Numbers… I’ve had my own set of issues with them ever since math class in grade school, but I swear my disdain for them continues to grow and evolve as I get older. Now instead of stressing over multiplication tables and word problems, it’s the digits that pop up on the scale, the ones stitched into the tags of my clothes and the amount of candles on my birthday cake that have me reeling.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that numbers are a way to prove and measure success – test grades, movie ratings, scores of games, your salary – but in reality, there should be zero correlation between them and your level of happiness. So then why do we get so hung up on useless calculations? I think it’s because it’s in our nature to compete with and compare ourselves to others, and we instinctively view numbers as evidence of our shortcomings. But in reality, everyone views them differently.

You read that right. Numbers can be and are subjective. Just like scoring a 75 on an exam may be great to a person who has been failing or not so great to a straight-A student, the numbers on the scale may be the lowest or highest someone has weighed, causing completely different emotional reactions. Essentially they are the same numbers, just viewed entirely differently, which is why I stopped believing they have any bearing on my success or happiness, and I think you should too.

Let’s talk sizes…

First of all, they’re completely arbitrary. Not only are my bottoms a size ‘4’ in H&M and a size ’00’ in Express, two different pairs from the same brand don’t even fit me remotely the same. In all honesty, I never know what size I am and end up returning so many pieces I buy online because I’m just guessing at a number I think could possibly work.

I used to get so upset about having to ‘size up’ in certain brands that I didn’t even want to shop there anymore – I took a decent hiatus from H&M for that very reason. The number really had that much of an impact on my self esteem and had me questioning whether I gained weight or if my body was changing in the ‘wrong’ ways. I started questioning my beauty and my worth over a stupid number that was ultimately meaningless. I had felt good about my shape and was confident about my body before I went shopping, so why should I feel any differently after?

Did you know that ‘vanity’ sizes have changed so much over the decades that Twiggy was considered a size 8 in the ‘50s? That was the smallest size they had back then, and it’s equivalent to today’s size 00. I couldn’t believe it when I found out and still can’t get over it.

That’s just further proof, though, that the goal should never be to fit into a certain size. It should be to feel good about how you look regardless of the number on a tag.

What about the scale…

Don’t even get me started. I’m not one of those people who weighs myself constantly… anymore. When I did, I noticed that I’d fluctuate at least three pounds between the morning and night based on what I ate and drank, so I never really knew what my true weight was anyway. But, I sure wasted a lot of time worrying about it and whether that number was ‘acceptable’. I even went as far as to check it against height to weight ratio charts and compare it to that of celebrities I thought looked ‘good’. All that energy was honestly so misplaced. It could have been better spent on a little self love instead.

Not to mention, every scale tells a different story. The one in your bathroom could read something completely different than the one your friend has or even the one your doctor uses during checkup appointments. Does it really matter that much which one is ‘right’? After all, each one of us wears the weight differently anyway. Two people with the same height and weight can have completely different body shapes and wear different sizes. Someone with more muscle mass can look leaner but actually measure higher on the scale than someone with more fat.

Kourtney Kardashian is currently claiming she’s under 100lbs, but she also has endless amounts of time and money to spend on personal trainers and nutritionists. And, maybe you’d still prefer your body over hers, which I personally hope you do. You’d do well to remember that smaller numbers don’t correlate to a happier life or even a more positive body image.

Am I getting old…

We’ve all heard it a million times: “Age is just a number”. But, as I approach 30, that number seems a bit more daunting every time my birthday rolls around. I’m not sure what it is that we fear about aging. You can easily cover up gray hair and as long as you stay active and positive, your body and mind should remain relatively consistent. Maybe it’s the notion that you need to accomplish certain life goals by a milestone year that sets us into a tizzy. But, I think every journey is beautiful at it’s own pace. Hey, George Clooney didn’t have kids until his mid-50s, and JLo consistently dates men who are notably younger than her. One more time for the people in the back: “Age is just a number”.

I think no matter how old we get, what’s more important than the actual number is how gracefully we age. After all, we’re only as old as we feel. We need to start being thankful for every day we get because each one represents more time we have the opportunity to be alive, improving, challenging and loving ourselves.

That’s a wrap…

Your self worth and body image shouldn’t diminish based on your size, weight or age. They are all just numbers that lie and don’t tell the full and true narrative of who you are as a person. Instead, measure your success in life by how happy you are and what you are doing every day to improve upon that happiness.