Speaker 1: 0:10
Hi friends, welcome to Happily. Even After I’m Life Coach Jen, a certified life coach that specializes in relationships. I’m a mom of four awesome kids and one amazing senora. A home decorator, a remodeler, a shopper, a scrabler and a snuggler. I want to help you with your relationships, mainly the relationship you have with yourself and your family and God. Thanks for listening and letting me share the tools I have learned that can help you live happily even after some of life’s greatest challenges. Hey, friends, welcome to today’s podcast.
Speaker 1: 0:43
I’m so excited to be here and share with you this episode that I’ve been thinking about and it’s kind of an interesting topic. I’m calling it wasted opinions, as I was thinking about this. We spend a lot of time and when I say we, I mean me too. I spend a lot of time having opinions about other people’s lives, especially for me, about my ex-husband and the life he’s living. Sometimes about my kids, sometimes about other people. I mean, think of all the opinions that people have right now about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelty. I mean, it’s crazy. People think he should do this or do that and she should do this or that. So pay attention to what energy and who you’re giving your opinions about. Right, of course. Yeah, sometimes it’s just fun. But I just want you to think about it and think about yourself. And are you spending more time giving opinions about other people’s lives instead of having an opinion about your own life? And I think we do spend a lot of time judging others instead of looking at ourselves or thinking about things. We want to be different. Instead of it’s easier to look at someone else’s failings or winnings instead of look at our own failings or vices or goals, look at other people’s marriages instead of looking at our own marriage. Many times in my own marriage I would be talking to my former spouse talking about someone else’s marriage and I’m like now I’m like, oh my gosh, my own marriage was literally blowing up in front of me and I didn’t see it because I was more focused, I guess, on the outward than my inward. And so many ways that we give opinions with other’s relationships with money, we look at someone else for having money and our opinions about that or not having money. So I think that’s, of course, a human thing to do, so don’t think that you’re a bad person or you’re doing something terrible, but I just want you to think about it and think would your time be better spent thinking about your own life and what kind of opinions do you have about yourself? So what causes people to have opinions?
Speaker 1: 3:25
I think one of the biggest reasons that people tend to have opinions about the decisions of others is that we are not brave enough to take action on our own opinions. So instead of us like taking a step to make you know a different decision and I’m gonna use myself as far as like getting divorced, deciding to be divorced I think I would just have a lot of opinions about other people’s divorces or other people’s marriages. That felt safer to me than analyze my own marriage and my willingness to get divorced and what that would mean for me and my family. It’s much easier to sit back and criticize others than it is to take risks and make bold choices in our lives, because as we make the bold choice, because we’ve been doing it, we’ve been having opinions about others we automatically think what do they think about me? But I think the key is confidence building your own confidence and not not not caring, but not letting it be the weight or the reason why you make a decision.
Speaker 1: 4:39
So much about what other people think of you, because there’s gonna be a lot of people that love you, and then there’s gonna be some people that don’t like you, and that’s okay. I don’t like everyone and not everyone likes me, but if I like me, that’s what matters. And so if you can gain that inner confidence, that inner strength of your knowing that it doesn’t matter what other people think about you and honestly, that’s probably never gonna all go away, because of course, we care what certain people think about us, right, but it’s just becoming aware. Like I just wanna help you become aware of what you’re doing as far as your opinions in other people’s lives as well as your own life. We all know these people that just have a need to share their opinion with you, and I’m just gonna call that like unsolicited advice, like people just have this need to. Just certain people Maybe it’s your mom or your dad or your brother or your neighbor, or a million other people could just randomly wanna give you advice because they think that they know better. They wanna be helpful, like if you can look at what kind of place they’re coming from.
Speaker 1: 5:56
Not everyone has good intentions. There’s, for sure, people that don’t, but most people they wanna be helpful. Many people think there’s a right or wrong way to do it. So if we perceive someone doing it wrong, then we wanna prevent them maybe from doing it wrong to doing it right. And, of course, that thinking isn’t helpful either. We can do this with our kids a lot. Right, we think we have the answers and that we know more than others. But really I want you to know like you know your answers for yourself. Like, yes, it is helpful to get other people’s opinions, but if you’re a person that you find yourself just giving your opinion without being asked, maybe think about that and especially, I think, with our kids and our spouses, if you’re married, we maybe sometimes give our opinions and that’s not necessarily helpful or what they need.
Speaker 1: 6:55
Why do we think our opinion matters? Everyone is trying to assert our ego. We have an ego, right, and we want to be like no, we matter. So, because we matter, we want you to think and know that we matter and so we’re going to share with you our opinion. We want to be established as we know what we’re talking about. We’re the authority figure. We give good advice People making opinions. They want us to think like they know the right answer or they have come from a position of authority. So really it’s our ego driving that of why we think it’s important.
Speaker 1: 7:36
And I loved this quote from Stephen R Covey. He says most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply. And it’s true, right, I have experienced this a lot. It’s like I’m listening to one of my kids telling me something and I’m just like dying to just say like well, you should do X, y and Z and all your problems will go away, instead of just listening and hearing them and sitting with them and feeling their feelings, because chances are they already know the decision that is best for them and, unless they ask us for our opinion, for us always just giving it to them can be unhelpful and it can really tear down our relationship. Just like if you’re a neighbor, I mean, bless my neighbor’s soul. But I have many neighbors and they haven’t necessarily given me my opinion, but I feel their opinions from yard work. Or and I’ve definitely had neighbors give me their opinion on how they think my yard should look or be and I’m sure a lot of you have had other similar situations or how you should park your car in the driveway or when is the best time to put your garbage cans out, and so we have a million opinions about a lot of things.
Speaker 1: 9:09
So if you find yourself being the one that wants to give your opinions, just I would check yourself and you know, I’m going to give you some tools that can maybe help you stop doing this, because it’s unhelpful, right? Really, the person that you need to focus on an opinion about is yourself. Are you showing up as the mom? You want to be as the dad, you want to be as the spouse, you want to be as the person in the world, the community that you want to be? Sometimes yes and sometimes no, and of course, that’s okay. But figuring out okay when the times that I don’t show up the best way, those are things that I know I can work on. So here are some things If you find yourself always one to just give unsolicited advice to people and are you spending time now obviously I know you’re not calling Taylor Swift on the phone, but maybe you’re on Instagram a lot and you just love to make comments about people’s negative comments.
Speaker 1: 10:20
I think it’s great to make comments, like I love when people comment on my Instagram, but there are people that like to make really negative and mean comments and I’ve had to train myself like don’t respond, it doesn’t matter what that person thinks they don’t know who I am but it can be like why are you that person? What is causing you to be the person that is the troll on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter? That would be something good to look at. So if you find yourself doing these things and we all do, no one is immune to it but maybe decide like do I wanna spend all of my time and energy focused on what other people are doing right or wrong in the world according to you or would I like to decide what can I do to lift and to be a person in the world that is the person that you want to be, that you ultimately want to become? So one of them is recognize that not everyone needs fixing.
Speaker 1: 11:27
I think somehow in our society we think people are broken and we need to fix them. It is our job to fix them and I know as parents, sometimes we get into this or spouses definitely like oh, I need to fix my wife. That simply isn’t true and it isn’t helpful for you to give advice from that space. Right? It’s not a loving. I really wanna help you. It’s from I Know Better. It’s from a better than place for sure. There’s a difference between trying to improve something like I don’t know your golf swing, like if you hire a golf coach, you want them to help you improve your golf swing, so you’re gonna. You want their opinion, you want their help.
Speaker 1: 12:15
But when you’re not asking to fix, like, a certain personality trait or something like that, it is unhelpful unless you’re asked hey, can you help me see my blind spot? This is one reason why I love having a coach, because it’s not that I’m broken, but I do have blind spots in my thinking, in different things in my life, in my viewpoint of, let’s say, my ex-husband or my kids, and so they can help me see some of my blind spots. It’s not that I’m going to them and saying, hey, I am broken, what’s wrong with me? No, help me see these blind spots and help me recognize them. But I don’t want my mom pointing that out to me or my friend. That would feel hurtful. If you’re not asked, if you’re not invited into that circle as a coach or a therapist, then it’s not your job to fix it. They just want you to listen, develop emotional awareness.
Speaker 1: 13:18
I think a lot of times people are nervous or uncomfortable around people that have emotions. But we all have emotions and emotions are healthy. It’s what makes us human, what is important. And so when you get uncomfortable, like you hear back in the day, you would tell your son, like don’t cry, boys, don’t cry. Like that’s so unhelpful and that is your opinion and it’s not true. It is not helpful right To tell your child who’s sobbing and hurt, that he’s crying, and so that’s something to look inside of yourself. So, being okay with people being emotional, having emotions, learning the skill of listening is such a great tool. I always thought I was a great listener, but I think that’s a skill that we all need to. We all can if we want to improve on right Is to listen to other people because we want to be heard. People need to share their voice and have it acknowledged and heard, and especially in the betrayal community with women that I work with, they need someone to hear their voice. They don’t wanna be told my opinion about anything, they just need someone to witness their voice and their story and that’s very powerful Asking a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: 14:50
So if someone is having a conversation, instead of telling them, why not ask them, and that’s gonna create a much better dialogue with having a conversation and connection with that person. And so, even if you think you have this great idea, ask questions and maybe eventually you can share your idea. But it’s coming from a place of wanting, not forcing, boosting your confidence. I think, people, when we lack confidence in ourselves, it’s so much easier to look at what everyone else is doing wrong or right or good or bad. It’s why we put our opinions on other people, so we’re looking outward instead of inward.
Speaker 1: 15:36
Ask permission, hey, son or daughter, like I have an experience I would like to share and it may not resonate with your, whatever, but could I share it and then you can share your opinion and your thought about that, especially if well, only if they say yes. But I think it’s important to practice asking for permission and when you are feeling the need to share, just realize like not everyone is gonna think that you give amazing advice. Don’t take it personally, like it’s not about you, it’s about them. And so I just think it’s such an interesting topic to think about, because I think we almost unconsciously give opinions often, even if we don’t say them out loud. We have opinions of ourselves of other people, how people should live in the world, what they should do, how they should act, and so curiosity and doing some of these seven steps that I talked about are gonna go a long way in helping you not just share your opinion when it is not needed, cause it really can burn a bridge or hurt someone’s feelings because they weren’t asking for your opinion, and you can just see this in our world today with social media. Like, everyone has a different opinion and instead of judging, why not like, listen to them and hear them and you can come up. Maybe you’ll change your idea or your opinion, which is so much better and more connecting than anything else that you could be doing.
Speaker 1: 17:21
Thanks so much for listening. If you liked this podcast, I’d love for you to comment and rate it. That way, other people can find it. And thanks so much. Have a beautiful day. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at hello at lifecoachjen with one end dot com. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after. Coach. Let’s work together to create your happily even after.
