The Confident Woman: Start Today Living Boldly and Without Fear (17 page)

Don’t let the people around you determine your values or behavior patterns. It seems that everyone expects something a little different, but one thing for sure is that they all expect us to keep them happy and give them what they want.

Many times the expectations people put on us and we accept are unrealistic. If you want to have confidence you must stop trying to be “superwoman.” Realize you have limitations and that you cannot keep all the people happy all the time.

It has been statistically proven that 10% of people will never like you so stop trying to have a perfect record with everyone and start celebrating who you are. A person who knows how to live independently does not allow the moods of other people to alter theirs. A story is told of a Quaker man who knew how to live independently as the valued person God had created Him to be. One night as he was walking down the street with a friend he stopped at a news stand to purchase an evening paper. The storekeeper was very sour, rude and unfriendly. The Quaker man treated him with respect and was quite kind in his dealing with him. He paid for his paper and he and his friend continued to walk down the street. The friend said to the Quaker, “How could you be so cordial to him with the terrible way he was treating you?” The Quaker man replied, “Oh, he is always that way; why should I let him determine how I am going to act?”

This is one of the amazing traits we see in Jesus. He was the same all the time. He changed people, they did not change Him.

When an unhappy person is unsuccessful in making you unhappy they begin to respect and admire you. They see that your Christianity is something real and they may be interested in hearing what you have to say.

Even people who seek to control you will disrespect you if you allow them to do it. I encourage you to be your own person. Do what God expects you to do and don’t live under the tyranny of other people’s expectations.

No matter what you do in life you will be criticized by someone so you must learn to cope with it and not let it bother you. Criticism is very difficult for most of us and a person’s self-image can be damaged by one critical remark. But it is possible to learn how not to be affected at all by criticism. Every great man or woman has had to learn how to cope with criticism. Margaret Thatcher once said that if her critics saw her walking along the Thames, they would say it was because she couldn’t swim. Actor Dustin Hoffman considered a good review from his critics to simply be a “stay of execution.” We must know our own hearts and not allow others to judge us. Like many other great people the Apostle Paul experienced criticism about many things. He experienced the same thing we do, which is that people are fickle. They love you when you are doing everything they want you to do and are quick to criticize when just one little thing goes wrong. Paul said that he was not in the least bit concerned about the judgments of others. He said that he did not even judge himself. He knew he was in God’s hands and that in the end he would stand before God and give an account of himself and his life. He would not stand before any man to be judged (1 Corinthians 4:3, 4).

Sometimes the people who are criticized the most are the ones who try to do something constructive with their life. It amazes me how people who do nothing want to criticize those who try to do something. I may not always do everything right, but at least I am attempting to do something to make the world a better place and to help hurting people. I believe that is very pleasing to God! After many years of suffering over the criticisms of people and trying to gain their approval, I finally decided that if God is happy with me, that is enough.

Each time someone criticizes you, try making a positive affirmation about yourself to yourself. Don’t just stand by and take in everything anyone wants to dump on you. Establish independence! Have your own attitude about yourself and don’t be defeated by criticism. Look at criticism the way Winston Churchill did. During his last year in office, he attended an official ceremony. Several rows behind him two gentlemen began whispering. “That’s Winston Churchill.” “They say he is getting senile.” “They say he should step aside and leave the running of the nation to more dynamic and capable men.”

When the ceremony was over, Churchill turned to the men and said, “Gentlemen, they also say he is deaf!”
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I think it may be good to occasionally (or perhaps frequently) do something that seems outrageous to people and perhaps even to you. Do something that people won’t expect. It will keep your life interesting and keep other people from thinking they have you tucked away nicely in a little box of their own design.

One great woman who was seventy-six years of age said that her goal was to do at least one outrageous thing every week. People become bored because their lives become predictable. A recent Gallup Poll said that 55% of workers “are not engaged” in their workplace.
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In other words, they show up but have no real interest in being there.

We are not created by God to merely do the same thing over and over until it has no meaning left at all. God is creative. If you don’t think so then just look around you. All the animals, bugs, plants, birds, trees and other things are totally amazing. The sun, moon and stars, planets, space, and gravity—all of which God has created—can boggle our minds. We could actually go on forever talking about the infinite variety of things God has created. In case you haven’t noticed, God is quite outrageous and frequently changes things up in our lives. He is full of surprises and yet totally dependable. You know, we really can learn a lot from God!

I don’t want people to think they have me all figured out and although I want to be dependable and faithful I don’t always want to be predictable. Sometimes I get bored with myself and I have to pray and ask God for a creative idea to shake up my life a little and keep me on my toes.

Doing something outrageous means different things to different people. For one it might mean climbing Mount Everest and to another it might mean a clothing style change. I have always liked a certain type of clothing. I liked lots of glitz and everything very fancy. My children kept trying to get me to keep up with changing styles and I firmly resisted for quite a while. They kept saying, “C’mon Mom, start styling.” At first I told them, “I can’t dress like that, I am sixty-two.” Then God told me to stop making decisions based on my age and I decided I would do something outrageous, something totally unexpected and change my dress-code. My children finally convinced me that just because I was in my sixties I didn’t have to dress like it. They wanted me to wear jeans, boots and belts hanging on my hips. One day I made a decision that I was going to shock them so I changed my wardrobe style. I blessed other people with a lot of my fancier clothes and I got a lot of what was in style. I have decided that from now on I am going to dress up to date no matter how old I am.

As a matter of fact, my youngest son Danny was quite delighted when we did a corporate conference with a very popular Christian music group called Delirious, and after much encouragement I finally agreed to wear a nice jeans outfit that night. I actually had the largest altar call that night I’ve ever had in the United States so my son now reminds me that denim does not hinder the flow of God’s power.

Don’t get into a rut which is said to be a grave with no ends. Keep life fresh and exciting and try doing some outrageous things. Not stupid things, but outrageously creative and different for you.

Opinions are very interesting because we all have different ones. You are entitled to your opinion but that does not mean you should always give it to others. Most of the time people don’t want our opinions and even if they do ask for it they hope we agree with them. Wisdom knows when to keep quiet and when to talk.

Although we should be wise about how freely we give our opinion we should resist letting popular opinion become ours just because it is popular. Know what you believe and why you believe it!

Our youngest son, Danny, said one day to his father and me in regard to his faith, “I don’t know if I believe what I believe because I believe it or because you believe it.” As a child growing up in a Christian home and a ministry family it is easy to sort of be grafted in and not be sure if you are where you are because you want to be or because everyone else wants you to be. I am glad Dave and I recognized that what Danny was going through was not only normal but healthy. I don’t want my children to merely have my faith, but I want them to have their own. He went through a period of soul searching, he took some time away by himself and came to a place of knowing what he believed and learning why he believes it.

Parents should not be afraid to let their children explore and discover for themselves what they believe. One of the things people must do to maintain independence is separate from their parents and establish their own identity.

All of our children work with us and that might not sound like much separation but in actuality they are all truly their own person. A healthy separation from parents is not a bad thing, it is good.

Far too many children spend their entire lives in their parents’ shadow and that is not a healthy place to be. The actress Marlo Thomas was concerned about being compared to her actor father, Danny Thomas. Could she ever be as funny as him or as good as him? But her dad helped her right from the beginning. He told her she was a thoroughbred, and that thoroughbreds never watched other horses, they simply ran their race. Just before she was to go on stage for her first role in Summer Stock, a package arrived from her father. It was a pair of horse blinders with a note that said, “Run your own race, kid!”

Wanting to please people is not necessarily an abnormal trait but many times we often find that we simply cannot be what they want us to be. However, the mistake that many people make is that they decide to pretend. As one person said to me one day, “I’ll just fake it until I make it.” That is being untrue to yourself and something you should never do. Jesus did not appreciate the hypocrites, the pretenders and phonies. Even if what you are right now is not what you know you should be, at least be real.

I believe that not being true to one’s own self is one of the biggest joy thieves that exist.

Don’t spend your life pretending that you like things you despise, or being with people all the time that you don’t enjoy and pretending that you do. I called a pastor one day to ask his advice about letting an employee go. I wanted to do the right thing but after several years of trying I just could not be with this particular person and enjoy her. I don’t think there was anything wrong with either of us; we just didn’t adapt well to each other. We both had strong personalities and though I was “the boss” and she had to submit to my wishes, I could always feel the war inside her when she didn’t like what I was doing, which was most of the time. My pastor friend said something that was very freeing to me. He said, “Joyce, I have finally decided that I am too old and have been doing this too long to spend the rest of my life working with people I don’t like and pretending that I do.”

To some people this type of thinking might sound very “un-Christian” but it really isn’t. Jesus told us to love everyone but He did not say we had to love being with everyone. There are people in life that we simply don’t fit with. Our personalities don’t blend and work well together. We can call on the power of God and behave ourselves properly when we need to be together, but to try and be together in a close working relationship day in and day out is not a good thing. I made a change and we were both better off for it. She was released to go on to some things she enjoyed much more and I no longer had to pretend to be happy with a situation that I really was not happy with.

Yes, sad to say the world is full of pretenders. People pretend to be happy when they are miserable, they try to do jobs that are way over their head just because they feel they “should” in order to be admired or to maintain a certain reputation with people. People have many masks and can become quite adept at changing them as need be. I believe that not being true to one’s own self is one of the biggest joy thieves that exist. Ralph Waldo Emerson pointed out that “to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Always remember that to establish independence you must not be a pretender. Be yourself!

Anyone who says “yes” to everyone all the time is headed for trouble. When people want you to do something, they definitely won’t be happy if you tell them “No,” but sooner or later you must decide if you’re going to spend your life making other people happy at the expense of never being happy yourself.

There should always be times when we do things for other people just because we want to make them happy, even if the thing they want is not what we would prefer doing. To live that way all the time, however, is not healthy emotionally or in any other way.

Country singer Wynonna Judd knows what can happen when you don’t think about yourself. At 17, she had accepted Christ, but the whirlwind years of fame and fortune had created a deep sense of insecurity for her. She felt like she had to take care of everyone. She worked through two pregnancies so she could ensure that the thirty families of her crew would continue to have an income; she ate when she felt empty inside and she spent enormous amounts of money on her family and friends, including the homeless people she sometimes brought into her home.

The need to please everyone eventually caught up with her and in 2004, Wynonna found herself overweight, out of money, guilt-stricken and close to losing her 525-acre farm. She had to surrender to God and start taking care of herself again. She’s now twenty pounds lighter, she’s cut back her excessive spending and she’s learned to say “no.” She’s turning her life around.
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A confident woman can say “no” when she needs to. She can endure people’s displeasure and is able to reason that if the disappointed person truly wants a relationship with her they will get over their disappointment and want her to be free to make her own decisions.

Sometimes you have to say “no” to others in order to say “yes” to yourself, otherwise you will end up bitter and resentful feeling that somewhere in the process of trying to keep others happy you lost yourself.

Women in particular want to please people, especially their family, but they need to be very aggressive in standing against getting out of balance in this area. You are valuable and you need to do things that you want to do as well as doing things for others.

When you do feel you need to say no, you don’t have to give a reason why. So often people want us to justify our decisions and we really don’t need to do that. I try to be led by God’s Spirit—or another way of saying it is I try to be led by my heart—and sometimes I don’t even fully understand why I don’t feel something isn’t right for me. But I have learned if I do feel that way I am not going to go against my own conscience in order to have everyone happy with me. I often say, “I just don’t have peace about it,” or “I don’t feel right about it,” or even a plain old “I don’t want to” is sufficient.

There is nothing wrong with giving a reason if you have one but I think we go overboard in trying to explain ourselves sometimes. If an offended person doesn’t want to understand, they are never going to no matter how many reasons you give. Follow your heart and keep your peace. Say “no” when you need to and “yes” when you should.