#89: Unconditional Self-Love
Today, I want to talk to you about unconditional love towards yourself.
For so many of us, the way that we talk about ourselves in our minds is awful. In fact, if we were out and about, and somebody actually said the things to us that we often said to ourselves, we would be so offended.
So why are we putting up with talking to ourselves in a way we wouldn’t allow anyone else to?
Especially when we are leading teams, when we are running companies, and even just our day-to-day lives?
What can we do about actually loving ourselves in the way that we expect other people to and leading that charge of unconditional love towards ourselves?
I’ll be chatting more about that today on the Scale with Joy podcast.
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Laura (00:00)
Hey friends. Today, I want to talk to you about unconditional love towards yourself. For so many of us, the way that we talk about ourselves in our minds is awful. In fact, if we were out and about, and somebody actually said the things to us that we often said to ourselves, we would be so offended. So why are we putting up with talking to ourselves in a way we wouldn’t allow anyone else to? Especially when we are leading teams, when we are running companies, and even just our day-to-day lives? What can we do about actually loving ourselves in the way that we expect other people to and leading that charge of unconditional love towards ourselves? I’ll be chatting more about that today on the Scale with Joy podcast.
Okay, congratulations. You're here. You didn't roll your eyes enough to keep scrolling, you actually kept listening to a fluffy title like unconditional self-love! You know that I'm a pretty practical kind of girl, and I can completely understand how you might see something like this title and think, "Oh gosh, here we go. Is Laura going to ask us to hold hands singing kumbaya and hug some trees while we're at it?" And no, I will not. This is an actual, very practical application of unconditional self-love, knowing that when you are kind to yourself first and foremost, so much good happens for you.
For those of you who are rolling their eyes right now, I want to relate this to something that probably most of us understand, which is sports. And if you've followed me online, you know about my recent adventures in getting back into tennis after a very long time. In tennis, it is so much more of a mental game than I ever realized when I was in high school and college. It's a game where most people that you are playing with have a similar skill set. It might be that people can maybe hit a little harder or they've got a little more torque in their serve, or possibly they are just better athletes. But for the most part, within a reasonable range, anybody can hit a winning shot just as much as they can hit it into the net. So what is the difference between an entry level player who simply just pushes the ball over the net in the middle of the racket and gets it back every time, and a highly skilled player that has top spin and slice and a killer serve but is inconsistent?
This is something I've been thinking a lot about, particularly as it relates to the way in which we show up in difficult situations. Why is it that for so many of us, we're really good when it comes to practice, but when it's time to show up and perform, we play it safe? We don’t play to lose.. We let somebody else who's maybe more aggressive, more intimidating, or is the loudest voice in the room, not always necessarily the smartest, to dominate.
This has been very much a struggle of mine as an empathy-driven person. I use the word, not necessarily in the spiritual sense, but in the sense that I am deeply concerned
about what other people's experiences are when they're in my presence. It is important to me that I'm remembered as somebody who is less concerned about impressing others and more concerned with leaving a positive impression in terms of how they feel when they're around me. To quote Maya Angelou, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
One of the most difficult aspects of getting back into tennis for me is the mental game, the inner game. There's even a book written about the inner game of tennis, which I've been enjoying recently. And it's amazing how much it parallels business.
In The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey, he talks about how the process of judgment often feeds on and extends itself until a strong negative self image is formed. And once somebody believes that they are a good player or not a good player, they begin to act out the role, never allowing themselves any glimpses into their true capabilities. We often play the role that we think we're supposed to and end up underperforming or showing up as lesser versions of ourselves than we actually are. The reframe that he recommends is that you give your new self, the self that you are unconditionally loving, that you are fully trusting, a very clear image of what you want it to do. Not necessarily through having your racket back or how to do it instructions, but by growing confidence in the ability to visualize the outcome and trust your body to create it. And in this book, he suggests that when you are consciously playing this new role, you may become more aware of your range of true capabilities and fall deeper in love with who you are and what you're capable of.
For those of you who followed the US Open, you likely were watching the incredible rise of Leylah Fernandez. She went from a Canadian unseated to in the top ranking matches of the US Open this past year. She finally finished runner up to fellow teenager, Emma Raducanu, and two days after the final, she went to the Met Gala and had pursued advice from Maria Sharapova. In watching her rise, she had a whirlwind week where she went to a relatively unknown player to attending one of the biggest fashion events in the world. When you watch her play, one of the reasons why she's so enjoyable is because she is completely focused on her craft. She wasn't necessarily overwhelmed with what was happening around her, but as you're watching her, even in the moments where she was losing, you could tell she was having fun. Even though she didn't win, she's been quoted as saying, "She can't wait to get back on the court and compete again." That, my friends, is unconditional self love.
My daughter right now is learning to walk. When she takes a little tiny step and falls to the ground, she doesn't think, oh my gosh, I'm such a loser. We cheer her, she smiles, she gets back up again. She just keeps going at it. She's loving herself in the process
and I'm loving watching her. The journey to unconditional self love may not come easy or quickly, but once you achieve it you realize how simple it is to just love yourself. We have to go back to the basics of learning to walk and not caring if you fall or who’s around to see it. Everything you do for yourself should be done FOR YOU. Worrying about how you may look to others or if you succeeded in a traditional sense means you’re not focusing on finding happiness in what you’re doing. And that’s why you’re doing it in the first place, right? So when we're leading and we fall into a place where maybe we're adopting a little bit of a defensive style in the way that we're playing the game of business, we might just rarely go for the win. We just get the ball back and we wait for someone else to make a mistake. I think that's probably in both tennis and business only going to take you so far.
There's an eventual place in which we need to be okay about the mistakes that we're making. We need to be able to create a new identity for ourselves, where we go for the wins. Where we commit to shifting the self imposed limits we’ve created in order to move forward and grow. Most importantly we love ourselves in the process, even when there's a mistake. When we're leading, other people be very, very quick to point out our own mistakes to ourselves and that can be really discouraging and frustrating. Many times we can get back into that defensive position, play it safe or play not to lose, go into hiding or bury ourselves with backend administrative work. This is something I tend to be guilty of, instead of pushing ourselves forward again and reminding ourselves of the mission and the vision, why we started this in the first place, why we fell in love with what it is that we're creating, who we're serving and elevating the thought patterns of everybody around us. And the truth is, if we can get behind that, the choice to embrace the mistakes and love the process (and ourselves) unconditionally becomes a whole lot easier.
As leaders, we often need to take on this new role at different iterations of growth, where it's possible that the defensive style or an extreme offensive style of passing every shot and trying to get it right every single time, driving ourselves and our team crazy in the process. And that again, will take us so far until everybody burns out.
And as we create this new role, this is when we can know when to hit a winner, know when to play defensive, know when to be aggressive, know when to break habitual patterns. And as this continues to grow, we extend the limits of the love that we have for ourselves as leaders, as CEOs, and as somebody who's creating something from scratch, which is an extraordinary experience, and one of the top ways to grow personally in our lives. And as we continue to love ourselves and gain access to the different qualities that are required at each iteration of growth, we start to realize that we can call upon any of these qualities as appropriate. We become much more connected to ourselves and aware of what’s necessary and possible because our inner selves
know there’s love no matter what. Given the situation, on the tennis court or when leading a company, letting go of these judgements and allowing ourselves to be loved, knowing what card to play at different times are part of these skills of unconditional self love and the inner game of personal growth.
By resorting to judgmental thinking, over control and frustration, it becomes easy to get disappointed in ourselves and be very caught off guard by the way that we talk to ourselves. But when we step into that self love, we trust ourselves to do what is best, fully capable and every day we take the best information available, make decisions, gather more info with an amazing future ahead.
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.