They Won’t Support You

Let us be real. Chances are very high that your family and friends are not as excited as you expected them to be when you started living your dream either starting your own business or other beautiful pursuits. And to be frank, the closer they are to you, the more likely this rings a bell.

Photo by Akira Hojo on Unsplash

I won’t be surprised if some of your biggest fans and most genuine supporters are those people you have never even met in person. They are always the first to give you the best feedback while your friends and family don’t bother after an initial wave of support.

Then you ask yourself: Why is it that, strangers who have no idea who I am, are so much more ready to help and support my craziest dreams while people I think should be the ones most likely to be in my corner are so quick to shoot down my dreams? Sigh

Of course, there are exceptions. I am not speaking for everybody and it does not mean that we have bad friends or a bad family.

Here is it. People closest to you tend to be people who’ve known you the longest. The longer they know you, the more they understand your personality and behaviour. They’ve seen you grow and have built a specific image of you in their heads based on everything they’ve seen of you. That perception is based on who you are and your insecurities, which is a natural human thing to do. We all form our judgments this way.

However, when you suddenly become an “expert”, they have difficulty honouring or respecting the radical change. It does not match up to the picture of you in their heads. “Ahan, is this not Hameedah? Someone I always watch back then….I’ve always seen her give up easily o. And now she is the same person preaching about consistency and hard work? Nawa oo.” You know that kind of thing.

Sadly, the ones closest to you find it hard to support you to grow because you all come from the “same place”. As much as I’d like to dismiss this reasoning, there are times when you get to experience this eerie feeling. The moment you start moving up, they start treating you differently. They become defensive as if you are looking down on them because they are not doing much themselves. It could be insecurity on their part or the fact that they had to give up on their dreams. They expect you to “stay” with them. And when you don’t, it’s an indicator that you think “you are better than them”

See, your friends and family might support you emotionally but they may not be the first to believe in your project. “It is just a hobby….something that she is going to get tired of soon” They sometimes dismiss your efforts no matter how hard you try to make them believe in you.

And this sometimes proves to be destructive. We constantly seek the approval of our family and friends in everything we do and when that doesn’t come, you feel like you’re not good enough. It’s a destructive circle of trying to prove yourself to the people closest to you.

This is the reason why people often say, that if you want to grow and redefine yourself, you’d fare better in a new environment, where people you are familiar with won’t be able to access you. There are a lot of people who can reach their full potential when they move to a new place, away from their loved ones. Once you’re able to redefine yourself, you may also suddenly get recognized by those you tried so hard to convince the years earlier.

People who do not know you, don’t have any baggage to push aside. Sometimes, people closest to you have a history with you, and that clouds their desire to support your ideas. But strangers do not know the kind of person you are, and they probably do not care. They don’t associate you with a single image and encourage you as they are not scared of you outgrowing them. The idea of supporting a stranger to grow beyond their limits does not challenge their stand in life or make them uncomfortable. This could partly be because they’re trying to project their passion through your work.

Does encouragement thrive when there’s hardly any context?

Does familiarity breed contempt?

This is not to say your family and friends won’t support your dream, but don’t try so hard to get your family and friends to get excited about your project/idea. They’ll support you with the capacity that is available to them. Take anything you get, but don’t expect anything more. Their love might not manifest in being the first supporter of your new venture, but they will be the 100th supporter. Once they recognize you, they will be your biggest fans.

Lower your expectations from the people who are to you and focus on your vision. You might be raising only a few eyebrows at the beginning, but as time and effort compound, you will eventually have a genuine group of supporters in the form of friends, family, and strangers.

To end this, supporting someone’s dreams won’t dampen yours. Support your friends. Listen to their ideas. Go to their events. Share their posts. Listen to their podcasts. Celebrate their victories and remind them of their importance after their failures. A little support can go a very long way in someone’s life.