Reject Conformity!
This post goes over five reasons you succumb to conformity and five reasons to reject conformity. Reject conformity!
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“It's weird not to be weird.” - John Lennon
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” - John F. Kennedy
“Rebel children, I urge you, fight the turgid slick of conformity with which they seek to smother your glory.” - Russell Brand
“The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity.” - Rollo May
Society wants you to conform to it in many different ways. You could be a conformist by making your decisions or thinking based on what someone says on mainstream media or from an influencer. Social pressures also encourage people to conform rather than be themselves.
Reject Conformity
Society wants you to compromise and settle for being mediocre. It is up to you to decide if you want to settle for being less than you could be or set high goals for yourself. Popular culture wants you to sit back, relax, and allow things to happen to you rather than improve yourself and make changes that will affect other people's lives through your actions.
The problem with compromising is that you allow others to influence who you are, consciously or unconsciously. You don’t allow yourself to become the person you want to be or could be. Instead, you settle for being a fake person to appease people you interact with in your daily life or at events.
You can challenge yourself. It is good to be uncomfortable. Society wants you to succumb to comfort to make you remain stagnant. When you reject comfort, it is a sign that you are willing to do things other people would not do. Most people want to get through their day, then be entertained or catch up on the news.
5 Reasons You Conform
Peer Pressure
Peer pressure is a problem. Since people are naturally social, you want to fit in with others. While it is healthy to surround yourself with friends and a community, you may succumb to peer pressures. You may find yourself agreeing to do things with your friends or other people rather than being yourself.
This is a problem that we must all deal with. We may think we must attend an event because a friend is attending a party. There is no reason why we must do this if we have other priorities.
Social Pressure
Social pressure comes from things and people that are outside of your peer group. Social media, television, advertisements, politics, celebrities, influencers, and others can influence your behavior. You may be buying something because you heard or saw an ad saying it is the best. Or, you may feel pressure from society to date when you don’t want to. You may also think that you must believe or think a certain way because you feel you must agree with what a poll shows people think about an issue. You succumb to social pressure to fit in and avoid societal conflict.
Compromising
You find yourself always compromising to please other people. You are afraid to speak your mind when you are at a meeting or in a group setting of some sort. You may also find yourself compromising by going along with the values or beliefs of others, even if you disagree with them. That could be when it comes to important things that people often build some part of their life around, political party affiliation being a major one.
You are unable to tell people no. You are afraid to tell people what you think. You also will compromise your goals, values, or beliefs not to be negatively viewed by others.
People Pleasing
You may be a people pleaser if you find that you are always trying to please other people. This may be a sign that you receive your validation from others.
The problem with always wanting to please other people is you put their needs before your own. You take care of yourself last. You might be people pleaser if you think you must:
Be nice to everyone.
You believe that you must agree with everyone.
Are afraid of offending someone.
You think you are responsible for other people’s feelings.
You often find yourself apologizing to others.
You are unable to tell people no.
You schedule your time around other people instead of valuing your time.
You do not know how to handle someone angry at you.
You find yourself acting like the people you are spending time with.
You make a point to avoid conflict in life.
You need people to tell you you did something good to feel good about yourself.
You never admit when other people hurt your feeling.
Always Being Nice
You may find yourself constantly being nice, which follows from people pleasing because you cannot stand up for yourself. You will often find yourself being nice to people because you are afraid of offending or hurting other people’s feelings. You are worried that you may lose a friend or a connection you have in your life.
The fear of being friendly, along with the previous four ways that you can find yourself conforming, can lead you to be unable to stand up for yourself. You will always succumb to doing what others want you to do instead of what you want or need to do.
5 Ways To Reject Conformity
Internal Validation
You can reject external validation from others for internal validation. You can learn to set goals to set yourself apart from most people. You can then aim to achieve your goals regarding health, relationships, or finances.
Self-validation can also help you build self-confidence. You can prove to yourself that you can do think that you have always wanted to do. Once you put in the effort and see that you can do something, you will build confidence. You can then focus on honing your skills to solve a problem. As you achieve your goals, you will continue to validate yourself.
Sum Of The People You Surround Yourself With
You are the sum of the people you spend the most time with. Choose your friends wisely. Surround yourself with people who are working toward similar things as you. You don’t have to fit in.
If your friends are not challenging themselves or working toward goals like you are, consider finding new friends. If you do not like the people you spend time with, it may be time to improve yourself so that you can find a better group of friends to spend your time with who have similar interests and goals as you do.
There is nothing wrong with ending friendships, especially with people who are toxic and negative.
Be Yourself
You lose your individuality in large groups. Your individuality becomes wholly lost in society, and you become merely a drop of rain in the ocean of society. You lose your uniqueness.
When you choose to be yourself, you will be happier. This is because you are no longer stressing yourself out by constantly trying to please others.
You are responsible for learning about yourself by knowing what you are passionate about, where you want to direct your effort, and skills, and what goals you want to achieve.
Personal Growth
You can focus on personal growth when you begin to reject conformity. You will become interested in finding ways to improve yourself and grow as an individual rather than always wanting to be entertained. You will begin to discover that you value your time more.
You can challenge yourself by constantly finding new ways to grow. Instead of being scared of challenges or failures, you can decide to learn from them. Challenges and failures are two of the best ways to learn.
Personal growth can also help you to improve your life when it comes to your health, relationships, and finances. You can figure out which area requires the most focus, and you then must find solutions that work with your knowledge and skill set. Everyone’s skills are different, so there is no one-size-fixed-all solution.
Rebel
Society often presents rebellion in a negative light, but who most often are the people that are remembered in history? Some of those people were rebelling against something in some form or another and they thought there was a better way of doing something. Some examples include the Protestant Reformation, the American Colonies rebelling against England to become its own country, and more people losing trust in society’s institutions.
When you rebel, you go against what you are told to do. It could be how you are told how to live. How to make a living or have a career. It could be starting to say to people no instead of always agreeing with people.
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Summary
Society wants you to conform because then you become predictable. You also become easy to control. When you reject conformity, you will likely start thinking for yourself and want to invest in yourself more. This means you will recognize that you are responsible for what happens to you rather than assuming that society and its institutions are there to help you. One of the best things you can do is to stop obeying.
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