Hey Perfectionist: You can't make everyone happy

When I was 12 years old, I decided to change the part of my hair. Yep, I pivoted all the way from "straight down the middle" to a slight side part - in my mind, practically the equivalent of a new tattoo or nose piercing. If you ask anyone close to me though, they probably don't even remember me making this "monumental" switch. Not that I blame them, seeing as though the change lasted all of 90 minutes. Why so short-lived? Well, while I was out to dinner with my family later that night, I mentioned the new hair style to my father. He jokingly replied that he liked the "old Nicole" better, referring to my previous hair part. So - like any reasonable person - I immediately had an internal crisis, ran to the bathroom to change my hair back to its typical middle part, and returned to the table in hopes of receiving approval from my father.

Yeah, I know, not pretty.

Though I'm still slightly embarrassed to share this story aloud, I do appreciate how well this short anecdote truly captures the "people-pleasing" mindset that plagued me for most of my adolescence. So many of the decisions I made were based off of my need to meet other people's expectations rather than my own. Whether it be seemingly inconsequential choices such as the parting of my hair, or important life decisions such as my career aspirations and college applications, I felt ruled by this unnerving desire to make other people happy. It's an exhausting way to live, and one that I know was not unique to me.

It would be flippant of me to simply give out superficial remarks like, "Just focus on yourself! Do what makes you happy, other peoples' opinions don't mater!" Not because the sentiment expressed in these statements isn't true, per se, but because it's unfair. Most of us do care - to varying extents - what other people think of us, and that's not our fault. We live in a society where comparison and self-deprecation are normalized, perhaps even expected; how many times have you heard someone say,"I could never wear that, my thighs are way too fat," or perhaps, "I'm just so stupid, what do you expect?" It's not only unrealistic to continuously push a message of blissful indifference to others' opinions, but it's also dismissive and insulting to the genuine concerns harbored by so many in our society today.

So I'm going to do something different. Instead of giving out fortune-cookie like remarks, I'm going to tell you a story about a decision I made in high school, and how that one choice forever altered my mindset to date.

For those of you who don't know from my Instagram, I was a big soccer player growing up. As in, eight-plus years of competitive, travel club with tournament-filled weekends at venues up to 6 hours away. (I'm sure that many of my fellow childhood athletes can relate.) I loved it; I really, really loved it. Part of me believes that the reason I enjoyed it so much was because there was never any pressure on me to do it for any other reason but my love of the game. My parents established early on in my house that academics came first, always. That's not to say that they didn't encourage us to play sports (I mean, one of my first memories was passing a soccer ball with my fútbol-fanatic dad), but they always believed that sports were something that should add to our lives. They wanted us to participate in sports because of all the benefits that came with it: the positive impacts for our health; the important life lessons we learned; the friendships we made. But most of all, they wanted us to do it because we loved it, and once that was gone, their only requirement was that we finish out the commitment we made to the team for that season.

In preparation of our senior season, however, I noticed that love starting to fade. It was never particularly a goal of mine to become a collegiate athlete; I wanted to get into college first, and then make the decision on potentially walking onto a team after the fact (assuming it was a D2 or D3 school). That certainly wasn't everyone's mentality, though, and our high school soccer team was particularly serious. (My freshman year, 6 players went onto play at D1 schools, like what?!) It was great preparation if you were planning on taking that next step, but for someone who was just looking for a competitive and fun environment, it was also very stressful. I was constantly worried about making the wrong decision or some other mistake, and it was taking the joy out of the game I loved. I wasn't happy, and I knew that it would only get worse as the season progressed and the games became higher stakes.

It was around this time that the initial idea of switching to track entered my mind. It wasn't something that I hadn't thought of before; in fact, before the 2020 COVID-19 quarantine, I had even wanted to make the same decision for my junior year as well. But then the pandemic happened, and I'd figured that it was too late to start a completely new sport as a senior.

But you see, the reason I was so hesitant to make this decision had nothing to do with me or my abilities. I have always loved running, and my greatest strength on the soccer field had always been my speed. In fact, I was consistently one of the top scorers in any fitness testing done at practice, which is why people around me had encouraged me to try track/cross country when I was younger. No, the reason I was so nervous to admit my desire to make this shift had everything to do with other people. More specifically, how I perceived other people would react to/judge me for my decision.

• My father and I had bonded over our love of soccer, what if he was disappointed in me?

• Many of my close friends were on the soccer team, and tryouts were only a couple weeks away, what would they and my coach think if I just quit? Would they be angry? How awkward would it be to have to explain it to them after?

• What would the girls on the track team think? Would they accept me or not know what to do with a first-year track senior?

Ironically, I probably would have never been able to make this decision if it hadn't been for our weekly shake-out runs. Near the end of the preseason, we started having voluntary jogs after school on Friday in place of our normal training sessions. There normally weren't more than 6-7 girls that showed up, so we ended up running with a handful of the distance track girls who were doing their recovery runs. It became something I looked forward to every week; the runners were all so nice, and I always left feeling so powerful when the run was over. One week they shifted their workout to Friday, and since we didn't have a soccer practice after school, I decided to join them, just for the fun of it.

The second I left that workout, I knew that I needed to make the change to track. I loved it, the feeling of pushing myself and others to be their best, of the way that running made me feel strong and empowered. I had a choice: either keep playing soccer because it's what I thought others wanted me to do, or switch to track because it's what I knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted. And in that moment, I decided to make the choice that would make me happiest, regardless of what anyone else would say.

Looking back, it's suffice to say that I made the right decision. My senior track season gave me some of my best memories out of my entire high school experience, both on and off the track. I ended up qualifying for state in both the open 1600 and the 4x800 relay, the latter of which placed 4th and earned podium recognition. More importantly, I made new friends that continue to be a part of my life today, and I'll always look back fondly on the post-meet ice cream runs and the silly, fun conversations we always had during recovery runs.

It was definitely the right decision, but only because I made the decision for me. And it was one that I almost missed out on had I relented to my concerns about other people's perceptions and opinions. My point in telling this story is not to say that I now never let other people influence my decisions; I certainly still find myself sometimes being overly affected by what I think other people expect or want me to do. And to a certain extent, it is good to get other people's perspective on a matter. The difference now is that I make a conscious effort not to be ruled by these opinions. It can be hard, really hard, at times to resist my old "people-pleasing" mindset and to be honest with myself about what I want in life, regardless of others' expectations. But if experience has taught me anything, it's that you'll never be able to make everyone happy, so you might as well make yourself :)