Outgrowing All The People Around You

Taking a deep dive today on the ways in which people can feel like they are outgrowing the people around them. I have immersed myself in environments that promote personal growth and development and for the most part it’s a great vibe, its inspiring – but let me share with you another truth, one that is mostly unspoken.

Sometimes – when people are working on themselves and investing in their own development – they can become assholes. Arrogant in their pursuit of progress as they exude this ‘better than’ attitude. These are the people that declare they are outgrowing everyone around them. These are the people that cut everyone off they they deem unworthy or unhelpful to their cause.

This energy, this way of being – its unnecessary and its pretty ugly.

If you are working towards a goal it is likely that you might face resistance from the people around you. It is likely you might feel frustrated that the people around you just don’t get you. That doesn’t mean you have to cut them out of your life entirely.

What needs to change as we are changing?

Lets dive deep on this question today.

Things cannot stay the same. That’s the way of the world in which we are living. Everything around us is constantly evolving and it is up to us whether we are inspired by the wonder of it all or we choose to anxiously grip to what we feel we have some sort of control over.

Whats ironic is – we find comfort in things that are predictable but then resent the very things that make us feel stagnant. How many times have you received a birthday card that not only wishes you a special day, but tells you that you are amazing just as you are and says ‘don’t ever change’. We have all heard those words being spoken to us by someone close to us. Those words will fuck us up. Because we cant help but change, grow and evolve. Life does not allow us to remain stagnant.

If we are living, truly open to the experience of life – we will continuously meet new versions of ourselves and if we are lucky we will be growing into brighter, clearer, purpose filled people.

At some point in our lives, most of us come to a crossroads where we realise that the way we have been living isn’t best serving us. We know we need to find another way of being, another way of living to break free from whatever has been holding us back or weighing heavy on us. For some of us it is a relationship, for some it’s a job we have stayed in far too long, for some it’s the community we have grown up in that now feels suffocating, it could just be the beliefs we have inherited that we are beginning to question – at some point we all feel the need to crawl into our own introspective cocoon and emerge differently. This is likely to happen more than once over the course of our lifetime.

Wrestling with new feeling, new thoughts, new ways of being takes a lot of energy. When we are inspired to grow in a new direction and we gather momentum behind us – it can be exciting. We read books, listen to podcasts, build new habits, find new interests and meet new people. Our excitement can sometimes be dampened when we realise the people closest to us, the people around us don’t share the same excitement we have.

Working within the fitness industry, there were many, many times when I saw the same scenario unfold. Someone would begin a health and fitness journey and initially the people around them would be supportive of them. They would have lots of cheerleaders. As the results would come, and that person would evolve, the cheering seemed to stop. Often people would even begin to make some pretty passive aggressive comments – or even encourage them to break the healthy habits they had been working so damn hard to build.

Why does this happen? Why do the people closest to us give us the hardest time about our own growth? I think its because as humans we have the need to compartmentalise most things. We have a need for certainty and we do it with relationships.

We like people to fulfil certain role in our lives. This is my mum, she is patient and reliable and I can ask her for endless favours – that kind of thing. In the fitness industry Ive seen many people come actually struggle within relationships as they made progress in their health and fitness.

Ill be blatantly honest and call it as I saw it.

More often that not, when someone lost weight or got fit, the people closest to them were intimidated or insecure about it. As awful as it sounds, they liked being able to rely on that person as the overweight friend that made them feel good about themselves, or they felt secure in their relationship because their partner lacked confidence – as these things changed it caused problems.

This is why we feel like we outgrow people.

Often the person that we are becoming is not accepted by the people that have known us for years.

People like to believe that they know us better than we know ourselves or they know whats best for us. All that they actually know is that they like the version of reality they have created for themselves and the way we fit into that picture.

When we change, it threatens that reality and people become defensive and protective. In relationships, change often leads to arguments where someone inevitably exclaims ‘Its like I don’t even know you anymore’.

Where this dynamic exists, change, growth and evolution cannot.

True love is allowing the space for someone to not only be exactly who they are today – but to have the freedom to become anything else they might like to be. Learning to look at the people in your life with an open mind and curiosity will strengthen your relationship. We are told that in order to be bonded to someone we are supposed to know everything about them. Those bonds are the choke holds that end up making us feel like we are suffocated in that relationship. You will seek places and people that make you feel alive by giving you the space and permission to explore new realities and new versions of yourself. The greatest gift you can give someone is the freedom to outgrow who they once were, without feeling threatened or that they will be leaving you behind.

Heres the truth – most of the time people get insecure about someone elses growth because it shines a light on what they haven’t done.

It happens a lot in business, especially as an entrepreneur. When you are out there in the world, giving it your best shot, putting your money, your time and your energy on the line you can get laser focused on your goals. When you look up, you realise the people around you, offering you support aren’t the people that had been friends – more often than not it will be other small business owners on a similar journey who can understand and appreciate your efforts and the struggles you are overcoming. Years ago, this used to really piss me off. Id be bitter about the fact that my friends couldn’t even like my damn facebook post and wonder why on earth they couldn’t get behind what I was doing, why they couldn’t appreciate the work I was putting into making my dreams my reality.

I had to wake up and realise that it actually wasn’t their job to do that. Just because I had decided to take on this venture and throw myself down the rabbit hole of small business, didn’t mean that they had to follow behind me, cheering me on when I felt like I needed a pump up. My expectations were probably a little unfair and mostly selfish and self obsessed.

Just because you decide to start something new, or be excited about something doesn’t mean that everyone has to instantly follow your lead and get excited about it. The sooner we realise that it isn’t anyone elses responsibility to hold us accountable or keep us excited about the choices we have made – the sooner we will stop feeling let down and  disappointed by the people around us.

There is a distinct difference between having to get rid of someone that brings negativity to your life and understanding that someone in your life just isn’t experiencing the same season as you at the moment. You don’t need to cut anyone and everyone that isn’t experiencing growth in the same way, at the same time.

Its important to diversify and find different people to meet different needs. In my last relationship – that’s where we both went very wrong. We became everything to each other. Mentor, friend, colleague, partner – it resulted in us creating this battle of standards and unrealistic expectations. Its important to be clear about what you contribute to relationships and to understand that we need to have different dynamics in order to be fulfilled and connected with love and acceptance.

My husband and I prioritise our intimacy above all else. So I don’t go to him with my personal development needs. I seek mentors that can support me in this area so that the time spent with my husband is filled with love and light and fun – not the nitty gritty of the inner work I am doing at the moment.

So my question for you today is – is there a situation, a circumstance or even a relationship you are holding onto too tightly? Are you dragging it behind you? How would it feel to release the expectations you have for the people around you as you continue pursuing whatever it is that you are passionate about at the moment?