Not Everyone Gets a Vote

Hey there. I want you to stop explaining yourself so much.

I see this all the time, and I have done it myself. You share your plans, your goals, or the changes you are trying to make, and when someone questions them, you immediately feel the need to justify every detail. You explain your thinking. You plead your case. You hope they will understand.

Sometimes it comes from a good place. You want to be heard. You want support. You want connection. And there are absolutely situations where explanation matters. If you have responsibilities to other people, obligations you need to follow through on, or roles that require communication, that is different. Responsibility still matters.

But most of the time, that is not what we are talking about.

What I am talking about is the habit of explaining yourself to people who are not actually invested in your well being, your growth, or the life you want to live. People who push back on your choices. People who question your decisions. People whose lives, if you are being honest with yourself, you would not want to trade places with.

That is worth paying attention to.

I think many of us explain ourselves because we want validation. We want reassurance that we are doing the right thing. We want someone else to tell us it is okay. But the more you rely on external approval, the more disconnected you become from your own instincts and values.

This shows up constantly in fitness and weight loss.

You change how you eat, and suddenly you are explaining yourself at every meal. You start working out differently, and people want to know why. You stop doing extreme plans, and you feel pressure to defend your choice. Over time, all that explaining becomes exhausting. It pulls your energy away from actually doing the thing you said you wanted to do.

Listening to feedback once can be useful. Someone might see something you missed. That is worth considering. But when you find yourself having the same conversation over and over with the same people, that is no longer about growth. That is about distraction.

You already know how those conversations are going to end.

You are not required to convince anyone.

When you are clear on why you are doing something, constant explanation is usually a sign that you do not fully trust yourself yet. And that makes sense if you have spent years being told your body was not good enough, your choices were wrong, or your instincts could not be trusted.

Many people on a long term weight loss journey were taught early on to doubt themselves. I was aware of my weight at eight years old. From that point forward, I learned to look outside myself for answers, approval, and permission. That pattern does not disappear just because you know better now.

It takes practice.

Part of living an inside/out life is learning who gets access to your reasoning and who does not. Not everyone deserves an explanation. Not everyone gets a vote. You can listen politely. You can acknowledge a perspective. And then you can decide that the conversation is done.

That applies beyond fitness.

It shows up at work when you over explain your boundaries. It shows up in relationships when you justify why you need space. It shows up in life when you keep trying to get people on board with choices that are already aligned for you.

The more you explain yourself, the less grounded you tend to feel.

The more you trust yourself, the quieter those explanations become.

This is not about being defensive or closed off. It is about being clear. Clear about who you are. Clear about what matters to you. Clear about the direction you are moving in. When that clarity is there, you do not need to talk people into understanding you.

You just keep going.