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You’ll Never Stop Caring What Other People Think About You

But you can still live life on your terms

A sobering thought.

How many opportunities have you left on the table simply because you were too worried about what others thought?

Most people throw away their entire dreams, the life they actually want to live, simply because they are afraid to be embarrassed.

That is so tragic, sad, and unfortunate.

But it can be fixed.

You can fix it.

It Was a Nightmare Because He Forgot the Truth

Many people have a deep fear of public speaking. When you’re on stage in front of a bunch of people, all the focus is on you. You know, for a fact, that everyone is thinking about you. If you let the potential opinions of the crowd overwhelm you, it will paralyze you with fear.

This is what happened to a speaker at a TEDx event in my city a year before I went on stage to give my own talk. In the middle of the talk, he lost track of his train of thought. When you’re taught public speaking, they tell you to just keep going even if you don’t exactly remember where you’re at in the speech because the audience doesn’t know that.

Instead, he froze.

He went for 10 straight minutes without saying a single word.

It got so bad that the audience members had to start cheering him on to get him to finish the talk.

The speaker at the event last year should’ve come to a realization about a minute or so into being stuck.

You’re winning simply because you’re doing it, keep going.

Had he collected himself and just started to talk again, the speech would’ve come off like a brilliant comeback story.

In a world where people are afraid to put themselves out there, the simple act of doing it separates you from the pack.

Always remember that. No matter how much you stumble during these situations, ask yourself “Who else would have the guts to do this?”

A Different Frame to Use When Dealing With People

Some people will respond to you negatively. Some people don’t want what you have to offer and might be actively against it. You’re not everyone’s cup of tea and you just might fail to click with people for no apparent or obvious reason.

Not only is this okay, but you should want to reveal these negative responses as soon as possible.

A mentor of mine has a saying “sharp ends forward.” It means that you should amplify the edges of your personality. Why? Because instead of trying to get everyone’s approval, you’re seeking filtering people out who aren’t a good fit as soon as possible.

Think about it. Why would you want someone to like you who doesn’t like you? Think about how needy it is to hide your real personality so you can get the approval of people who wouldn’t like you if you were the real you.

You’re never going to stop worrying about what people think about you, but you can work on not worrying about what the wrong people think about you.

If you went through the world in an authentic way, engaging with as many people as possible, you’d quickly filter out the ones who weren’t a good fit and still would be left with a bunch of people who do value you.

Honor your own value. Even if you doubt yourself, deep down you know there are a lot of cool and interesting things about you.

Stop thinking about ‘rejection’ as something that speaks to your character and just realizes that there’s just some sort of mismatch there — different values, bad timing, or simply a situation that doesn’t click and doesn’t require an explanation.

Understand This…

You do get that nobody actually cares, right?

Think about how preoccupied you are with yourself. Maybe you’ve been in a situation where you saw someone else get embarrassed or rejected. How long does it take you to forget about it? A day, max?

How many times have you turned down a date, said no to a sales pitch, read an article you didn’t like or ran into someone who just wasn’t your cup of tea? Do you ever actually think about those situations again? Nope.

Even with the guy who bombed on stage at the TEDx talk. Sure, people talked about it around town, but it wasn’t like the guy had some scarlet letter and was destined to never have a positive experience. He could give a speech again to the same crowd. If he did well, that memory would stick with them — the comeback kid.

Any rejection you’ll ever experience is a tiny moment that passes in the wind, rarely to ever be thought about again.

Final Thought

I read a really good quote one time. It’s one I think about whenever I’m worried about what other people think.

“Your entire life is designed around avoiding EMBARRASSMENT You don’t want to LOOK like the little guy But you’d rather BE the little guy as long as you don’t have to feel the sting of rejection.”

How much of your life is designed around avoiding embarrassment? How many opportunities are you missing out on just because you don’t want to experience a fleeting physiological emotion of your heart sinking into your stomach for a bit?

That’s it? That’s what’s blocking you from a much better life? That’s what’s going to cause you to go to the grave with a bunch of unfulfilled dreams?

He goes on to say:

“And most Sad of all, you’d rather be miserable every day of the rest of your life as long as nobody else knows. Because that would be embarrassing. And for you embarrassment is worse than death. So you’ll go down quietly until oblivion takes you out for good.”