Samstag, 20. Juni 2015

How to not care what people think about you - becoming truely authentic

How to not care what people think about you - becoming truely authentic

Who does not know it? That fear of what other people might think about you? That possible judgement that might or might not be happening.

StarCraft 2 - When i started, people told me I would never be even decent. I would never make it to masters. The people in my school laughed at me for saying things like "never give up."

Picture: High Masters, at the time rank 1000 worldwide across all servers. Ranked top 0,5% of all players.

"They will doubt you. And when they do, create your own reality."

-

"Can I really wear this today? What will people think? Is it okay to do this? Maybe someone will dislike it. He could never do it! Hes too bad!"


We live in constant doubt in our actions on whether or not they might be acceptable in our very society. Where does this come from and why is it such an important lesson to learn getting over it?

First of all, 'caring what people think about us' mainly stems from the same place that makes group-think exist. It's yet another survival trait. Our reptile brain knows that living in a strong group with people that complement one another makes it far more likely for us to survive.

Basically, this 'trait' is supposed to increase our chance of joining a strong group of survivors, thus further securing our own life. The more we go with the masses, the more likely we will join the strongest and best group.

Now that we know caring about what people think is in our nature and why we do it, what does this mean in our current times? What is the issues that we are facing?

The issue with caring too much about what people think is mainly self-limiting behavior. We sense trouble in our actions once we reflect upon them and compare them to 'conventional social behavior'.

Oh, people are not used to this, maybe I should not! I dont want to offend anyone!

Is a statement purely for the purpose of securing your position within the different groups of your society. Technically, there is no reason to care, but our brain tells us that it would be a risk to take.

This self-limiting behavior can cause us to ignore our dreams, shatter our beliefs and follow a completely different route than what we actually want for ourselves. Basically, your life becomes the life of the people around you, as you are instrument to their judgement.

Not only do we limit ourselves by caring too much about opinions, we might even develop serious anxieties. For me personally, I developed a social anxiety which can truely only exist if your ego relies so much on peoples opinions.

My experiences with "caring too much about peoples opinions"

Honestly, I never really viewed myself as a weak character, a person that would not be independent or anyting alike. I did not even realize that one of the biggest problems I dealt with in my life was that I took too much care in what others thought of me.

I just started realizing that when I got more self-critical and understood the anxieties that I was dealing with a bit better. I started to see the cause of them and only then was able to actively work on getting rid of them.

I am convinced that "caring too much about what people think" or even developing a social phobia was something that I adopted from my parents. Since I was young, all I ever saw was how important it was what people thought about me. I was told that I 'could not do this' or 'wear that'. 

Especialy my mother fell incredibly deep into this pattern and thus i adopted that from day one. I am not judging her for that of course. It was an act purely out of love, trying to cause less problems for me. 

However, sometimes, trying to change yourself too much and adapting to what 'should be' causes the biggest problems. For me, it most certainly became that. I developed a social phobia.

Looking back about a little more than a year ago, I would describe myself as incredibly neurotic. You could literally see and feel when you were around me that every step I made was in sync with societies standarts. I tried to avoid every little bit of risk and took it very serious to try to make everyone happy.

I rememer that I was totally caught up about not being able to do that. I remember that some teachers in school just did not like me and I really could not understand why that was. I tried harder to live up to their standarts, tried to change to make them accept me but in the end it was a fight against myself. 

And that fight was unwinnable. 

"We have to understand that we can not make everyone love us." 


I was so bad at dealing with other peoples opinions about me, that I got incredibly depressed and nervous, even when it was just a comment about me somewhere on facebook or some other site. It was like a world was breaking apart and I just could not live with it. 

The thought of other people talking behind my back nearly killed me. I told myself that they would not do that because I just could not even stand the thought of it. But of course they did. I was weak and I did not realize it.

When I really understood that I had to deal with a social anxiety, I started adressing this issue. And now, I can prouldy say that I am going through life in a completely different manner. I used to care so much what people thought about my hobbies, thoughts, jokes, comments, behavior, appearance.

Of course even after years of working on this, you still sometimes feel awkward or are afraid of judgement. But today I present myself the way that I am. People love me, people hate me. But its my actual, authentic me. Its the person that I truely am, and the people that love me for it love me for who I am, not what I'm trying to fake.

I am most certainly not perfect. I have a really outgoing humour and that can be really annoying at times. But you know, if I think its funny, it is funny to me. And thats just who I am. If you dislike that, that is okay with me. But I am not willing to change my perspective on what I think is funny, because people disagree with my humour. I will continue laughing at the stupidest of things, make up the stupidest of names until the end of my days, because that is just me. You can laugh with me, or you can go a different route, it is up to you. I however, will not stop doing what I love doing.

All in all, a lot of overcoming this issue is self-acceptance and accepting the fact that its not that bad to be different. Its not that bad to be a lone-wolf for as long as you are just content with yourself. All you have to do is stop believing in that crap that everyone tells you to believe in.

Understand that in personal development, there can be some paradoxes like 'making peace with who you are and embracing your authentic-self' and at the same time 'we try to change and improve that very self'. However, dont forget that its not neccessarily a contradiction. Just because we adress weakness that motivates us to further work on ourselves, does not mean that we are not authentic or showing our real character. What you think is right to do, is right to do. What you think you are, in this very moment of your action, is who you are. We present our weak as well as our strong side, that is what truely makes it authentic.

How to actively take action. Stop caring what people think about you in 5 steps.


1. Understand the fact that thinking too much about peoples opinions does mainly one thing. Limit yourself. 

Do you really want to live another persons life? Do you really want to give up YOUR dreams and YOUR reality for other people? For that more people will accept you into their social environment? Do you want to be accepted so badly that you would fake your personality and hide your actual self?

My opinion is, if it is not absolutely neccessary for my survival, then fuck that. I will go my own path, feel free to come along or not.

2. Making peace with yourself

One of the most important steps to getting rid of social phobia and too much worry is to finally just accept that you are who you are. I actually started telling myself that I was 'awesome'. Every day, I would start to do so.

Why? Not because I'm trying to be a narcissist or I'm trying to show other people how amazing my life is. I do it because I know that I have a lot of weaknesses, but that I can still be awesome. That I just am like that and to embrace that is truely awesome.

I was hunted by all these self-manipulative thoughts of self-doubt that I was just too scared to take action. Scared to get out of my comfort zone. Too scared to even leave the house at times. A huge part of that was that I just did not embrace who I was. I tend to expect a lot of myself, sometimes too much.

But now, I understand that I dont have to be perfect. That I dont have to be good at everything, that making mistakes is just part of my life and that its totally okay. Mistakes will happen and I am receiving them with open arms, as I know that I will be able to learn something from them.

One of my biggest weaknesses is that I am sometimes just a bit weird in social situations. Sometimes I think too much and do something out of the ordinary. People would describe that as "awkward" and I would instantly feel the shock of anxiety flushing through my entire body. 

Now, I just accept that thats just who I am. I might not be the greatest at 'usual things'. I sometimes just mess up. When that happens nowadays, I often just walk away with a smile or laugh at myself. Because its amusing. And the upside is, it will probably not happen again.

3. Understanding that when you feel weird, its just your perception

I will talk about this more in-depth in another blog, but for now I want to quickly explain to you a concept that has helped me massively to deal with moments of anxiety and stress.

Basically, whenever there is something "weird" or "awkward" happening to you, tell yourself the following.

"Its only awkward if I think its awkward".

At first, this sounds like some stupid quote. But I want you, the next time you go out and do something weird to tell you this, over and over for a few times. "Its only awkard if I think its awkward" - and you will realize that suddenly the awkwardness just fades away.

Interestingly enough, most of the times, because YOUR perception about the given situation has changed, peoples perception has changed as well.

 So for example, the next time youre out with a cute girl and you say something really stupid, just accept it and stop caring so much about it. She won't even realize it was that awkward because you did not show that it was awkward for you. You sub-communicated that it was just completely 'normal' and not a big deal. Thats what matters. Suddenly, awkwardness fades away.

4. Reinforce your mind with powerful thoughts

At this point, I want to remind you again that it can help a great deal to just tell yourself what you want to believe. Basically, there is 3 things that I currently still tell myself or told myself so often, that I truely became to believe it and it became a part of me.

1." I am awesome, if people dont accept me for what I am, whatever, their loss."

2. "It is only awkward if I think its awkward."

3. "I dont care about the good or bad opinions of others, I am independent."

If you like, use those. Otherwise make your own version of them or create similar ones on top of it. Then, repeat them as often as you can on a daily basis. Sometimes, I repeated quote 3 for about 100 times a day, when things got bad. But it really helped me on my worst days to just push myself through the anxiety and now, its a part of me. It is so deeply ingrainded in my brain that it would be hard to get rid of again.

5. Embrace your real you

If you want to take it a step further, I recommend to not just accept who you are, but to actually embrace it. Live up to who you are to an almost extreme extend. Show the people what exactly your thoughts are, laugh about what is funny to you and truely just be that. If you learn to embrace yourself, you will learn the greatness and power that is in being authentic. You will develop true confidence and become very accepting and happy about who you are.

closing words


I hope that this blog-entry breaks some ground for you when it comes to dealing with peoples opinions. I recommend you to re-read those 5 steps over and over again and actually take action. Getting over these thinking-patterns that make you care so much about your position in society limits you in so many ways that it is a big part of why its hard to be happy with yourself.

If you like this blogentry, you should check out the other ones. I have written some stuff on managing time and work, getting over procrastination, understanding ego, getting started in personal development and more.

Feel free to comment and share to show your support or ask further questions and add critique!

Have a great day everyone,
Niklas.
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