People love to put labels on us. We label others all of the time.

What is your sign? What do you do? What are you? (my least favorite and most popular question to date…uh, human!)

Are you a Democrat? Left handed? A morning person? A mom? Whatever…

For some reason, people have to be able to put you in some neat little box and dare you to come out of it. You have to be who they say you are and do all that they think you are to do. If we are honest about it, we all do it in some form or fashion and spend a lot of time worrying about “sorting” the people around us. What do I really think of them? What do they think of you? We sit around thinking about what someone thinks of us and the labels they may be putting in us.

Labeling people by their behavior and characteristics can end up limiting our curiosity about a person. We will choose if we want to connect with someone based on who we think they are and that just doesn’t seem fair. It would not seem fair if they were doing it to us, right?

News Flash…What someone else assumes about you is really not your concern…Periodttttt!

There are times when we have been told something so much that we begin to believe that we cannot change or do a thing because of a label someone has given us or we have given ourselves… you are not in a good place to grow. Doubt can weigh heavy on us and stop us from pursuing dreams and goals. Your brain has a job and that it is to prove itself right. The same goes with labeling others, you deny people the privilege to change and move in a different direction. Those labels take on “all-or-nothing” meanings.

It is not our responsibility to live up to what they think about us. It is not our responsibility to correct them even. It honestly is not your responsibility to even care!!! And that is BIG FACTS. It is only your responsibility to be the person that you believe you are and expect yourself to be. At the end of the day, we do not owe anyone an explanation of who we are and what we choose to do. Just be a kind person, be an empathetic human and live your life to the full…The End.

Do not drive yourself crazy worrying about people that choose to make judgement about who you are or what you are about. If they think you are a nerd…if they think you are stuck up or a snobby person…if they think you are a jerk because you question the norm…if they think you are weird because your fashion doesn’t fit the trend..let them think what they want! It is not your responsibility to change their mind.

You know who you are and that is everything you need to know!

Labels are messy! They end up conveying something absolute. It is difficult to change your mind once you have fed a “fact” to your brain. Why do we do this to ourselves? It really prevents growth in so many areas. Once we decide to toss the labels away, we will truly be able to invest in our potential and help others to see theirs.

Live your life just the way you feel you need to and let who you are shine through your actions and the words you speak. Eat what you want. Wear what you want. Let people say what they want and label you in the fashion they feel….who gives a damn! Did I say that?

Do not waste energy correcting people and do not even waste your energy caring about what they think of you. If the person is someone that is important to you, I would say, talk to them. You want them in your life so you need to let them know how you feel and set boundaries. If it is someone you are doing business with, communicate with them so that business can go smoothly. Other than that…(shrugs)

Obsessing over labels you have put on yourself will stop you from being who you truly are, the truest version of yourself. We tend to live up to those labels, whether you have given them to yourself or someone else has planted the seed…good or bad. Let’s not allow negative labels to define us…change your mind! We should also be flexible about the labels we are putting on others. We are making our lives so much more stressful and we are holding ourselves and others back from seeing our potential.