It isn’t your job to always be the strong one, and people shouldn’t expect that of you. It’s okay if you have a moment or two where you need to be weak and crawl up in a ball and cry. But I know what it feels like always to have people put stuff on your plate like it’s some indestructible tray, and you have the strength to hold it all. People keep asking more of you because that strength of yours doesn’t waver.
But you don’t have to be the strongest person in the room.
It isn’t your job to always be brave because I know what it’s like to be scared and not know and not have the answers, but that pressure of everyone expecting you to. It’s okay if you’re afraid and unsure and merely trying to do your best to figure things out as you go along. Admitting you’re scared and uncertain is realizing you are human, and no one can fault you for that.
It isn’t your job to always have to be the kindest or bigger person when confronted with a situation. It takes so much out of you to always try and take the high road when it seems like it’s so easy for everyone else to be mean and disrespectful. You’re allowed to be unkind even if it goes against your nature. You are entitled to play dirty even if that’s not your kind of game. Because sometimes, people don’t value who you are and everything you have to offer, and the only way to get through to some people is communicating at their level.
It isn’t your job to always work at 110%. The truth is burnout is real; working too hard is something that high achieving people struggle with. Your greatest value is knowing what you need and not being afraid to do what’s best for the person looking back at you in the mirror. Before a job, you are your greatest priority, and making yourself, your number one priority requires knowing when to slow down and take a breath or take a day for yourself. Your mental health isn’t something to put on your to-do it but rather something to make a priority right now.
It isn’t your job to be perfect, and you deserve self-love right where you’re at in this moment, not once you get somewhere, or do something or attach its achievement. You deserve the kind of love and effort you put into everyone and everything. It’s easy when you have so much going on not to make yourself the priority. When you are selfless in your work and your life, sometimes you get the short end of the stick or the little bit you have leftover when everything and everyone is taken care of. But you deserve everything you invest in others and should feel comfortable investing that in yourself.
The truth is you are strong, brave, kind, hardworking, and selfless. In being all those things, I know you don’t like showing weakness. I know you don’t ever want to show you’re scared or unsure. I know you never want to be mean. And I know in everything you do, and in every relationship you have, you put 110% into it, and it gets tiring. But it’s okay that you’re human, and in being human, you don’t have to be perfect but what you do have to do is take care of yourself. So I hope from this moment forward, you begin to make yourself a priority because you deserve all the best, and that’s even in your relationship with yourself.
