Hello there. Welcome to the Body By Patrick podcast. My name is, Patrick Ocheni. Today, what I’m going to talk about is why you should set your own standard of beauty. Why your self-confidence and self-worth should never be tied to what other people think of you in terms of how you should look.
How did this topic come about?
The other day I was at the gym waiting for my client, and then he comes up to me and says, “Hey Patrick, it looks like your wife had been treating you really good”, and then he pointed to my waistline suggesting that I had gained some weight.
I came away from that thinking to myself, wow, it is amazing how some people feel entitled and think that they can just go about telling people how they should look and how they’re supposed to feel.
And I said to myself, this is probably how people develop poor self image of themselves and they end up maybe developing eating disorders because people go around telling them how they’re supposed to look.
What was so crazy about this is that, this is somebody that I thought was a friend of mine. I am fully aware that I’m not in the best shape of my life. But, this is my journey. This was not his journey.
Basically, I want you to understand that sometimes the people closest to you that you think are your friends are the ones that might say the most hurtful things to you.
That is why I believe that your transformation journey to better health should always be about you not about your best friend, not about your family member, not even about your spouse.
Because, guess what?
People’s definition of what looks good evolves over time. It’s always a moving target. You will never ever be able to make other people happy, because they’re always changing the definition of what looks good.
That’s why you need to take ownership and define for yourself what you think looks good on you. And, I’ll give you some examples.
Back in 2008, when I lost 60 pounds of 180 days, I remember people saying to me, oh my gosh, Patrick, look at you, you’re too muscular. You must be using steroids. And I was like, no, I don’t use any supplements whatsoever.
So back then I looked too muscular.
Fast-forward, I literally had a lady say to me after I lost weight recently, as recent as 2016, she said to me, literally, that I was too skinny. And, she did not like me, she literally said she did not like me when I was skinny. I mean, it’s amazing what people will say to you, it’s absolutely mind boggling.
You know, like I said, it’s a losing battle if you try to look good for other people. The only person you should try to look good for is the person you see every single day in the mirror.
Two key takeaways that I want to share with you today is this:
1) When people make comments about you especially when it comes to your body, and especially if it’s a negative comment, I want you to realize that it’s usually because of their own feeling of inadequacy and insecurity.
It’s not about you.
2) The second key takeaway is that, I want to encourage you to learn to love yourself and be comfortable in your own skin, no matter what size you’re in.
Because guess what?
You are going to change over time. You are going to evolve over time as a person, so you should not base how you feel solely on how you look.
True beauty comes from the inside. Learn to love yourself, because when you do that, you will feel totally, totally free– not feeling like you have to please other people.
In my personal life, I’m not trying to compete with anybody else especially when it comes to the way they perceive me.
It’s about me trying to be the best version of myself for me.
It is about me trying to be the best husband I can be for my wife. It’s not about me trying to compete with other husbands.
It’s about me trying to be the best dad I can be for my kids. It’s not about me trying to be competitive with other dads.
At the end of the day, it’s about you trying to be the best version of yourself for yourself, not for everybody else.
I want to encourage you today, if you haven’t already done so, define your standard of beauty for yourself. Do not allow anybody to define it for you.
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