How to not give a damn what people think about you
I used to often tell people that the older you get, the less you care about what people think of you.
Which looking back on it was at least partly true, but not for the reasons I thought, at the time.
And also, that’s not hugely motivational for people who’re in their early twenties, is it? “Just wait till you’re twice as old and then you won’t care what people think about you any more”, isn’t all that comforting when this kind of thing is affecting your life, day to day.
To be fair, though, I used to think that not caring what people thought of you was less really to do with your age, and it was mostly a sign of emotional maturity, which is something some people never gain, and others come to much earlier in their lives.
I’ve changed my opinion on this one. And that’s only been in the last six or so months, to tell the truth.
Why? Because I spent a lot of time this year working on my self-esteem/self-worth.
Let me rewind a little here and explain.
After my last romantic relationship ended, I holed up in my own little house and started to rebuild my life, staring at a future ahead of me which looked very different than the one I’d assumed I’d be living, for the last decade and a half (almost).
I took courses, journaled, meditated, and used my Bad Habit Kicker technique on myself to work on the behaviours I felt were no longer working for me.
As I’ve mentioned in a couple of articles already, one of the things I worked on was my addiction to iOS games. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t playing them morning, noon and night. They weren’t getting in the way of my other activities — or at least not too much — it was stuff people weren’t relying on me for such as reading which tended to fall by the wayside when the lure of the games pulled my focus, and I wasn’t spending any money on them — I’m the kind of person who’ll resolutely get the free games, and accept that there are going to be adverts, during which I can just put my phone down and do something else, or otherwise go and make a cup of tea or something.
But I had a feeling that I was spending too much time on them for my own comfort. I knew that there were other, more fulfilling things I could be doing with my time.
I spent a month using my Bad Habit Kicker technique to focus my attention on the future life I wanted to build, and weaned myself off the games. But once I’d done that, I realised that I was using the games as a tactic to distract myself from something else in my life I didn’t want to face.
For the next six months I continued in this way, working on each next habit until I got to what I currently believe was the heart of the matter - namely that my self-worth was in the toilet.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame anyone else for this. I’d allowed my boundaries to be eroded while in my last romantic relationship. And I came to realise that my childhood was a big part of my reasons for clinging to relationships with people who weren’t right for me, long after I should have taken the decision to get the hell out of Dodge, as they say.
So I rebuilt my self-worth, brick by brick, facing up to each erroneous assumption I’d formed about myself, and who I was and wasn’t, what I could and couldn’t do and who I really wanted to be. Which had all started by my deciding what I did and didn’t want to do with my time, i.e. playing iOS games.
As I rebuilt that sense of myself, and boosted my own self worth, I realised that there’d been another, unexpected side effect (I really shouldn’t have been all that surprised, this is something I’ve noticed when coaching folks, time and time again) and that while I’d spent the last few years as I approached fifty, telling people I didn’t really care what anyone else thought about me, I hadn’t been entirely truthful about that.
I’d long since got past the experiences I’d had in my twenties and thirties when I’d literally lie awake in bed at night, staring up at the ceiling in a cold sweat, worrying about something I’d said or done, and wondering what people thought about me.
Spoiler alert here, and I wanted to share something I point out to my coaching clients as well as my friends fairly frequently:
In reality, people are mostly not thinking about others. We mainly think about ourselves. If you don’t believe me, when was the last time you spent hours obsessing about someone else & judging them, and when did you last worry what other people were thinking about you?
Why on earth would you imagine anyone else would be different?
They’re not.
But I still did fuss occasionally over it.
It took me a few weeks after I started this work on my self-worth to realise my attitude had entirely changed. I honestly didn’t care any more whether people liked me or not, whether they were judging me for what I did or didn’t do.
It was enormously freeing. This was when I started offering out coaching to people, feeling confident enough to publish regularly here on Substack, posting again on social media and sharing my thoughts on anything which took my fancy. And all of this was done entirely without fear of judgement or what peoples’ response to my output might be.
Why was I suddenly so fearless? Had I cast some kind of spell over myself?
Nope.
What was different was that I was being true to myself. I was acting congruently with who I believe I am, and what I stand for. Doing what I felt was right - for me.
And as long as I can put my hand on my heart and honestly say that’s true, then I care way less what people think about me, positive or negative opinions included.
I think the simple reason is because now I’m comfortable with my actions, I’m not feeling nervous that people might realise I’m putting on an act or doing things which don’t feel right for me. I don’t feel. like an impostor.
I was inspired to write this article after coming across this post by the wonderful Jonathan Fields (whose work I’ve been reading for years): Don't try to be good, be true.
Yes. Be true. Be true to yourself.
Do the work to discover who you really are (and aren’t) and what you want (and don’t want).
Do that, hold your head up high and do what feels right to you, and you’ll care very little going forwards about what people think, because at the end of the day, the only person who’s guaranteed to be here with you in this life… is you.
So, what do you think?
Could you focus more on being true to yourself and thereby worry less about what other people expect/think of you?
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This reminded me a lot about a book called "Courage to be Disliked" which is about a philosopher called Alfred Adler. Definitely worth a read if not already :)