Why are you here?

You came to read this post to hear a not-so-simple truth about how to stop caring what other people think about you and your life. And the truth isn’t always easy to swallow. You can take this truth with a grain of salt or choose to accept it as it is. 

Unfortunately, this habit of “worrying about what other people think” is hard to shake. If you are really a shy person and would finally want to speak up and stand up for yourself, it’s likely that your mind kicks in and you suddenly have thoughts like “What if they laugh at me and I start to blush like a tomato?” “What if they start talking behind my back?” The list goes on and on…

Luckily, I am here to help you but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna be easy on you.

You need to hear what you need to hear. Okay?

Okay. So listen. You are here right on time. Congratulations on the biggest step towards achieving this! You actually came to a point in your life when you SEE how caring what other people think is negatively affecting your life. 

You actually see it, and know it is screwing your life over! Do you know how many people don’t ever try to change it? Do you realise how many human beings don’t even have the courage to admit that they are bothered by what other people think?  And that they shouldn’t bother. They just bother!

And continue to do so without ever trying to stop it. 

But not you, no. So congratulations on that big step!

Why do you care so much what other people think and how is it affecting your life?

You are probably very young or middle aged. If you are older then I am also very happy that you decided for a big shift in your life. It is never too late to do that! Never. 

It is quite possible you’ve always been very affected by opinion of others since you were just a kid but this doesn’t have to be a rule. It’s very different in my case and I will talk about it at the end of this post.

Is it your parents? Or your partner? Or friends? Or even your children? Many such cases.

The majority of people are scared of their parents or friends opinions. And the saddest thing is that they quit following their dreams just because of it.

And here is the good news: caring what other people think is a learned behaviour. It is not something we are born with. Meaning it IS possible to change this behaviour. 

Questions you should ask yourself in order to shift your mindset from caring to not caring.

Write down your answers on a piece of paper.

1. When did it all the ‘caring what other people think’ begin?

2. Are you afraid of what your parents/partner/friends/coworkers think about your life? Who is affecting you the most? What would they think if you did something you wanted?

3. Do you feel like you’ve sacrificed something because of their opinion? What is it?

4. How do you imagine living a life never doing what you wanted and do you believe you will let it go eventually? Or do you know deep inside this will haunt you forever?

5. Do you realise that this is the only life you have and that you won’t get the second try?

6. How do you plan to talk about your life when you are older? Are you going to be proud or are you going to feel regret? Trust me, you know the answer.

7. Do you realise that you are the only person that is living your life and that there is no one else living it for you? 

What can you do about it? How do you STOP caring what others think? 

Try these quick tricks to stop the cycle of listening to what others think of you:

• Ask yourself how you want to show up in the world. When you realize you’re letting someone else’s opinions steer who you are, pull back. There is a big difference between learning from others and cultivating wisdom – as when a mentor, role model or expert tells you what they think to help you improve – and letting destructive judgement stamp out your ideas, opinion or dreams.

Think of all the famous people in the world who were told no a million times. They were able to persist with their image and how they show up by accepting constructive advice and being non-reactive to judgement.

If you are inspired to pursue a certain career, wear untraditional clothing, change your sexual identity, or be otherwise ‘unconventional,’ it will involve a learning curve for you to take in what’s useful and dismiss what holds you back. Keep showing up as who makes you happy. 

• Turn judgement into wonderment. When you feel someone is judging you, get curious. “I wonder why she would say something to embarrass me,” or “I wonder what makes him want to put me down like that.”

Realizing that people do/say things to make themselves feel or look better makes it much easier to be non-reactive and not take it personally. Everyone has baggage that they carry into their interactions.

Judgement is someone else’s issue(s), being projected on to you. It may feel awkward at first to be empathetic towards someone who is putting you down. Once you realize it’s about them you’ll be able to stop and ask yourself this question and dismiss the negatively with ease. Remember that judgement is nearly always about the other person. 

If you want to stop worrying about what others think about you :

• Start working towards excellence without comparing yourself to others

• Spend your time in self improvement rather than self doubt and condemnation

• Replace jealousy and malice with Inspiration and ambitions

• Fill your day and life with so many things to do and learn that you have no time to think, “what others think” 

• Let Go of Trying to Control Their Thoughts: When we are in the people-pleasing mode, we are trying to control someone’s thoughts and opinions about us. You’re bending over backward trying to do everything you can, and you don’t get anything back. But no matter what you do—even if you’re the nicest person in the world—you still can’t control what other people think about you.

• Own your life: It’s always you who have to deal with everything that happens in your life. What’s more, if you let others’ opinions influence your decisions, you’ll start changing your behaviors to suit others’ expectations. So just be you.

• You can’t make everyone happy: You sacrifice your own needs so you can make others happy. In doing so, you also start expecting the same from others. So when they don’t behave as you expect, you resent them. You get frustrated and unhappy.

• Get to know yourself: Make a decision for yourself. Take full responsibility for everything that happens in your life. Own it all – good or bad. Others don’t Care as Much as You Think They Do. They’ll probably think about you for a few seconds and go back to thinking about their own life.

• Pick one and do it: Choose one thing you always wanted to do but gave up because you were afraid of others’ opinions. Examples: travel solo, take a class, dining out alone, or start a business. Your self-doubt, fear, and insecurity will start losing power over you when you take action. You’ll feel free, liberated, and happy designing and living the life you want, not what others expect you to.

• Be Your Own Biggest Cheerleader: It’s so important to like yourself and become your biggest cheerleader. Nobody will believe in you if you don’t believe in you first. If you don’t know who you are, you are much more sensitive to criticism and influence by the external world.

• If Someone Says Negative Things About You, It’s Actually About THEM, Not About You: No matter what you do, there will always be people who criticize you. You probably know it from social media. Even the best, most positive youtube video will receive some hateful comments. Some people are just so unhappy with themselves and their lives, that they spread negativity everywhere they go.

Things you need to know about people in general:

1. People are too worried about their own damn lives.

They are.

Everybody has issues. Everybody has their own shit to deal with, their own personal shit.

Do you really think they want to care about you? Do you really think they have space in their little brain to give two fucks about you?

They don’t.

Okay sure, maybe at the moment itself, when they’re looking at you or in front of you, they give a shit about you.

But after they go home and go to sleep, they have other shit to care about. It’s a brand new day, everyday. Just think about celebrities, we tend to forget everything we know about them, even if it is something shocking (as media describes it). First, news comes out, everyone knows about it and talks about it. Next thing you know, no one even remembers the story.

2. They don’t believe things are possible to achieve so they don’t want you to prove them otherwise. They are terrified of finding out they shouldn’t have given up and that they should have done more.

This is why people usually want you to fail. And these people will be among the first in line to tell you how to live your own damn life. Please, stay away from these sort of people!

Do you want to know my all time favourite reason as why you by all means must stop obsessing with opinion of others?

My own story…

I stopped caring what other people think when I was a student at university. I guess just being on my own for the first time and living among other students opened my eyes.

I learned a lot about life then (I learned a lot about partying and being childishly crazy again, too, but life, oh life…yes, I learned a lot about it). But what about high school years? What about my teenage years?

When I look back at that time I can see how much I really cared what my classmates and other people thought of me. I was so obsesses and wanted everyone to like me. If someone didn’t like something about me, I took it really personally and was strongly offended. I wanted to do everything to change that person’s mind. If they didn’t like what i wear, I would wear something different. I didn’t even have my own opinion, I just followed what everyone else was saying because I was afraid of expressing myself! Wow, as a 32 year old woman right now, I can see how much I’ve changed. I’m the exact opposite right now. People look at me today and wonder how am I able to stand up for myself so successfully and guard my own opinions. And how do I manage not letting other peoples’ opinions get to me. I usually do whatever I intended to do with my life even if it bothers other people (for their own selfish reasons).

But it was a different story then – when someone didn’t like me I would always, ALWAYS think the problem lies in me, never the other person. I would never even think about the possibility that certain individuals just don’t click. And that there is nothing you can do about it. We are all different and we each have our own character and our own weaknesses.

Just accept the fact that there are many cases of two people who can never like each other no matter what you do. Sometimes we don’t even know why we don’t like someone. So we usually say we don’t like their energy.

What also happens a lot is that we don’t like someone but our close friend who we get along with very much, does! Well, isn’t that confusing?

A lot of times I wanted to express my opinion on the matter but I stayed quiet only because I thought my idea would be bad and stupid and that everyone would make fun of it and that I would be embarrassed.

Now I am so sorry I didn’t do anything to change it. So if you are a teenager reading this, please don’t stay quiet, share your opinions with other people. Don’t be embarrassed. I can assure you that people forget quicker than you think. I’ve done so many embarrassing things and am so surprised not many people remember. And when someone remembers we laugh about it now, it’s quite interesting! 

So how did I stop caring what other people think?

– I’ve seen others who act like they don’t care and I took them as an example, they looked much more relaxed and happy so it was a huge motivation for me

– Fake it till you make it: I’ve struggled at the beginning but as I made an appearance of not being too bothered what other people think, the better I felt about myself and I’ve also noticed that I was enjoying life a little bit better than before. I started having more fun!

– I stopped taking things personal: If someone doesn’t like me or something about me, that is his problem and not mine. Not everyone will like everything about you, ever! Just accept it and move on with your precious life 🙂

– Focus on yourself, not others: the more you are focused on your own life instead of what anyone thinks, the more successful you will be. Your life is based on your thoughts and emotions, and the experience you create from it all. 

Whenever you feel like doing something, do it. Don’t think what they will think even if you do, that’s the only moment you need to take the charge of your own moment.

If you know you are right you don’t need to worry.

Never ever react at once when you find someone provoking you. It’s the best way to train onself to not care about what they think and do about you.

When you practice those things on frequent basis automatically you will also discover the art of not bothering what they think too.

Wrapping it up…

There can be two outcomes of this –

1. You get positive feedback – Great, u get a confidence boost !

2. You get negative feedback.
In this case, here’s what you can do –

Option 1 : Sit and sulk, feel terrible, and get nothing good out of it .

No scratch that, it doesn’t sound like a good option.

Option 2 : Analyze it. Use this as an opportunity to grow (if you feel you should, after YOUR OWN analysis), provided you can analyze the comments without letting them get to you (in other words – having thick skin).

This lets you see things from a different perspective. Why wouldn’t you use this opportunity to see yourself in new light and analyze your shortcomings ? Aren’t we all flawed in some way or the other?

So what is your story? Do you care too much about what other people think and what are you doing to change it? Let me know in the comments!

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