Happy Thursday Everyone! I know I say it again and again but I can’t believe we have another week nearly done and dusted! January and February have legitimately been the fastest months of my life and I can barely believe that Spring is just around the corner! Lately I find myself thinking a lot about how hard women tend to be on themselves. I for one, will be the first to admit that I’m never 100% satisfied with anything I do, and the older I get the more I’m realizing that needs to change! Even if I go to X amount of workout classes each week, I still feel like I should be exercising more, even if I’m keeping up my blog with a full time job, I still sometimes feel like I’m not doing enough and even though I quite literally have a job I could never have even dreamed of, I still wonder if I’m doing the best I can do! There’s this constant self induced weight on my shoulders to always be trying to do more and from talking to friends about it, I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way. I think this “tough on yourself” mentality comes from two places. Firstly, I almost think in a warped way, that thinking you’ve done enough is never how successful people think! You know what I mean, like no successful person ever sits back when they achieve something and says “ok I’m done now.” Secondly, I think growing up in an Irish culture is another reason why I’m a little hard on myself. Irish people (women in particular) tend to very rarely praise themselves (for fear of the “who does yer one think she is” chitter chatter.) I was reminded of this on Monday when I wrote my blogging post tips. I had so many kind emails and snaps from readers about it, but two in particular stood out to me. Two lovely girls wrote to me saying that they would absolutely love to start a blog themselves but are scared about what their friends and acquaintances will think of them and that was the main reason they were holding back, and honestly I wanted to just shake them and say “You do you, honey!”
I’m sure that so many girls that I grew up with probably thought I was so full of myself posting pictures of my outfits and thinking, again “who does yer wan think she is.” Which I get completely! Coming from rural Ireland and starting a blog was maybe a little out of the norm at that time, but you know what, who cares? I saw this quote on pinterest recently and it totally resonated with me, “Light Yourself On Fire With Passion, And People Will Walk For Miles To Watch You Burn.” Every single one of us has dreams and we absolutely should never let any one else’s small minded thoughts hold us back! Maybe these sage thoughts come with age but I truly find the older I get the less I care what other people think and maybe we don’t always need to be so hard on ourselves and dare I say, even every once in a while give ourselves a pat on the back and say well done!
Photography: Edelle Kenny
