Learn how to tune in and out of the opinions of others

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Happy Sunday & thank you for opening this week’s #TheLifeofJLOWE newsletter!

If you’ve been following along on my Instagram, you’d know that In the past week I started a content creation challenge for myself - #VLOGMAS! 🎄 It’s a challenge where I’ll post a vlog everyday until Christmas, which forces me to get better at filming and editing content for my social media.

I’m taking it as a learning experience for myself, and although my vlogs aren’t the best quality, I can already feel my editing and recording skills getting better. I’m excited to see how I grow as a content creator through this challenge, because I’m a firm believer that you learn how to do new things only by actually doing them.

Learning about perspective through #TheLifeofJLOWE

Sometimes when I sit to write my newsletter, I think about the fact that when I write I always want to give something to you as my reader for the week ahead. Throughout the past 2 years of writing this newsletter, lots of people have asked me the question “How do you come up with something different to write about every week?”

The real answer to that question is that sometimes, I don’t feel like I have anything to write about in a given week. Sometimes I have a “boring” week and have to dig deep to find a message, or I just don’t really feel as though anything huge happened that’s worth sharing.

In those moments where I feel like my own glass is empty, I’ve learnt that being able to share and help others through my own experiences is all about perspective. It’s all about recognising that although you may think that what you have isn’t exciting or meaningful, there’s still purpose in sharing because others can find meaning where you might not be able to.

People as a means to perspective

As I’ve said before, everyone’s opinions are a projection of their own past experiences ,so you should take them with a grain of salt. However, more introspection on that perspective has made me realise that, in that same vein, your own opinions of yourself are also projections of your own past experiences.

This means that we judge ourselves by our past experiences, and we set goals and standards for success based on what we know and have experienced in the past.

It seems pretty obvious, of course, because what else do we have to judge ourselves but our own experiences?

So what did all that introspection reveal for me?

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You’re your biggest critic

For me, this year has been about trusting myself in the face of opposition. Whether it was learning how to advocate for myself in the face of discrimination at my corporate job or ultimately deciding to resign from a toxic work environment, I’ve had to learn how to listen to myself despite opposing opinions to what my next course of action in my own life should be.

Through making those decisions, and through living through positive outcomes, I’ve learnt that yes, I can trust myself to make big decisions for myself, and that it’s okay to go against the grain of what people or society tell me.

In the same vein though, after quitting my job, and meeting people through my travels post-resignation, I’ve also learnt to value the perspectives of others in a brand new way.

Because we make decisions, set goals and judge ourselves based only on our own limited subset of experiences, arrogance, tuning out other people’s opinions entirely and ignoring other perspectives leaves you with a limited set of information to make decisions with.

Especially because you’re your own biggest critic, it’s important to recognize when you’re being hard on yourself, or when you might be pushing yourself in a direction that can be considered extreme. You only get to see the way you treat yourself when you listen to and value the perspective of others.

How my newsletter has taught me this

So, back to where we started - sometimes I feel like there’s nothing to write about. Sometimes I feel like nothing eventful happened, and there’s nothing worth sharing.

The most beautiful thing about sharing with you week over week, however, is that I get replies from readers, feedback from friends and family, and comments in private conversations that make me realize how sharing my own stories helps to kickstart introspection for other people.

For me, it’s like thinking you have a “stupid question” in class. You raise your hand and ask it, and somehow it’s the same question that’s been on everyone’s mind. Then you get the choral “Oh, I didn’t understand that either!”

It becomes so easy to get engulfed in our own worlds, that we forget that we really are living a shared human experience on this planet in many, many ways.

Conclusion

I say all this to say that life is all about perspective. Something you may feel isn’t worthy of being shared, someone else might think is the most interesting thing ever, and our interactions and conversations as humans are all just tests of whether we’re right about that or not.

When we share with one another, and truly value each others’ perspectives, we become more able to realize that we are not experiencing this life thing alone, and as a result, we don’t have to make decisions based only on our own limited set of experiences.

It’s important to learn how to tune out others’ opinions especially when they’re negative, but equally as important is being able to receive feedback and criticism that may sometimes initially be perceived as negative too.

Equally, equally as important too (because yes, 3 things can be equal), is being able to receive positive opinions. I think you’d be surprised how many people in your life can’t take a compliment, and that’s another result of being unable to properly weight and value the opinions and perspectives of others in our own lives.

So this week, share something with somebody. Have a conversation and listen. Be present to the ways in which we’re hardwired to socially connect as humans, and see if that improves the quality of your relationships, or at the very least the quality of your day-to-day interactions.

Until next Sunday,
Justin