Have you ever had the experience of someone trying to convince you to explain yourself to them?
There is freedom in not explaining yourself.
There was once a time when, if someone questioned something I did, I’d find myself going into a long, drawn-out explanation, usually defending my own character. This action often invited “debate” from the other person to question me further.
No matter what I said to that other person, there was constant uneasiness in me that “This person doesn’t believe me or doesn’t understand me.”
And it really bothered me.
Now looking back, I can see how pointless it was to invite these debates into my awareness. All it did was distract me from my more important work.
Now if someone questions my character or asks me to explain myself, I simply exit the conversation. These are conversations I’m not interested in having, because they don’t apply to my truth. I no longer invite them into my life.
Recently I realized I’d been allowing someone to question my character.
I was dating a guy, and after several exchanges of communication, it became very clear to me that he didn’t value the same things I did. So I made that a deal breaker.
He quickly “explained” himself to me, revising some of the things he had previously said. I was like, “OK maybe I misunderstood him initially” — and decided to give him another chance.
But as it turns out, I’d heard him loud and clear the first time. Over time, his actions proved that he truly didn’t value the same things I valued, after all. Later, perhaps in an attempt to make me feel bad and make himself feel better, he began to question MY character. And I temporarily felt the need to defend myself.
It really bothered me that he was seeing something inaccurate about me. I know who I am, and yet for some reason he was seeing a distorted view of me. This “problem” consumed a lot of my time, as I tried to figure out what was causing it.
Eventually I had to ask myself, “Why does it matter what he thinks of me?”
I decided to abandon that problem and leave it unsolved, because the act of trying to solve it was distracting me from other, higher-priority things.
If someone chooses to see you inaccurately, let them have that choice. That’s their issue. They’re viewing life from their own filters anyway.
Some people are so deeply programmed to see the worst that the universe has to offer — they’d be suspicious of even the mostly saintly person on earth.
It’s not your job to correct their viewpoint or help them drop their skepticism. Let them be skeptics.
Being strongly invested in “wanting other people to get who you really are” is actually a trap…because it pulls you away from your real work.
For home-based business owners, the real work is marketing your business and driving sales.
If people get it, they get it. If they don’t, they don’t.
There’s freedom in not explaining yourself.
(That’s why you don’t need to read guides or manuals on “How to handle haters.” The truth is, you don’t have to handle them at all. They’re not the people you’re here to help, nor pay attention to.)
A client recently asked me if I write social media posts. I wrote back a simple: “No, I don’t do that.”
End of story. No explanation, no apology, no explaining myself.
That’s freedom.
Invest your time and resources into communicating with the people who already get it. Don’t cater to anyone else.
Let me help you find the people who “get it.”
Talk soon,
Michelle
Michelle Lopez Boggs is a copywriter, copywriting mentor, and author of "The Anti-Marketing Manifesto: How to Sell Without Being a Sellout." She's helped her clients sell millions of dollars' worth of products and services online by using the MEI(S) principle — motivate, educate, and inspire, and sell. 