Emtalks: Not Feeling Good Enough...

Dress - similar and similar / Bag / Hair by Sassoon

Hello hello hello! Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are. So, today I wanted to write a post about not feeling good enough, mainly, to let you know, that you are good enough. I wanted to just put a rambly personal post live this weekend because hey, why not. A few things have happened recently and if I’m honest, they’ve really knocked my confidence. We all have a few confidence melt downs, which is totally okay, but just know, you really are good enough. I put 110% into everything I do and I’ve felt a little bit wobbly over the last week for a variety of reasons so I guess I wanted to tackle that and talk about it because we are good enough. We all have those days, those ‘I’m not good enough days’ and it’s so important to talk about them. P.S, whilst I've got you, click here and sign up to my new newsletter. It goes out every Friday morning full of random bits and bobs just for newsletter subscribers. I'd love to have you!!!

Dress - similar and similar and here too / Bag / Hair by Sassoon / Shoes similar here and here

Let's start by saying, we live in a world where I feel as if we're made to feel like we're not good enough. In all senses, job, life, everything really. I think I'm my own biggest critic though, I'm surrounded by the most incredible Mum and brother who cheer me on every step of the way, but it's my own brain telling me I'm 'not good enough'. I'm an over thinker, I'm ridiculously driven, sometimes, driving myself into the ground in order to prove people wrong or feel 'good enough'. I know where my drive comes from, it comes from a childhood of being told I'm not good enough, by a member of my family who was supposed to love me and by everyone at school. It's given me a fire in my belly, a dangerous desire to succeed. We need to get out of this mentality because you are good enough. We are all individuals and we are all unique. Don't let anyone make you feel as if you aren't good enough.

First things first, body wise. I’ve always worked out and eaten pretty well so I’ve managed to blast any body doubts away. I feel like there is that thing on my shoulder (particularly at times of the month) and it tells me nasty things about my body. I feel fortunate that I can tell it do one quite frankly. My body carries me. My body is strong. My body is healthy and it wakes me up every morning. There’s no reason to be nasty about my body. However, over the last few months, I’ve just been so busy, I haven’t been able to get into a routine. I feel like I’ve almost neglected my body. I haven’t been nourishing it as well as I used to and I haven’t been training it as much as I used to. I blame not having a stable living base, working crazy hours (we’re talking 18 hour days) and not actually being near my gym. On top of this, I’ve been eating out a lot. I do try to make sensible choices but lets be honest, life is too short to say no to pizza and chips and who wants to live on vegetables their whole life? I’ve been travelling and sometimes it’s hard to remain healthy when travelling. I’m not beating myself up about it, I just don’t feel my best. What’s interesting though is even though my body probably hasn’t changed at all, it’s my mind that’s doing the talking. Psychologically I go to the gym for my mind, it’s so good to banish stress and boost my endorphins so actually, it’s my mind that’s telling me my body isn’t as good as it once was. TimeHop comes up and I’m comparing 21 year old Em, who lived next door to a gym and stayed in one city, to 23 year old Em who rarely spends 24 hours a month at home. We shouldn’t beat ourselves up for being busy. It now means when I do have the chance to work out, it feels like a reward, rather than a chore. I want to work out. It makes me feel incredible.

For me, I don’t focus on the aesthetics of the body (which is different for every single person, my body ideal may be totally different to yours), it’s not about size, it’s about how you feel and I’ve been feeling really heavy, bloated and just dreadful at the moment. I usually wake up and feel great, but I've just felt so bloated for the last few months and I can tell it’s because I’ve not been eating as well as I usually do and certainly not been working out as much as I used to do. I've been ill, up and down and I'm certain it's because I'm constantly stressed. I never thought I’d say I miss University but I miss the situation I was in, living 5 minutes from my gym and having an epic gym routine, it meant I’d go to spin 4x a week and then I felt comfortable eating whatever I wanted as I was burning so much. I currently go to David Lloyd and absolutely love it, they have them all around the UK but my issue is, no matter where I am in the UK, I always cram my meetings back to back and don’t allow time for exercise. I love gym classes as I feel like they push me way more than I push myself, it’s just typical that at the moment, I havent been able to make any of the classes.

I guess what I’m trying to say though, rather than moaning, is that it’s totally okay to be busy. To miss the gym. To just be here, there and everywhere, but wellbeing needs to come in somewhere so what I’m doing is ensuring I have a few days a week where I can exercise, or, if it’s a day and I can’t, I’ll walk to meetings rather than get a taxi for example. I’m having to slot in exercise wherever I can, as it makes my mind feel good. Another thing for me is ensuring my eating is good, that way it doesn’t matter too much that I didn’t get to spin that day. We can’t beat ourselves up for not working out and we certainly can’t beat ourselves up for eating a pizza, it’s all just about moderation.

What’s really important and something that’s taken me a long time to realise though, is that wellbeing comes first. For me, it’s a vicious cycle as I want to work out because it’s so good for my mind, but when I physically do not have the time or energy, I then get stressed because I can’t work out. It’s much better for you to rest up and have sleep than force yourself to work out. Sleep is so important. Looking after your mind and health first is way more important than getting to a fitness class. Last week I woke up for spin and I’d been working till 4am the night before, I felt as if I’d been hit by a bus the next morning. It would have been the wrong thing to drag myself to spin, it would have been totally counterproductive to exhaust myself by going there half a sleep. I went back to bed for two hours instead and it did me the world of good. Your body needs sleep. Listen to it. Sometimes, pizza makes me feel great. Other days, it's vegetables. Moderation is key. Listen to your body.

So, how am I gonna conquer this? More water, more sleep, more exercise when I can, plan my weeks week by week and not beat myself up if I miss a class. Life is not about how your body looks, it's about how you feel inside.

Unfollowing - Next up, a controversial topic and one I just didn’t know if I should touch on. This is a really controversial one and a trivial one, but I felt really really upset the last few weeks over something I know is really trivial. First things first, I know people unfollow and unfriend for a lot of reasons. It could be that you’re no longer friends or that you just don’t like the kind of content that person is pushing out there. I know a lot of people have a rule where they unfollow someone who doesn’t make them feel good. Personally, for me, I follow so many incredible, inspirational women (many of look like Victoria Secrets Models and actually, inspire me to gym!). I could get really jealous and down but I recognise that those people have bad days too, they’re just putting up the perfectly filtered version of themselves and they probably took that one photo 800 times. So what if they didn’t, maybe they do just look that good. There’s always going to be someone in a better situation and someone in a worse situation than you and I don’t mind seeing people in a better situation than me. It totally inspires me, makes me want to push harder, work harder. I also understand that for some people, this just isn’t good and in order to focus on themselves, they don’t really want to follow those kinds of people. This situation with me though, is quite different as obviously I’m not a VS model and my life certainly isn’t perfect.

I *stupidly (although kinda glad I did now)* downloaded an app which tells me who doesn’t follow me back on Instagram and it actually really hurt me to see that fellow people in the same job as me, have unfollowed me on Instagram. Even typing this sounds stupid but what made this worse is that these are people who I support all the time, constantly liking, commenting on their photos and recommending to people. These are people I talk to via social media and I guess in my silly mind, thought we were acquaintances. I feel like I’m probably to blame here, for assuming that people like me and are my ‘friends’ online, when in reality, they clearly aren’t haha so to then see that I’d been randomly unfollowed, just made me question a lot of things. What have I done thats so bad that these people have unfollowed me? Is my content not good enough? I thought we were friends? I’m a massive over thinker which I know is a bad thing, but it just really hurt me. I know it shouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest, because there’s so much more going on in the world, so so much but still, I have no idea why something so trivial got to me but it really hurt me. I’m holding my hands up here and saying how trivial it is, but for some reason it really made me feel as if my work isn’t good enough. Social media, even though it's my job, makes me anxious. The over thinker in me questions everything: is that about me? Does that person hate me? No Em, that person has their own battles to fight and probably doesn't even know who you are. RELAX BRAIN. RELAX.

Instagram is something that really gets me down. Again, I know it shouldn’t. It’s an app. Who cares. I know there are real things to put my energy and effort in and believe me, I put my energy and effort into real things but the new algorithm seems to be favouring some people and not others. I guess couple that with people you thought you got along with unfollowing you and wowza, Em over-thinking over drive. When you put your heart, soul and time into those little photos it’s hard not to question if your content is good enough.

I felt sad for a few days and then I pulled myself together. Firstly, blaming hormones. Secondly, recognising that there is WAY more in life. I'm proud of my content and 99% of you are so wonderfully lovely about it, it makes it all worthwhile. So why have I left the small 0000% of people make me feel like it isn't? Remember: you are good enough. I am probably totally overthinking. Go read this here, about my wonderful friend Dean who is fighting cancer. Now he will change your life. For good and he is a good egg. He makes me realise that happiness and health are all that matters, truly.

The internet often makes me feel wobbly. Anonymous people (who aren't really anonymous, I like to think I should be in the FBI) judging your life, making nasty comments. I know I'm not a bad person. I know I do a lot for charity and it isn't something I feel like I should have to discuss all the time. You've got to laugh really (apparently I got my car for free... the car I bought and worked hard for, someone genuinely said I got it for free the other day!!!!?!?, or there's the person who said I have a sugar daddy LOL). Yet people online will drag you until you feel worthless, until you feel like you're a terrible person. As my Mum always says, you know you're a good person and the people who truly know you and support you, know that too. I strongly believe these people do it because they aren't happy with their own lives.

So here it is. Don’t question your body: your body is good enough. It wakes you up every morning, it takes you wherever you need to go. You look beautiful and you are amazing. Don’t question your work: your work is more than good enough. No matter what job you’re in, your content, your work - it’s your effort and it’s done by you. There is only one you. Comparison is the thief of joy, don’t do it. Stay in your lane, work as hard as you can but never work so hard making a living that you forget to make a life. Remember: we are all fighting battles people don't know anything about, there are SO many things I could tell you about my life and you honestly wouldn't believe them, one day, I will. We need to stop beating ourselves up, start loving ourselves more and believing ourselves more. In the words of my mum: you're doing amazing, but even warriors need to cry sometimes and need a hug because even warriors get scared. YOU are a warrior and it's okay to be scared, upset - talk about it. Lastly, don't ever listen to anonymous peoples opinions - they are anonymous and I doubt they'd say it to your face. It says way more about them than it does about you. Maybe they should focus their energy on doing good things?