People ask me a lot how I do what I do? How do I have so many cool adventures? How do I travel? How do I stay so positive? How do I find the inspiration in the crappiest of situations? How do I find time to start my business? And one of the biggest ways my life began to change is when I stopped caring what people thought of me or how I lived my life. And trust me, I have a lot of opinionated people in my life and I have a very love, hate relationship with needing outside validation. One of the things it came down to was considering the questions: why do I care what people think?

Seriously, where along the way did this become a frame of mind to build our lives upon? When did we decide that anyone else besides us had a say in how we feel called to live our lives? When did we decide that other people’s thoughts were even any of our business at all?

As long as I live by my values, I don’t intentionally hurt anyone or anything, and I live authentically, I think not giving a shit can be so, so powerful in how I live my life and is the key to really living as big as I possibly can and having the biggest impact on this earth while I am here. 

Ways to give less of a shit so you can live more of a life

Love humans for being human.

I think when I realized that we are all humans, and that being a human is often hard, is when I found this deep compassion for people and for myself. When people are reacting “at me” they are truly just reacting at their own experience and truth they have created about their own lives. They are reacting from a place of fear. So just love them, even if they tell you that you suck, that you’re too young to accomplish anything, or tell you you are an idiot and your dreams will fail. Because what they are actually saying is “What you are doing is making me feel like I suck, I feel like I can’t accomplish anything, and I feel like an idiot and that my dreams will never actually happen.” The same goes for when you react at someone else’s life. It probably has to do with your own fear. So love humans, including yourself.

Practice LOTS of self love

Times when I give the least shits about what people think of me or my life I feel very in-tune with my inner self and love her so much. This used to be, and continues to be ,one of my hardest practices. I can love the whole world, but extending that to myself with all the mistakes I have made felt impossible at a point in my life. To start reframing my mind I sat down everyday, set a timer for 5 minutes, and just repeated “I love myself” over and over again, every day. It’s crazy how this changes you. For you, self love might be yoga, or painting, or laying in the grass staring at trees. Whatever your practice is, do it daily, tell yourself you love yourself every day, and just watch how things shift.

See yourself honestly

In order to practice self love, you have to love your whole, imperfect self. It’s easy to love the good things about us, but true self love takes our mistakes, imperfections, and our darkest demons and loves them fully.  It’s a practice, a constant evolution. But when you look at your whole self as honestly as you can and learn to forgive, truly forgive, yourself for all your shit and realize you are a beautiful, perfect human is when nothing and no one can touch you. No one can take your pain or insecurities and use them against you. When someone says something about you, you can have compassion and love for them, instead of having this panic that maybe they are right. You already know exactly who you are, and you love all of it, so they have no power over you. When you are the only one with power over yourself, you live exactly as you want.

Choose love over fear

Usually when I start taking things personally it is because of fear. Fear that I am unworthy, fear that my dreams will never happen, fear that I will always be alone, fear that I am hated, fear that I am an awful human. The list goes on. Fear convinces us to never take chances, to not look at ourselves, to not want more because we don’t know if we can have it or we may get hurt. Love lights us up, makes us feel empowered, makes everything feel possible. Whenever I am reacting, I ask myself am I reacting from a place of fear or responding from a place of love? If it’s fear I follow the next two bullets 🙂

Find my feet, get present

Usually when I am living from a place of fear it is because I am kicking myself for something I did in the past, or I am fearful of things not happening how I want in my future. So I close my eyes and find my feet. Seriously. I put all my focus on what my feet are doing. Are they hot or cold? Are they barefoot? Are they propped up on a chair or on the ground? I wiggle them and feel them move. I take a few deeps breaths and realize where my feet are is where my life is. Right here, right now. Whatever is in front of me is what I have control over. There is no living in my past, it’s done. Move forward. There is no living in my future, because nothing is guaranteed. This moment is it. It’s beautiful and perfect and exactly where I am supposed to be. I can dream and want more and work for it, and I will. But I will only be living wherever my body is at. That is all we can do.

Be authentic

When I say or do things because I want validation or I want attention or a certain reaction from other people is when I give the most shits and live the least. I feel powerless over myself and my life because I have put it in other people’s hands. But when I say or do things because it is a true expression of self, what I truly believe and has nothing to do with what anyone else says or feels is when I am powerful. It is when I am the happiest. The most content and the most authentic. Authenticity is one of the most important values I have. If I am not authentic I am nothing. I am some body reacting to stimulus around me. Emotions flowing all about in any direction at any moment because of anything. When I stand firm in who I am and do things and say things that resonate with me, when I give ZERO shits about what other people think of me, what I am doing or saying is when I am the most authentic and I am living the most.

Giving no shits, letting go of what people think about you, and learning to hear and love yourself is all a practice. I stumble all the time. I get offended, I take things personally, I give people power over me. But these are all things I come back to take my power back, to live the life that I feel calling to me. These practices are how I do what I want, how I stay happy, positive, and empowered. These practices are how I live such a good life. I struggle, I am human, we all are, we all struggle and will continue to do so. But it doesn’t have to be that way all the time, and I hope my tidbits give you power over your life to help you live the most.