🦀 Crabs in a Bucket 🦀 (a theory)

Crabs in a Bucket phenomenon is the reason why I stopped sharing my dreams with everyone and anyone who asks me what are my plans for the future. 💫

Let me break it down for you.

If a bunch of crabs were left alone in a bucket and one of them tried to get out - the rest would pull it back down. It’s an embodiment of: “If I can’t have it, neither can you.” 🦀

That’s why fishermen can put all of those crabs in a single bucket. Even though all of them have legs and could easily get out, they will just sabotage each other and won’t ever escape. 🛢️

Ummmm okay bestie I didn’t sign up for a biology newsletter, what does this have to do with me?

It has a lot to do with you.

I know you girlie, you’re ambitious and you have goals. Goals that might seem big and overwhelming. Goals that might cause others to make fun of you and smirk.🎯

I’m sure you have experienced it on your skin.

📖 Let me tell you a personal story. I had two friends and one of them was talking for AGES about how she should finally start exercising.

Then one day she finally got a membership at her local pool and did her first swimming session.

When she told us about it I was proud she finally did what she had been postponing for so long, but you know what my other friend said? “HAHA. You’re swimming? That’s hilarious.”

🦀👀 CRABS IN A BUCKET 👀🦀

I knew the girl who made fun of her was insecure as heck and was just projecting her insecurities onto a girl who started taking care of herself. 👩🏻

She didn’t actually want to hurt her, she just wanted to pull her down a bit so she could avoid looking at herself in the mirror.

That's what people do - when they see you making a change they don’t like it. They want you to stay the person THEY are comfortable with. A person who doesn’t do much more than them, a person who doesn’t make them reflect on themselves. 🤔

👉 You will get this if you want to start eating healthier: “What are you now? One of those healthy food-obsessed freaks?”

👉 If you start reading: “Oooh watch out, it’s miss I-Know-It-All-Because-I-Read.”

👉 Or if you start a business: “Ooh that’s so risky! I hope you don’t fail like my sister's son-in-law neighbor's cousin did.”

➜ Every time someone tells you you’re reaching too high, that you’re doing too much, that what you want is impossible, or that you should just calm down with your ambitions and be normal I want you to say to yourself - CRABS IN A BUCKET.

Don’t get mad, just accept that’s how crabs behave. Take it with a grain of salt, brush it off, distance yourself from those people and keep going. 🤷‍♂️

Until next Thursday,

Your Glowing Bestie ❤️✨