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| No makeup, ready for bed and in my pajamas ....100% myself |
I have noticed over the past few years that women tend to apologize a lot. We don’t always apologize just because we did something wrong. There has become a trend where we have begun to apologize for choosing ourselves first, apologizing for things we have no control over, apologizing for putting our families first and we SERIOUSLY need to stop.
I have struggled with the fear of being selfish for choosing
myself and that is not what I wanted people to think about me. However, as I have gotten older I had the
“ah-ha” moment when I realized that the people that actually know me personally
know that I am so far from a selfish person.
The people that do not know me personally, I no longer take their
critiques about my life personally.
A few things that I have struggled with regarding
apologizing in the past and sometimes now are:
1. TIME
I used to be a “yes” person.
I would sacrifice my own time to do things for other people. Basically, if you were my friend and you
needed me to do something, I would constantly figure out how I could fit you in
to help out.
While making myself available for everyone else, I began to
neglect myself. As a result, I had to
stop this madness.
I constantly felt bad and continued to apologize for not
being available because I had obligations and things that I needed to do for
myself first
We cannot take care of other people if we do not take care
of ourselves. We need to give back to
ourselves in order to give to others.
2. Being a wife and mother
first
I am a wife and mother first. The needs of my family come before anything
or anyone else.
Making sure that my family is all set prior to doing
anything else is not something that I should have to apologize for. However, this is something that I constantly
did.
I would apologize because I couldn’t go somewhere because it
was during naptime. I would always
preface it with “you know I’m a stickler for my kids schedule”. Yes I am, but this does not have to be a bad
thing or something that I should have to apologize for.
I always do what works for my family first. Anything that comes after that is going to
always be secondary.
Having a family and making them a priority is what we should
be doing, this is not something that we should ever feel bad about.
3. Wanting to Relax
Sometimes I just like hanging out at home in my pajamas and
relaxing. I have said that I did not
want to make plans because I literally wanted to sit at home and relax.
I used to make the plans anyway, and the entire time that I
was there I would constantly think about how much I wanted to go home and
relax.
Now, if all I want to do is relax, I will say that. I no longer apologize for it, and if my
friends want to hang out with me on my “relax” days, they know that they are
always more than welcome to join me on the sofa at home.
4. Requesting others to do
what is expected of them
There have been several times at work when I felt the need
to apologize to people for asking them to work.
Example: I’m sorry to
bother you, but I have emailed you three times and called you and I have not
received a response. Can you do x for
me?
I’ve learned that sometimes people will take advantage of
you and while you may think you are helping them, they are not doing what is
expected of them because they know that you will take care of it.
I’ve had coworkers apologize to me for requesting me to do
something also.
I am not sure how this dynamic has happened between women
and why we feel the need to apologize for so many things. We have every right to have our expectations
met just as every one else does.
5. Things we have no control
over
A few weeks ago a coworker apologized to me because her
system was moving slow. This is not
something that she had any control over, but for some reason she felt the need
to apologize for it.
As women we need to make an effort to show more confidence
in our feelings and requests. We do not
need to apologize for the requests we are making, the time that we are seeking,
or anything else that we are doing for ourselves.
Is it ok to apologize sometimes? Of course it is. We should apologize when we are doing
something wrong. We do not need to
apologize when we are doing things for ourselves. However, we need to stop apologizing for
being who we are and learn that if we are not accepted for who we are, that is
simply not our problem.
What are some things that you want to break the habit of
apologizing for?
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Xoxo,
Katrina
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