Recently, I was sent some hair products by a company who asked me to try them and, hopefully, tell everyone how wonderful they were.
Now, who doesn’t love a freebie? I was genuinely flattered to be asked and very excited when they arrived. I used them with great anticipation, fully expecting bouncy, juicy curls.
Unfortunately, my hair had other ideas.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the products. I’m sure they work a treat for other people, but they just didn’t work particularly well for me.
And that left me with a bit of a dilemma.
The products had been sent for free and, although nobody explicitly told me what I had to say, the expectation was fairly obvious. Make a video. Tell people how much I loved them. Recommend them.
Except I didn’t love them. The result was dry, frizzy hair.
I’ve always believed that you’re only ever as good as your word. If I recommend something to somebody, whether that’s a product, a restaurant, a service or even a TV programme, I want them to know that I genuinely mean it.
For me, that comes down to integrity. It’s about being true to your word, how you carry yourself, it’s what you say about people when they’re no longer in the room. It’s what people would say when they think about you. I think it tells you a lot about somebody’s character.
So when the company asked how I’d got along with the products, I thanked them for the very generous gift and explained that, unfortunately, they hadn’t worked for my hair. I was happy to leave an honest review, but they said no thanks, it wasn’t the marketing they had in mind!
It got me thinking about how often we do this in everyday life.
How often does somebody ask, “Was everything OK with your meal?” and we smile and say, “Good, thanks,” despite spending the previous ten minutes grumbling about the food and service to the person sitting opposite us.
Or a friend asks what we think of something and we automatically say, “Oh, it’s lovely!” because that feels easier than giving our actual opinion.
Of course, honesty doesn’t mean we have to be brutal. There’s a big difference between being truthful and being unkind. We don’t need to go around giving everybody an unsolicited critique of their hair, clothes, cooking and lifestyle choices. Sometimes keeping our thoughts to ourselves is absolutely the kindest option.
But when something matters, particularly when it is beginning to bother us, I think we should feel able to say so.
Because what happens when we don’t?
That little niggle doesn’t necessarily disappear just because we haven’t mentioned it. Quite often it sits there. Then it bubbles. Then it festers. The drip becomes a flood.
We replay conversations in our heads. We think about what they said, what we should have said and what we’re definitely going to say next time. Before we know it, something that started off relatively small has become a much bigger issue in our minds.
And eventually it comes out, usually at the most unexpected and unpleasant time.
Suddenly you’re having an enormous row about somebody leaving a mug on the kitchen worktop when, in reality, it isn’t about the mug at all. It’s about the six other things you haven’t mentioned over the past three months.
Had we nipped the original problem in the bud, perhaps it would never have got that far.
It can happen at work too. Maybe somebody repeatedly interrupts you in meetings, takes credit for something you’ve done or keeps giving you extra work when you’re already struggling. You tell yourself not to make a fuss. You smile, get on with it and say nothing. But inside, the frustration is growing and ends up in you being off for six months with stress and anxiety.
Or perhaps there’s a little irritation in a friendship. Your friend is always late, constantly cancels at the last minute or does something that has slowly started to grate on your nerves. Rather than saying, “Can I be honest? This is starting to bother me,” we sometimes keep quiet because we don’t want things to be awkward.
But avoiding a small amount of awkwardness now can sometimes create a much bigger problem later.
And I know speaking up isn’t always easy, especially if you’re the only person in the room who feels differently about a situation. Everybody else is nodding along and you’re sitting there thinking, “Actually, I don’t agree with this.”
But does everybody else thinking one thing automatically mean they’re right and you’re wrong?
Of course not.
We’re allowed to have different experiences, opinions and feelings. We’re allowed to say, “That wasn’t my experience.” We can say, “I see it differently.” We can tell somebody, “When that happened, it upset me,” or simply, “I’m not comfortable with this.”
None of those things are rude and they should never be friendship breakers.
And somebody not liking what we have to say isn’t, on its own, a good enough reason for us not to say it.
What matters is how we say it. We can speak with consideration. We can listen to the other person’s point of view. We can accept that they may completely disagree with us.
Speaking our mind doesn’t mean demanding that everybody else changes theirs.
There’s a huge difference between being honest and being deliberately hurtful.
I think sometimes we confuse keeping the peace with actually having peace. They’re not the same thing. Keeping quiet might make things easier in the moment, but if we walk away frustrated, replaying the conversation for the next three days, how peaceful was it really?
We can be honest and respectful. We can be grateful and still say something wasn’t right for us. We can disagree with somebody and still respect them. And we should be able to say that something isn’t OK without it becoming an issue.
Our word matters. Our feelings matter too. And so does our integrity.
And personally, I’d rather somebody knew that when I say something is fab, I genuinely mean it.
Even if it means occasionally missing out on free shampoo.
Shannon Humphrey is a Youth and Adult Mental Health & Wellbeing Instructor for more information check out www.pathwaysforpositivity.com
Photo: Shutterstock
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