Who Are You Trying to Impress?

 

Who are you trying to impress?

You may find the answer to this enlightening.

I have spent a great deal of my life working to live up to the expectations of others. Some of this has been in my real day-to-day life, while some has been in my hobby life.

In either case, the notion that I needed to impress person ‘x’ or group ‘y’ would dominate my thoughts, feelings, and actions. So I would do things in order to live up to expectations of me and gain acceptance or accolades or some other goal.

The trouble that comes of this, however, is once you start down this sort of path, it can be very difficult to reclaim it for yourself.

What does that mean? The only person you need to impress, when all is said and done, is you.

Yes, I can’t deny that there are benefits to making a good impression on people. You gain friends, allies, confidants, and trust and (hopefully) respect you can use to assist your ongoing processes. However, if you solely rely on these outside forces for validation, you can and will lose yourself along the way.

The consequence of losing yourself is that you can lose your way, and in trying to impress others you may no longer be doing what actually you need and desire for yourself.

Expectations can be inflated

When you’re working to impress others, much of this is based on your interpretation of what it is you believe they expect from you. This can get pretty convoluted because how much you can see into another person’s perception is extremely limited.

In other words, you can’t know what anyone else really expects of you.

The only person you can be mindful of is yourself. This is because you are the only one living inside your head. You are the only one with the thoughts and feelings that you have. You can get an impression of what another person thinks of you, but it’s a mere impression that will be colored by your own perceptions.

What this means is that what you may believe someone else expects of you can get inflated.

In my hobby life, well over a decade ago, I wanted to be recognized by the other fencers in the community. I love medieval fencing on a lot of different levels. It became important to me that I get recognized for my skill in rapier combat…but I began to make myself crazy trying to live up to the expectations of others.

It felt like nothing I did would be good enough. This started to suck the joy out of my game. But then I found an instructor who taught me new skills, and these, in turn, improved both my own abilities and how much effort I was putting into trying to impress expectations of others I couldn’t fully know.

In time, I got the recognition I was seeking. Today, there is a new level of recognition in my hobby life, and while once again I risk going crazy trying to meet the expectations of others, I know that this is not as important as impressing myself.

You can’t know what it takes to impress others

I still deeply love medieval fencing. To the point that expressing how much I love this game, and what it has done for my balance, eye-hand coordination, reaction time, and more is beyond words.

So here’s the thing – I am not built in any way, shape, or form, like a stereotypical fencer. Further, due to past injuries, I am made partially out of titanium. Yet I can move in ways unexpected from someone built like me (short and stocky covers this more-or-less), and I tend to be one of the first to get on the floor at practice, as well as one of the last (endurance is a thing).

Why am I sharing all this? This is not about me impressing you in any way (though it might appear as such). I am sharing this because I am impressed with myself. Despite a less-than-stellar beginning to my fencing career over 25 years ago, I am still competent, and deeply in love with the game.

Fencing is not something I do to impress others. This is something I do because I love it, and I am impressed with myself for my abilities.

In all probability, you likely have something you do, or love to do, which makes you happy like fencing makes me happy. When you do that thing, whatever it is, you don’t do it to impress anyone else – you impress yourself with it.

This is not egotistical, nor selfish, nor narcissistic, nor in any other way negative. The ability to see yourself in an impressive way is useful because you can’t know what impresses anyone else.

Impressing yourself isn’t selfish

It can feel like just about anything that you do for yourself is selfish. Or, if not actually selfish, comes across as selfish. But the truth of selfishness is borne in intent.

A selfish act is intentional. For example, say you have a tasty pie. Rather than sharing slices of pie with others, you keep it all to yourself. And then you eat it in front of them. THAT is selfishness.

Self-care is not selfish. In fact, through self-care, you give yourself the ability to see who you really are, and what you truly need.

How you impress anyone else is beyond your ability to recognize. This is because you can’t get inside anyone else’s head. What it takes to impress them will be based solely on their life experiences, biases, prejudices, knowledge, beliefs, and other matters known only to them.

So why do you and I work so damned hard to impress others? Because you and I tend to believe the impression we make on others runs far deeper than it does.

That’s not to say being a good person and doing good things doesn’t matter. Of course, it matters. Nobody (generally) seeks to make a bad impression on anyone else. But making an impression is largely superficial, whereas working to impress someone goes much more in depth.

Be the best you that you can be

In the end, all you can do to impress anyone else is to be the best you that you can be. That means you need to work on impressing yourself. Living up to the expectations of others is a trap because all you will ever know is the visible aspect of that expectation and not the underlying reality of it.

Everyone is only inside their own heads. No matter how hard you try to get into another’s psyche, you can’t get in too deep. The influence you have towards anyone else is limited by how much influence they accept and take in. You have no control over anyone else and their actions, expectations, or impressions.

When you stop working to impress other people, you can focus on being the best you that you can be. You are worthy and deserving of making this work. Don’t be afraid of failing to live up to anyone else’s expectations – the only person you need to impress, truly, is yourself.

The next time you find yourself trying to impress someone else, be mindful of why. What are you looking to gain from this? Will this make you a better you, or draw you further away from being your truest self?

Who are you trying to impress?

This is the three-hundred ninetieth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas for, and my personal experiences with, walking along the path of life to consciously create reality.  I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way and empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me.  Feel free to re-blog and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

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