Summary: You Do You by Sarah Knight

You Do You (2017) is a com­bi­na­tion of a cri­tique against the enforcers of absurd stan­dards and an encour­age­ment to recon­sid­er our con­nec­tions with our­selves. Full of straight­for­ward hon­esty, these syn­opses pro­pose that regard­less of what you’ve been informed, there’s no issue with being your authen­tic self – imper­fec­tions and all. Accord­ing to Sarah Knight, embrac­ing your gen­uine self is the most cer­tain route to achiev­ing your desires in life.

Introduction: A handbook to lead your life on your own conditions.

“Be your­self.” Seems sim­ple, isn’t it – after all, who else could you pos­si­bly be oth­er than your­self? In real­i­ty, mas­ter­ing this is one of the tough­est skills you will ever acquire. That’s why numer­ous indi­vid­u­als con­form to the major­i­ty, accept con­ven­tion­al wis­dom, and spend their lives attempt­ing to grat­i­fy others.

Nev­er­the­less, it’s not insur­mount­able. Look to the best­selling “anti-guru” Sarah Knight, a woman who under­stands how it feels to be con­fined in a life you did­n’t plan and how to reverse things to dis­cov­er gen­uine hap­pi­ness. The key? You. Do. You.

This is about pri­or­i­tiz­ing your hap­pi­ness, and that sig­ni­fies it’s time to cease allow­ing oth­ers to dic­tate what you should or should­n’t be doing. So what if your aspi­ra­tions are uncon­ven­tion­al? So what if you are pecu­liar? Life is too brief to fret about what oth­ers think of you or your objectives.

Society is filled with capricious regulations that you don’t need to conform to.

Life is brim­ming with reg­u­la­tions. With the exclu­sion of laws and for­mal codes of behav­ior, a large por­tion of them are unspo­ken and enforced via social pres­sure. Some of these make per­fect sense. “Don’t tag your pals in embar­rass­ing pho­tos” and “Don’t answer the door in the nude” are rea­son­able rules, for instance.

How­ev­er, there are oth­er rules that lack ratio­nale. And because there are plen­ty of stick­lers bent on enforc­ing these arbi­trary rules, there will always be indi­vid­u­als inform­ing you when you should attend col­lege or start a fam­i­ly, or what you should wear to a gath­er­ing. Vio­lat­ing these rules may not lead you to legal con­se­quences, but it may result in social exclusion.

Yet, deep inside, no one com­pre­hends you and what brings you joy bet­ter than your­self. Liv­ing in accor­dance with oth­er peo­ple’s rules jeop­ar­dizes your innate under­stand­ing of what you need to pur­sue. Rather than liv­ing in ways that sat­is­fy you, you might get coerced into con­form­ing to the low­est com­mon denom­i­na­tor lifestyle. You’ll sup­press qual­i­ties and behav­iors that don’t align with oth­er peo­ple’s idea of nor­mal­cy, hence end­ing up unhappy.

In these con­cise ver­sions, we’ll aid you in break­ing free from this dilem­ma. The crux of the mat­ter is to learn to per­ceive social antic­i­pa­tions for what they are and alle­vi­ate some pres­sure by reject­ing sense­less regulations.

The opti­mal way to kick­start this is by embrac­ing a con­cept named Men­tal Redec­o­rat­ing, a strat­e­gy for reeval­u­at­ing your sup­posed “flaws.”

This involves redefin­ing attrib­ut­es that soci­ety deems as unfa­vor­able. For exam­ple, “Nerdy” is fre­quent­ly uti­lized as a deroga­to­ry term. Men­tal redec­o­rat­ing, con­verse­ly, would rede­fine this char­ac­ter­is­tic with favor­able terms like “intel­li­gent” or “knowl­edge­able.” The same applies to a term like “strange,” which is essen­tial­ly a dif­fer­ent way of con­vey­ing “dis­tinc­tive.”

The cru­cial point here is that there’s noth­ing amiss with who you are – it’s the soci­etal reg­u­la­tions that insti­gate the belief that you’re the issue. Bear­ing that in mind, let’s observe how you can com­mence dis­tanc­ing your­self from social expectations.

Despite societal recommendations, you don’t constantly have to give it your all, be a team player, or prioritize others.

If some rules are log­i­cal and oth­ers are base­less, how do you dif­fer­en­ti­ate between the two? Well, if a rule harms you more than it ben­e­fits oth­ers, it’s prob­a­bly worth ques­tion­ing. This places three com­mon­place dic­tums – “Do your best,” “Be a team play­er,” and “Don’t be self-cen­tered” – under scrutiny.

Let’s com­mence with the belief that you should always give your best effort. Per­pet­u­al­ly exert­ing all your ener­gy is drain­ing, and this can have neg­a­tive effects on your well-being. Take heed from the author.

For years, she arose at dawn and ded­i­cat­ed her­self to work. She stud­ied through­out the day and well into the night. Her aca­d­e­m­ic grades were excep­tion­al, but her health swift­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ed, leav­ing her with an undi­ag­nosed lump on her neck – the phys­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of all that stress and sleep deprivation.

Striv­ing for flaw­less­ness inces­sant­ly is also a recipe for inevitable dis­ap­point­ment. Con­sid­er this: if you have a pris­tine Uber rat­ing, the only way it can alter is by get­ting worse! This indi­cates that it’s wis­er to be lenient with your­self and admit that per­fec­tion isn’t fea­si­ble at all times.

Then there’s the con­cept that you should “sac­ri­fice for the team.” Frankly speak­ing, this is fal­la­cious – it’s com­plete­ly accept­able to pri­or­i­tize your own interests.

How­ev­er, this doesn’t equate to self­ish­ness. Sole­ly being con­cerned about your­self while neglect­ing oth­ers is unques­tion­ably some­thing to evade. No, what we’re dis­cussing here is being self-ish. A self-ish indi­vid­ual cares for oth­ers, but also looks after their per­son­al neces­si­ties before attend­ing to oth­ers. This is due to the under­stand­ing that you can sole­ly pro­vide assis­tance to those around you if you are well.

This is quite a log­i­cal notion, although we fre­quent­ly over­look it. Con­sid­er air­plane safe­ty guide­lines. The rea­son you’re instruct­ed to attend to your own oxy­gen mask first is because you won’t be capa­ble of assist­ing your child if you’ve already passed out.

Last­ly, it’s vital to empha­size that some indi­vid­u­als are innate­ly team play­ers while oth­ers sim­ply are not, and that’s per­mis­si­ble. If team par­tic­i­pa­tion isn’t your strong suit, don’t feel remorse­ful about it. As elu­ci­dat­ed in this sec­tion, you have every enti­tle­ment to pri­or­i­tize your health and hap­pi­ness. Con­verse­ly, there’s no rule stip­u­lat­ing that you must be exploit­ed for the advan­tage of others!

There’s no harm in taking risks and articulating your desires.

Stick­ing up for your­self can be chal­leng­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly since you’ll often be informed that you’re “being trou­ble­some.” Por­trayed in that man­ner, it seems like you’re being imma­ture and obsti­nate, and that’s exact­ly why it’s fre­quent­ly word­ed this way – it’s an effi­cient tech­nique to pre­vent you from advo­cat­ing for your­self. Nonethe­less, there’s no fault in stand­ing firm and being res­olute about what you aim for in life.

Pic­ture being in a restau­rant. You fan­cy your steak well-cooked and that’s how you request it. How­ev­er, upon arrival, it’ss­carce. You noti­fy the serv­er about your selec­tion and request anoth­er cut of meat. If you have encoun­tered such a sce­nario before, you are like­ly famil­iar with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of some­one at the table crit­i­ciz­ing you for cre­at­ing undue commotion.

If being hon­est about your pref­er­ences and effec­tive­ly con­vey­ing them means being demand­ing, then embrace it — you can accept that. Remem­ber, how­ev­er, there is a dis­tinc­tion between assert­ing your­self and dis­re­spect­ing oth­ers. In oth­er words, this does not grant you per­mis­sion to act rude­ly. If you alter your steak order after plac­ing it with­out inform­ing any­one, you for­feit the option to request a replacement!

Advo­cat­ing for your­self is also cru­cial when mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant life choic­es. This is because the view­points of oth­ers might be the sole fac­tor hin­der­ing you from pur­su­ing your aspirations.

Sup­pose you are con­tem­plat­ing leav­ing your job. Even if you detest your cur­rent posi­tion, you may feel appre­hen­sive about doing so. This is under­stand­able. For­go­ing a steady income is risky, par­tic­u­lar­ly if oth­ers rely on you finan­cial­ly. If you resign, you might also expe­ri­ence a sense of fail­ure in that role, which no one wish­es to feel. These are valid rea­sons to sec­ond-guess your choice.

How­ev­er, if the sole bar­ri­er pre­vent­ing you from quit­ting your job is con­cern over what oth­ers may think of your deci­sion, then you should prob­a­bly take the leap. After all, no one under­stands your cir­cum­stances bet­ter than you. For instance, the author would nev­er have left her job and authored her book if she had paid heed to oth­ers’ opinions!

You have the liberty to define success as you see fit and take any path to attain it.

Some indi­vid­u­als find con­tent­ment by adher­ing to con­ven­tion­al guide­lines and nav­i­gat­ing through life on the high­way. Oth­ers pre­fer the scenic route and opt for less trav­eled back roads. In any case, it is a per­son­al choice, sig­ni­fy­ing that no one has the author­i­ty to dic­tate your jour­ney — except for you.

Con­sid­er the author’s per­spec­tive. To her, the deci­sion to have chil­dren is rather straight­for­ward. If you desire off­spring, go ahead and have them; if not — well, then you should not. How­ev­er, numer­ous indi­vid­u­als ques­tion the valid­i­ty of the lat­ter choice. When the author made the deci­sion not to have chil­dren, she encoun­tered con­stant nag­ging and warn­ings that she would regret her deci­sion. This type of pres­sure is a com­mon way in which indi­vid­u­als are coerced into con­form­ing to norms they don’t gen­uine­ly endorse.

Nev­er­the­less, act­ing based on oth­ers’ expec­ta­tions does not align log­i­cal­ly. Ulti­mate­ly, they do not have to bear the reper­cus­sions — you do. This serves as a valu­able mantra to bear in mind when faced with pres­sure to adopt spe­cif­ic lifestyles or make par­tic­u­lar deci­sions. Want to embrace veg­e­tar­i­an­ism? Go for it! Not keen on hav­ing kids? Don’t have any! As long as you are not impos­ing your way of life on oth­ers, they should not be attempt­ing to impose their beliefs on you.

It is not sole­ly your lifestyle that is sub­ject to your choic­es. You also have the author­i­ty to input your desired des­ti­na­tion into the GPS, estab­lish your objec­tives, and define suc­cess accord­ing to your per­son­al standards.

This con­tra­dicts tra­di­tion­al advice. Often, we are advised that suc­cess is sole­ly attained through obtain­ing a col­lege edu­ca­tion and land­ing a “respectable job.” How­ev­er, authen­tic suc­cess is achieved only when you ful­fill your own objec­tives. These objec­tives vary wide­ly. For some, suc­cess equates to a hefty salary, while oth­ers pri­or­i­tize start­ing a fam­i­ly, and some val­ue flex­i­bil­i­ty above all else.

Your desired out­come will typ­i­cal­ly deter­mine the path you take, which is why indi­vid­u­als end up fol­low­ing dis­tinct tra­jec­to­ries. For instance, if your def­i­n­i­tion of suc­cess aligns with con­ven­tion­al norms and you aspire to a high-pay­ing posi­tion, pur­su­ing a col­lege edu­ca­tion might be the suit­able route. Con­verse­ly, if your dream is to become a movie actor, you might opt to fol­low the approach of Tom Han­ks by either leav­ing col­lege or not pur­su­ing it at all. The deci­sion is entire­ly yours!

Embracing a pessimistic and “eccentric” mindset carries several advantages.

“You will not accom­plish any­thing with that out­look!” Just like being advised that you will rue your deci­sions lat­er on, this is a method through which indi­vid­u­als pres­sur­ize non-con­formists into adher­ing to soci­etal norms. Essen­tial­ly, they are imply­ing that your behav­ior is too unusu­al and that you should strive hard­er to blend in. How­ev­er, that notion is also fallacious.

There is no ques­tion that present-day West­ern soci­ety frowns upon pes­simism. It is sug­gest­ed that to suc­ceed in life, one must be cheer­ful and opti­mistic. While this may be suit­able for those nat­u­ral­ly inclined towards pos­i­tiv­i­ty, some indi­vid­u­als — such as the author — are innate pessimists.

Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, this is not a curse. In fact, it is not even a prob­lem. Neg­a­tiv­i­ty can serve as a moti­va­tor. For instance, had the author not pos­sessed a gloomy dis­po­si­tion, she might have over­looked the fact that her pre­vi­ous job was caus­ing her dis­tress. The rea­son she had the courage to resign and seek change was sim­ple: she did not attempt to sup­press her inher­ent negativity.

Pes­simists are invalu­able when things take a turn for the worse. Why’s that? Well, due to their incli­na­tion to antic­i­pate adverse sce­nar­ios, they usu­al­ly have con­tin­gency plans in place. Put plain­ly, a pes­simist like­ly has a fall­back plan in case it rains on their wed­ding day. In con­trast, an opti­mist might not have such a back­up plan. For sim­i­lar rea­sons, pes­simists tend to ini­ti­ate projects ear­ly. By envi­sion­ing the worst-case sce­nario, they often com­plete tasks on time or even ahead of schedule.

This demon­strates that you do not need to sti­fle your inner neg­a­tiv­i­ty. There is also no neces­si­ty to sup­press your “eccen­tric­i­ty” in gen­er­al. If you are per­ceived as odd, it is like­ly because you approach things in your unique way and are not con­strained by soci­etal norms. Envi­sion a world where every­one unleash­es their eccen­tric­i­ties — would­n’t it be more intrigu­ing, authen­tic, and ulti­mate­ly, joyful?

Seeking support when necessary and establishing your priorities are key aspects of maintaining your mental well-being.

If you had vis­it­ed the author in her work­place a cou­ple of years ago, you would have observed an unusu­al sight: a sand­box beneath her desk, into which she occa­sion­al­ly dipped her feet. What was the ratio­nale behind this set­up? To under­stand that, let’s rewind a bit.

The author encoun­tered her first major pan­ic attack at 31. Ini­tial­ly, she har­bored doubts about seek­ing pro­fes­sion­al help to address this issue. She was phys­i­cal­ly fine, and the con­cept of being labeled as “unsta­ble” did not sit well with her.

Thank­ful­ly, she over­came her ini­tial hes­i­tance and even­tu­al­ly opt­ed for a biofeed­back ses­sion with a doc­tor. When the doc­tor sug­gest­ed that she pin­point activ­i­ties that brought her joy, vis­it­ing the beach and feel­ing the sand beneath her feet was one of the first entries on her list.

This is where the sand­box came into play: it served as a calm­ing and joy­ful ele­ment in the author’s work­space. What lessons can we draw from this expe­ri­ence? Well, there are a cou­ple of them. First­ly, while there is a stig­ma sur­round­ing men­tal health con­cerns, it should not deter you from seek­ing help. Sec­ond­ly, it might require an uncon­ven­tion­al idea, such as a sand­box for relax­ation, to pro­mote your men­tal well-being!

Car­ing for your­self is not just a lux­u­ry; it is crucial.simply a mat­ter of address­ing issues – you can also pre­vent them by orga­niz­ing your life in a way that fos­ters your hap­pi­ness and men­tal well­ness. The cru­cial point here is to estab­lish your own priorities.

This chal­lenges the tra­di­tion­al notion that “fam­i­ly always comes first,” but the deci­sion of who and what you give impor­tance to is up to you. So, imag­ine if your cousin Jen and your friend Tito both hap­pen to select the same date for their wed­dings. If you gen­uine­ly pre­fer attend­ing Jen’s wed­ding, that’s won­der­ful – your friend is like­ly to under­stand your predicament.

How­ev­er, what if you pre­fer to attend Tito’s wed­ding instead? You might find your­self at Jen’s cel­e­bra­tion any­way – after all, as some would say, blood is thick­er than water. While it’s accept­able to make such sac­ri­fices occa­sion­al­ly, it should­n’t become a habit­u­al behav­ior – this would be unfair to both your friends and your­self. More­over, it is des­tined to lead to long-term unhappiness.

Acknowledging oneself as one is involves disregarding the opinions of others.

We all expe­ri­ence the pres­sure to con­form to cer­tain appear­ances or behav­iors. Yield­ing to these soci­etal expec­ta­tions might offer tem­po­rary tran­quil­i­ty, but it won’t bring hap­pi­ness. The only way to tru­ly feel con­fi­dent in your own skin is to do what aligns with your val­ues – not what oth­ers dic­tate you should do.

This entails dis­re­gard­ing var­i­ous arbi­trary soci­etal con­ven­tions. For instance, con­sid­er being kind. Cer­tain­ly, you should­n’t mis­treat peo­ple you encounter dai­ly, but you aren’t oblig­ed to be exces­sive­ly kind to them either – sim­ple polite­ness suf­fices. Dur­ing her time in New York, for exam­ple, the author was fre­quent­ly advised by strangers on the street to smile. Yet, why should you force a smile and act cheer­ful if you don’t gen­uine­ly feel that way? The real­i­ty is that you shouldn’t.

It is also cru­cial to embrace your body as it is and over­look the soci­etal expec­ta­tions regard­ing its appear­ance. The Nation­al Eat­ing Dis­or­ders Asso­ci­a­tion esti­mates that approx­i­mate­ly 20 mil­lion Amer­i­can women and 10 mil­lion men will strug­gle with an eat­ing dis­or­der at some point in their lives. A com­mon under­ly­ing fac­tor in many of these cas­es is peo­ple’s refusal to accept their appearance.

This is an issue the author is all too famil­iar with. For numer­ous years, she bat­tled an unhealthy body image, adhered to var­i­ous unhealthy and trendy diets, and alter­nat­ed between bulim­ia and anorex­ia. This isn’t to say that nobody needs to man­age their weight – some indi­vid­u­als do, espe­cial­ly for health rea­sons. How­ev­er, eat­ing dis­or­ders typ­i­cal­ly stem more from dis­tort­ed self-per­cep­tions than gen­uine health concerns.

Last­ly, it’s time to start dis­re­gard­ing indi­vid­u­als who make you feel inad­e­quate because of your skills. In 2005, the author, then 26 years old, deliv­ered her first sig­nif­i­cant pre­sen­ta­tion to her supe­ri­ors at a pub­lish­ing firm. From her per­spec­tive, the pre­sen­ta­tion went well, which was unsur­pris­ing giv­en her pro­fi­cien­cy in pub­lic speak­ing. She shared this with a col­league when asked about it. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it did­n’t fare well. Her col­league appeared resent­ful and began crit­i­ciz­ing her for being “self-con­grat­u­la­to­ry.”

If this sce­nario res­onates with you, recall what the author real­ized in that moment: hav­ing self-respect and con­fi­dence in your abil­i­ties is noth­ing to be ashamed of – in fact, it should be a source of pride!

Final Recap

The main point dis­tilled from these insights:

Life is brim­ming with arbi­trary reg­u­la­tions and soci­etal expec­ta­tions. Despite the pres­sure to con­form to these norms, it’s wis­er to dis­re­gard them. When we embrace our true selves, no mat­ter how uncon­ven­tion­al we may seem to oth­ers, we lib­er­ate our­selves to pur­sue our own aspi­ra­tions and objec­tives. Ulti­mate­ly, this leads us to a path of contentment.

Action­able suggestion:

Here’s a sim­ple tech­nique to help you main­tain focus on your gen­uine pri­or­i­ties: reflect on your WNDs. This acronym stands for “What you want, what you need, and what you deserve.” Take a piece of paper and jot down every­thing that comes to mind under each of these cat­e­gories. This exer­cise will assist you in defin­ing the kind of rela­tion­ships you aspire to cul­ti­vate, both with your­self and others.

About the writer

Sarah Knight’s ini­tial pub­li­ca­tion, The Life-Chang­ing Mag­ic of Not Giv­ing a F*ck, has been trans­lat­ed into 30 lan­guages and count­ing. Her TEDx pre­sen­ta­tion, “The Mag­ic of Not Giv­ing a F*ck,” has gar­nered over nine mil­lion views. She is a best­selling author at The New York Times, with oth­er notable titles includ­ing Get Your Sh*t Togeth­er, You Do You, Calm the F*ck Down, and F*ck No. Her writ­ten work has been fea­tured in pub­li­ca­tions such as Glam­our, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Red, Refinery29, among oth­ers, and her pod­cast, No F*cks Giv­en, has amassed 1 mil­lion downloads.

Upon leav­ing her cor­po­rate posi­tion in 2015 to pur­sue free­lanc­ing, she relo­cat­ed from Brook­lyn, New York, to the Domini­can Repub­lic, where she cur­rent­ly resides with her hus­band and a mul­ti­tude of lizards.

For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it sarahknight.com or fol­low her on Twit­ter and Insta­gram @MCSnugz.