So here’s the thing, what others think of you is none of your business.
It’s also damaging to your mental health, and here’s why:
When you care what others think of you then you are telling yourself that other people matter more than you do. And if you believe that everyone is more important than you, then what kind of messages do you think you are giving to yourself? And how do you think that impacts your self-worth?
Furthermore, by trying to please all people, you please no one at all.
And you actually lose your identity in the process as the more you listen to people’s opinions of you and mould yourself to their feedback, then the more you silence your own wants and needs and dismiss your true character and nature; hiding all the things that you make you, well, you.
You are not on this planet to please other people or to live life by other’s standards.
You are here to live your life, as you chose to do.
You’ve only got one life – we’ve all only got one life – and it’s such a waste to not live it by our own standards, filling it with the things that we want to.
Once upon a time I cared so much what other’s thought of me. I was Camilla the chameleon. I just wanted to be liked, my self-worth was nonexistent, and so I adapted to whatever environment I was in to be accepted.
I was the class clown at school, I went through every fashion trend from grunge to glam, and even gothic and I could be studious or rebellious depending on who I was.
All that this chopping and changing did was wind me up extremely confused later on in life as to who I was and what I stood for.
Living by other’s standards may get you ahead in life in the short term but long term it doesn’t work.
People change their minds all the time. I’m sure you can think of a few instances when you’ve changed your mind about something you liked or didn’t like? Perhaps a person? Or a food? Or a political view on something? All of us change our minds all the time, and so people’s opinions of you in any given moment says more about them than it does about you. Don’t take it to heart and sacrifice your own identity as a result of it.
We all have our own views of what we perceive to be right or wrong, and what we perceive to be right or wrong can change at any given moment if the circumstances around it change.
For example, I view stealing from anyone as wrong, but if it became a matter of life or death and I had to steal in order to survive or help another person survive then I wouldn’t think twice about it and it would be the right thing to do at that moment.
Yes, we all live in one world, but each of us live in our own worlds in a way and have our own unique life experiences and perceptions of the world. You are responsible for maintaining yours and living your life, not maintaining someone else’s and living in theirs.
Each of us is unique in our thinking, our personality, our abilities. And for good reason, we all have unique value to offer the world. You are not only doing yourself a disservice by moulding yourself to fit others’ wants and needs but you are doing everyone else a disservice as well by giving up all the things that make you uniquely valuable to the world.
Your job is to nurture all the things that make you, you. Embrace them and capitalise on them.
My job is to do the same for the things that make me, me.
And everyone else has the same responsibility for the things that make them themselves.
And I just want to close on a note on perfectionism. Perfection doesn’t exist because it is subjective and everyone views perfection (or success even) completely differently. It’s unobtainable because it is based on perception which no two people have the same view or definition of.
So drop the perfectionism, drop the people-pleasing, and take no notice of what other people think of you, it’s their business, not yours.
Remember that all people connect with real and authentic people on a much deeper and meaningful level than with something superficial and fake.
I’ll be back next week for more shares in the self-image, confidence, and lifestyle department.
In the meantime, check out my YouTube channel to find this video and more like it 🙂
