How To Get Rid Of The Negative Labels That Others Give Us
We live in the society of brandingall the objects that surround us they have a label where its brand, its components, its owners, its geographical origin or its method of use are specified, among many other things.
These labels have an obvious usefulness, since They lead us to get a pretty rough idea of what we have in front of us at a glance, with a single glance. For example, in the case of a product sold to the public, at a single glance we will get the idea (more or less approximate to reality) of whether it is of higher or lower quality, before even knowing its properties in depth.
The fact is that we subjects have carried “labels” long before objects carried them. Labels given to us by the people around us and with whom we live and even labels that we put on ourselves for some reason.
These labels can define us at a specific moment and under certain circumstances (or not) but people, unlike objects, have a great capacity for change in the way we relate to other people and to ourselves. Plasticity and resilience are the elements that give us the power to change.
Can you fight a label?
The advantages of these categories are obvious: save effort
However, in certain circumstances It can be really difficult to get rid of a negative label (or even positive if we consider that it can affect us negatively in some way).
To explain what a label is and how it can confront us, I propose the following story:
María was a twelve-year-old girl who lived with her family. She had a twin brother who was very agile in competitive sports, and she, on the other hand, did not stand out for that ability, although she was not bad at it either. Her brother, when they played together, called her “María la clumsy.” Every time they went to play soccer in the town square, her parents told her brother “take care of María and don’t run too much, because you already know that she is not as agile as you.”
Later, when it was time for her to go to school, the girl did not want to participate in sports, and she justified it to her friends “I’m just stupid.” María grew up and with her her label. Her friends joked: “Don’t let María do that, she’s clumsy and she’ll fall.” And so time passed.
When she arrived at high school, María was already The Clumsy. When it came to doing things that required physical agility, she became very nervous and then, obviously, her nerves played tricks on her, reaffirming her status as clumsy. But María, she was not clumsy, she María carried the label of clumsy.
Does this story of María “La Patosa” sound familiar to you?
Labels usually appear in groups, sometimes unimportant, other times useful in certain circumstances. There are many labels that are like a post it and they are temporary, but there are also tattoo:lso they become chronic, leaving a mark on our personality
There are several areas of psychology that investigate the important role that labels have in our way of relating. It is known, for example, that an essential part of our daily behaviors depend on expectations that are held not only about specific situations (a master class, a play, etc.) but also about the people involved in these situations.
Thus, for example, something called the Pygmalion Effect has been described: something as abstract and immaterial as expectations about oneself and other people has a material expression in our way of acting, even taking our capabilities beyond the limits. that we thought we had.
That is why It is worth spending some time reflecting on whether the labels we use to describe ourselves They help us understand ourselves better or, on the contrary, they limit us unnecessarily.
Putting an end to negative labels
Eliminating these limiting labels basically consists of recognizing them as such and acting accordingly.
For the first thing it is necessary ask ourselves a series of questions about our own self-image You can start, first of all, by answering these points:
From these questions, it is advisable to move on to more specific ones for specific cases in order to reach the most exhaustive analysis possible. However, this would not take much time, in order to commit to trying to reach clear conclusions that allow us to continue moving forward from that point.
From there, It is good to examine our habitual behaviors and reflect on whether we are being consistent with our self-image renewed that we saw after the examination period. This may take a while, but all big changes are worth it.
