone's in a different point in their journey.
Some people are further along than others.
Respect everyone and their journeys.
Do not judge anyone because their story is completely different from you
and you don't know all the circumstances.
And celebrate each other because we're all just doing the very best that we can.
We only hurt each other when we judge each other, criticize, and bring each other down.
And what we really all need is more love and support in our lives,
for ourselves and from the people around us.
Most importantly is to understand that nobody's perfect
and what you want to do is not feel bad for not being perfect,
but embrace your imperfection, embrace where you are in your journey,
love and accept yourself where you are.
And you can still love yourself and want to be better.
There's nothing wrong with that.
And next time you recognize that voice that's telling you "You're not good enough",
whether it's coming from your family, your peers, the internet, or yourself,
remind yourself that you are good enough.
You are good enough where you are.
You're amazing as you are right now in your imperfect state.
As long as you're doing the best that you can and you approve of yourself,
that's all that matters.
And now I want to end with this quote that I heard from Amber Scholl:
"There's only two people in the world you need to impress:
your 5 year old self and your 80 year old self."
Think about that, journal on it, and love yourself.
That's that.
Who cares about what other people are thinking.
People see the world through their own filter and you can't change that.
So the best you can do is not let it hurt you, and just let it go.
Let it be, and live your best life.
Alright, love you guys so much.
I hope you liked this video.
Happy 5th birthday to Lavendaire.
I hope you're subscribed!
Comment below on your favorite video of Lavendaire, I'd love to know.
And I will see you guys next time.
Bye!