Take Yourself Seriously. (Seriously).
If you’ve known me for 5 minutes, you know I love reality TV. Specifically, the Real Housewives. I’m into your Vanderpumps, your Southern Charms, will dip in and out of your Summer Houses, and once in a while I’ll make a slight left and veer away from the Bravo canon and into the lower-brow works of your TLCs and the like (Welcome to Plathville is truly an epic adventure in holy-shitness). But my Housewives are my main love and have been for (fu*k) at least 15 years.
I love my ladies. I’ll battle all day with any naysayers or anyone who thinks these shows are frivolous or a waste of time. I’ve written essays on the feminist power in these shows, how they address ageism in a way that we never get the privilege to see on TV…These shows have been a touchstone for me for most of my adult life. They’ve helped me through tough times and sometimes just help me pass the time. And I will speak as passionately about them as I do about any political issue or social cause (you know, shit that actually does matter) to both the delight and horror of people around me. I will go on for days about Bethenny and Carole’s fight, about Scary Island, about the oddity that is Sutton, about how I worry for Gisele’s storylines now that Robyn is gone, how annoying and basic and overly-aware and uninteresting I thought the RHONY reboot was but how I’m also thrilled that Jersey is getting a one since Tre and Melissa were just too toxic to go on….I take my love for these shows, and these women, very very seriously.
I recently finished a book, Buy Yourself the Fu*cking Lilies, by Tara Schuster, which I can’t say I strongly recommend (mostly because I take issue with the premise: a 25-year-old hits her personal rock bottom and decides it’s time to pull her shit together….I mean, with all due, that’s the age in which most people are flailing around near rock bottom and trying to figure it out. I’d be much more interested in a 40-something writing that book (light bulb moment… but I digress)). However the book did offer some good, solid self help advice and a few key nuggets that I thought were really useful, including one chapter in which Schuster tells the story of a mentor advising her firmly to, “Take yourself seriously”.
Three simple words. Pretty basic advice. But how many of us actually do this? And what would be different if we did? How many things do we just do on autopilot every day/week/year, and never actually commit to or take seriously? How many times are we physically in one space but mentally in another, never giving any one thing or one task or one person our full attention. How many times do we take an action or try something new but we hesitate to fully commit for fear of looking foolish or stupid or embarrassed in front of others?
In order to answer any of these questions, it’s important to first define what we mean by “take yourself seriously”. Like any good Housewife, we could twist and turn this verbiage to mean what we want it to mean…but I’m going to try to be Andy Cohen at a Bravo series reunion and be as direct as possible: to me, to “take yourself seriously” means that you fully commit to what you are doing. You go all in. You believe. And you don’t let the opinion of others sway you away from your focus. To take yourself seriously means:
You make a conscious decision - whether its about who to vote for or which job to apply for or which shoes to wear to dinner - and you stick to it because you are clear on your “why”
You choose to practice believing in your choice, your idea, your goal, or whatever it is no matter what everyone around you thinks
You decide that who you were in the past or what you had or did has nothing to do with your future, and you stay focused on your forward motion vs. looking backwards.
You commit to something - anything, whether that’s a nighttime flossing habit or writing the next great American novel or a burn-the-boats style leap of faith to move across the world - and you do it to the best of your ability, over and over until you succeed at it.
You choose to believe you have the ability to take your life to the next level - whether it’s one small part you want to focus on, or the whole damn thing - even if you have zero evidence that it’s possible. And then you take massive action from that space of belief.
Taking yourself seriously may look like quitting your job today to go all in on your dream of becoming a Broadway star, or it could mean telling your partner they need to handle dinner from now on because you are spending your nights working on your non-profit idea. It could mean actually using that pandemic-era Peloton or it could mean finally hiring someone to help you figure out why you keep overspending every month despite the most diligent efforts not to. You could take yourself seriously by actually getting a manicure each week so that you feel more pulled together or it could mean finally having that tough conversation about boundaries with your mother-in-law. It could mean actually putting your phone away when you’re with your kids to focus 100% on them or it could mean throwing down your credit card to get a workspace for your budding business knowing that the business will succeed and you will one day be able to pay for that space in cash each month. It could also mean watching Housewives every week with no guilt and no multitasking whatsoever because they bring you joy and joy fucking matters. (Taking your JOY seriously is part of taking yourself seriously! Seriously!)
The reason we don’t take ourselves seriously - why we dismiss the things we want to do in favor of the things we “have” to do, or why we go through the motions or numb out during tasks or activities or life’s routines, is typically because of one (or a combo) of the following:
We worry about what other people will think. It would be great to say that after a certain age we don’t care what other’s think, but unless you have actively done the work to make that true, it’s really challenging to just wake up one day and not give a shit what your partner/kids/parents/friends think of your choices or your goals. We judge and other judge us. That’s just what happens. And so in a bid to not disappoint people, we just disappoint ourselves by not taking what we think as seriously.
We’re scared to admit what we really want. If we admit what we really want we may have to…um…do something about it….So we stay quiet, around others and sometimes even within ourselves, and don’t let what we really want come to the surface, hoping that at some point it will just go away (if you’ve tried this you know how well that works)
We don’t think we’ll succeed and we don’t want to fail, look foolish, or feel embarrassed - Again, see above…And what’s so wrong with failing anyway? What if you do look foolish? Or feel embarrassed? Then what happens….? (Hint: nothing at all. Life rolls on).
We don’t believe it’s possible for us. This is the biggie. If we thought it was possible, if we knew success in that new habit or that new career was inevitable, we’d move ahead. But without that guarantee….Well….see all of the above…..
Taking yourself seriously matters. Taking yourself seriously means you are ready to level the fuck up. And even if you’re not ready, you are choosing to go for it anyway. Taking yourself seriously is the next best step you can take when you want to make a pivot of any kind, big or small, in your life.
Start today. Make a decision about something you want. Write down why (or a bunch of whys). Write down how you will feel once you have it. Then come up with a thought that you believe that helps you feel that way right now. Practice that thought while you decide on an action to take next - not 10 actions or 1000 actions, just one action - and take that action today. Tomorrow take another. Write down every single win you get as you take action (even the losses have wins hidden in there beneath the embarrassment and tears and bruised ego). Lean on those wins when shit gets hard and keep going. Do not stop until you get what you want.
If Bethenny Frankel can hawk drug store makeup on TikTok with the seriousness of a heart attack, you deserve to take yourself seriously too.
Seriously.