Stop needing everyone to understand you

For a long time, I wanted the people closest to me to understand why I made the choices I did. I didn’t particularly want them to agree with every decision. I just wanted them to understand why I couldn’t seem to follow the path that made perfect sense to everybody else.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard some version of, “Why don’t you just get a proper job?” Usually it wasn’t said with any great malice. Sometimes it was a joke. Sometimes it was concern. Occasionally it came wrapped in one of those wonderfully underhand comments that somebody can later insist you have taken completely the wrong way. But it bothered me.

Building businesses isn’t particularly predictable. There are periods when everything is going brilliantly and periods when you wonder what on earth you’re doing. There are risks, long hours, sleepless nights and decisions that ultimately sit with you.

To somebody who values the security of going to work, doing their job, receiving their salary and going home, I completely understand why that might look unnecessarily stressful. It just isn’t the life I want.

I spent years trying to explain

When somebody doesn’t understand the choices you’re making, the natural reaction is often to explain them better. You explain the plan. You explain what you’re building. You tell them about the opportunity, where you think it could go and why you’re prepared to take the risk. Then you explain it again.

Eventually I realised that the problem wasn’t that I hadn’t explained myself properly. We simply wanted different things. That sounds incredibly obvious now, but I think it took me years to properly understand it. The people around us don’t assess our decisions from inside our lives. They assess them through their own experiences, priorities, fears and ideas about what a successful life should look like.

If security is incredibly important to somebody, taking a financial risk may look reckless. If somebody loves having a predictable routine, your constantly changing life may look exhausting. If they have always worked for somebody else, starting a business can look like an unnecessarily complicated way of earning a living.

None of those people necessarily wants a bad life for you. They’re imagining the life they would choose for themselves.

The irony isn’t lost on me

There is, admittedly, an irony to being repeatedly told to get a “proper job”.

At some point in time, I have employed every single member of my family and provided them with a living through the businesses I was told weren’t quite as sensible as having that proper job. I can laugh about that now. Mostly. Because if I’m completely truthful, the comments can still bug me.

I think that’s important to admit because there is a version of personal growth presented online where eventually you become so evolved that absolutely nothing anybody says bothers you.

I haven’t reached that level of enlightenment. An underhand comment from somebody close to you can still sting, particularly when it touches something you’ve spent years working incredibly hard to build. The difference is that I no longer feel compelled to convince them.

I realised I don’t actually want their life

This was probably the biggest change in the way I thought about it. I stopped asking why they couldn’t understand the life I wanted and started looking at the lives they had chosen. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with them.

They have made choices that work for them. They have different priorities, different attitudes towards risk and different ideas about what makes them happy. That’s exactly how it should be. But I wouldn’t want their lives. Not because I think my way of living is better. It isn’t. It’s simply better for me.

I realised that if I wouldn’t choose somebody else’s life, it makes very little sense to allow their opinion to determine how I build mine.

That thought was strangely freeing. We spend so much time wanting validation from people whose definition of happiness, success or fulfilment is completely different from our own. Perhaps they aren’t supposed to understand.

Sometimes the people who love you won’t ‘get’ you

This doesn’t only happen with careers. Families and friends may not understand why you leave a relationship, move somewhere new, decide not to have children, have another child, change careers, go back to university, spend money travelling, stop drinking, start exercising, sell your house or completely reinvent your life at 50. People have an idea of who you are.

When you behave outside that idea, it can make them uncomfortable. Sometimes they genuinely worry about you. Sometimes your decisions challenge something they believe about their own life. Sometimes they simply wouldn’t make the same choice and therefore struggle to understand why you would. And sometimes, frankly, people are just judgmental.

You can spend an enormous amount of energy trying to work out which one it is. Or you can carry on.

You don’t owe everybody an explanation

There is a difference between communicating with people who are directly affected by your decisions and constantly defending yourself to people who simply have an opinion about them.

If your decision affects your partner, children, business partner or somebody else who has a genuine stake in the outcome, of course conversation matters. But not everybody gets a vote.

You don’t have to produce a business case every time somebody questions your career. You don’t have to explain a boundary repeatedly because somebody doesn’t like it. You don’t need unanimous family approval before changing something about your own life.

Sometimes “This is what I’ve decided” is enough. That can feel uncomfortable if you’ve spent years trying to keep everybody happy. But discomfort doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing something wrong.

Being misunderstood doesn’t automatically mean you’re wrong

This is something I wish I’d learned earlier. When enough people question what you’re doing, you can start questioning it yourself. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I should be doing something safer. Maybe I’m being unrealistic. Maybe this isn’t going to work.

Listening to good advice matters. There have been plenty of times when somebody else has spotted something I couldn’t see, and surrounding yourself exclusively with people who agree with everything you do isn’t personal growth either. Sometimes we need somebody to challenge us.

The question is whether the person offering the opinion actually understands what you’re trying to achieve and whether their advice is relevant to the life you’re trying to create. There is a big difference between listening to wise counsel and living according to somebody else’s fears.

Success doesn’t necessarily make people understand

I used to think there would probably be a point when I had achieved enough that everybody would finally understand. There isn’t.

You can prove that something works and somebody will still question the way you’re doing it. Reach one goal and they’ll ask about another. Do something they thought you couldn’t do and sometimes, rather than saying “I was wrong”, people simply move the goalposts.

If your peace depends upon everybody eventually acknowledging that you made the right choices, you could be waiting for a very long time. That is why the validation eventually has to come from somewhere else. You.

Do I like the life I’m building? Does this decision make sense for me? Am I prepared to accept the consequences if it doesn’t work? Is this consistent with the person I want to be? Those questions matter far more to me now than whether everybody understands.

Let people have their version of you

This might be the hardest part. Somebody somewhere will have a version of you in their head that you don’t recognise.

Perhaps they think you’re selfish when you finally set a boundary. Maybe they think you’re reckless because you took a risk. They may think you’ve changed because you no longer behave in the way that suited them. Our instinct is to correct the record. But you cannot spend your entire life running around editing everybody else’s perception of you.

People see pieces of us. They interpret those pieces through their own experiences and sometimes they reach conclusions we think are completely wrong. Let them.

The people who genuinely want to understand you will usually ask questions. The people who have already decided who you are probably won’t be persuaded by another explanation anyway.

It can still hurt

Giving up the need to be understood doesn’t mean becoming completely unaffected by other people’s words. I still get irritated.

Sometimes I still think, Really? After everything I’ve built, we’re still doing this? I don’t think there’s anything particularly unenlightened about that.

We naturally want the people closest to us to be proud of us and to understand what matters to us. When they don’t, there can be disappointment alongside all the confidence you’ve developed.

The difference is that their misunderstanding no longer has to change your direction.

• You can be annoyed by the comment and still carry on with your day.
• You can love somebody and accept that they will never completely understand you.
• You can respect the life they’ve chosen without wanting it for yourself.
• And you can stop trying to persuade them that yours is right.

Their life can be right for them and completely wrong for you

Perhaps this is where I have finally landed. My family doesn’t have to understand me. Their choices aren’t wrong because I wouldn’t make them. If they’re happy, secure and living the lives they want, then they’ve succeeded on their own terms. I just want something different.

I’ve accepted that the things that excite me might look stressful to somebody else. The risks I’m prepared to take might make absolutely no sense to them. My definition of security, success and a life well lived might never match theirs. That’s okay. Because I don’t need them to want my life. I’m the one who has to live it.

And perhaps there is something incredibly peaceful about finally accepting that the people you love don’t have to understand every part of you in order for you to keep becoming exactly who you want to be.

Keep looking after you

Wellbeing looks different for everyone, and sometimes the most useful thing is simply finding the right information at the right time. Explore more from Daily Round with our dedicated Women’s Health, Men’s Wellbeing and Wellbeing for Leaders sections, or head to the Leaders Library for our latest book recommendations, ideas and inspiration for life in and outside work.

Or, if you’re ready to get back to what’s happening across the sector, catch up with today’s Daily News for the latest health and social care stories.