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Let Them Be Confused: The Power of No Longer Justifying Yourself · The Nadia Chapman Show

• 0:05
  Hi, welcome to the Nadia Chapman Show. I'm your host, Nadia Chapman.
• 0:09
  I love today's topic. We're talking about confused people, people in our lives
• 0:14
  that are just looking at us and thinking like, what the hell does she think she's doing?
• 0:19
  So let me start with this because I think a lot of people need to hear this exactly this way.
• 0:25
  If you're doing something different in your life, whether it's changing direction
• 0:29
  or just setting boundaries with people around you, cutting off people that are
• 0:33
  toxic or choosing yourself.
• 0:35
  Evolving, or just not explaining every single thing you do, every single move
• 0:41
  you make to people around you, there will be people who don't get it.
• 0:45
  And I think it's part of getting older is something I'm going through,
• 0:49
  and I think it's hysterical.
• 0:51
  They will be confused by your choices, they'll be misunderstanding your silence,
• 0:55
  or they're going to come up with stories about your intentions.
• 0:59
  And in some case, they'll question yourself.
• 1:01
  Your decisions and your timing and your confidence and your sanity, it's hysterical.
• 1:07
  But here's the part that we don't say enough in society.
• 1:11
  That is not a problem that you need to solve.
• 1:15
  And I decided to talk about this today because I'm getting older.
• 1:18
  A lot of my friends are getting older and some people are taking radical moves
• 1:23
  and doing radical changes in their lives.
• 1:25
  And it's interesting to see that people get confused. And sadly,
• 1:30
  they get confused or angry when you choose yourself or you're doing really good in your life.
• 1:36
  Some people I know and I've worked with that have amazing thriving businesses and believe it or not,
• 1:43
  the people around them aren't that supportive because there's a little bit of
• 1:47
  jealousy when somebody chooses themselves and are truly embracing who they are.
• 1:51
  It can trigger insecurities in people around them. So that's what we're going
• 1:55
  to be talking about today. Isn't that fun?
• 1:58
  So somewhere along the way in life, we learn that being understood equals being safe.
• 2:05
  And I've talked about that before in podcasts. It's the way our brains are wired.
• 2:11
  We need acceptance. We need people to love us. It's a survival mode thing.
• 2:17
  We learn that if people are confused, that we must be doing something wrong.
• 2:21
  Maybe we communicate poorly or maybe we owe them more context,
• 2:26
  right, into why we're doing certain things or we think a certain way.
• 2:29
  So we start explaining ourselves. We start putting ourselves in the corner,
• 2:35
  softening who we are, maybe clarifying what's going on and justifying.
• 2:40
  That's a big one. Justifying our every move.
• 2:44
  Rewording our lives differently.
• 2:46
  Is something a lot of people are doing, just so it's easier for other people to digest.
• 2:53
  And I'm going to tell you, as I'm saying this, I realize maybe that is the writer-downer for today.
• 2:59
  That sounds absolutely exhausting. I'm sure you're on board with me. My God.
• 3:06
  From a life coaching perspective, one of the biggest drains on confidence,
• 3:11
  it's not fear, believe it or not, it's over explaining.
• 3:15
  It's a constant need to manage how everybody else perceives you instead of focusing
• 3:20
  on how aligned you feel in your life and with your decisions. Isn't that crazy?
• 3:25
  So when you're always trying to justify and make sense to everyone else around
• 3:29
  you, you slowly lose access to your own inner authority.
• 3:34
  Yikes. And here's something I've been saying for many years,
• 3:38
  when you grow, when you get older, people who knew the old version of you don't
• 3:44
  always update their expectations.
• 3:46
  Oh, hell no. They keep relating to who you were, not to who you are becoming.
• 3:52
  So when change happens, when you change the rules or when you stop showing up
• 3:57
  the same way after so many years, or you stop saying yes, or you stop giving
• 4:01
  and you stop performing, whoa, it really throws them off.
• 4:06
  So their confusion is not about you being unclear about what's happening.
• 4:10
  It's about you no longer being predictable. And predictability is comfortable,
• 4:15
  not for you. It's comfortable for them.
• 4:18
  I hope you're following me. So what usually happens next is very subtle.
• 4:22
  So you start feeling a weird tension.
• 4:25
  You know, you feel the awkwardness so that's unspoken you know what's going
• 4:29
  on with you energy right and instead of letting that discomfort exit you rush in.
• 4:36
  And instead of letting that discomfort exist, because, you know,
• 4:40
  it's normal, you rush in to fix it, don't you?
• 4:44
  So you start explaining yourself, and you justify, and you start giving reasons,
• 4:49
  and you overshare, and you justify choices that you're making that actually
• 4:53
  feels really solid to you. But here's the thing.
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  The moment that you start explaining yourself to be understood by others,
• 5:01
  you hand them your power.
• 5:03
  You give your power away. Bye.
• 5:06
  Not everyone needs to understand where you're going.
• 5:11
  Not everybody in your life needs to understand your timing.
• 5:15
  Not everybody needs to agree with the boundaries you're putting in place.
• 5:19
  And this is a very good lesson for younger people too.
• 5:23
  I work with a lot of tween and teenagers.
• 5:25
  And this is a very good podcast for you too.
• 5:29
  Not everybody needs access to your reasoning process. All right.
• 5:34
  Some people are only confused because they don't get that same level of access anymore.
• 5:40
  And that is okay. You need to let that be okay.
• 5:43
  Letting people be confused doesn't mean that you're arrogant or you're cold
• 5:48
  or you are inconsiderate.
• 5:50
  It means that you trust yourself enough, all right, to let your actions speak
• 5:54
  without constant commentary.
• 5:57
  It means that you're no longer willing to forget who you are and where you want
• 6:03
  to go, or abandon yourself just to keep the room comfortable and keep people happy.
• 6:08
  You know, your growth, because you will grow, even if you are an adult my age
• 6:13
  and older, you still grow.
• 6:15
  And growth, it often looks quiet.
• 6:18
  You do your thing, and then suddenly, oh, people are like, wait a second,
• 6:23
  something is happening with her.
• 6:24
  It looks like fewer explanations and firmer decisions on your end.
• 6:29
  It looks like maybe choosing alignment over approval and that will happen.
• 6:34
  I hope it happens in your life.
• 6:36
  It was going to look like letting people fill in the blanks however they want.
• 6:40
  And yes, some people will absolutely misinterpret that and you need to learn to let them.
• 6:47
  They might think that you've changed, or maybe they'll just think that you're
• 6:51
  selfish, or maybe they'll think you're dramatic.
• 6:54
  Maybe they'll think that you are hard to read. But what's actually happening
• 6:58
  is that you stop performing for them, and you stop performing for comfort,
• 7:04
  and you start aligning with where you want to go.
• 7:08
  And mostly, most importantly, drumroll, you start living with intention.
• 7:14
  What an art. Yikes. It sounds easy. it is not.
• 7:18
  Here's the uncomfortable truth that I always bring up.
• 7:21
  You cannot evolve and remain fully understood in your life by everyone,
• 7:28
  okay, by everyone who benefited from the old version of you, especially.
• 7:33
  And I'm going to tell you, when you stop explaining everything and justifying
• 7:39
  yourself, something incredibly magical, something very interesting happens.
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  You realize how much freaking energy you were spending managing everybody's
• 7:51
  reaction instead of building a life for you that feels right.
• 7:57
  You will feel lighter. You will feel clearer. You will feel more grounded.
• 8:02
  And not because everyone agrees with you.
• 8:05
  No, they won't. But because you do you.
• 8:09
  Letting people be confused is an act of self-trust.
• 8:12
  It's like, okay, I don't need to convince you. I don't need to convince you
• 8:17
  in order to continue what I want to do, right?
• 8:20
  It's a quiet confidence that doesn't need any backup.
• 8:24
  Any witnesses, or any permission. And I want you to just take that in right now.
• 8:30
  And eventually, when someone will catch up, because people will catch up to you, and some won't.
• 8:37
  And I'm going to be honest, some were never meant to catch up.
• 8:42
  Okay, that's the truth bomb for this podcast.
• 8:46
  And I'm going to tell you, I have a great sense of humor. At least I love to
• 8:50
  think that I have a great sense of humor, but let them wonder,
• 8:54
  let them misunderstand, let them be confused.
• 8:57
  Because you know what you are doing.
• 8:59
  You're not here to make sense to everyone, all right, in your life,
• 9:03
  because that's impossible to do anyway. You're here to move into the right direction.
• 9:07
  And that is, that clarity is yours. This is where you want to go. So let them be confused.
• 9:13
  And I'm going to tell you, continue anyway.
• 9:16
  All right, you've got this. Good luck and thanks for listening.