If you’re like, well, pretty much everyone, you want to be liked. This is natural. It probably dates back to the caveman days when people who weren’t liked weren’t given any of the bison meat and were secluded from the fire, or something.
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While it’s perfectly natural to want to be liked, going out of your way to get people to care for you isn’t appropriate. In truth, there are lots of reasons why, despite how it may feel, it really isn’t important what people think of you. The next time you’re feeling down – or certainly before you try to change yourself to fit into a mold that someone else has established – reflect upon these reasons and refocus on what’s really important: who you are at your core and how you feel about yourself.
1. They Don’t Really Know You
No one really knows you, but you; really. Nobody. Even your best friend in the world doesn’t REALLY know you. She knows the version of you that you allow her to see. If you’ve been besties for forever, she might know more than most, but she certainly doesn’t know what’s going on in your head from minute to minute.
Acquaintances, work colleagues and people you greet on the street certainly have no deep and meaningful understanding of who you are. These people know only what they can infer about you, and this need to infer leads to lots of misjudgments. If you’re a bit quiet and introspective, for example, they might perceive you as snotty or stuck-up. You can’t control these perceptions, and you certainly shouldn’t change yourself to try to impact them.
2. It Creates Unnecessary Anxiety
At the end of the day, you have enough to worry about. From trying to keep your job to stressing about whether you’ll remember to pay all of your bills on time, you’ve got a lot of important stuff occupying that awesome head of yours. You literally have no space for worries about what other people think.
Even if you only passively ponder what others think of you, doing so creates a seed of an idea. As you start to see signs that someone might not like you or might not think as highly of you as you had hoped, this seed will sprout and take up even more valuable real estate. Don’t let it. Pitch that seed. It’s not a magic bean. You seriously don’t need it.
3. It Will Stop You From Reaching For The Stars
To do something truly amazing, you need to take risks. If you’re worried about what others think of you, you’ll most likely be reticent to do this. Anything that stops you from truly putting yourself out there will be detrimental to your success.
When you decide what steps to take to improve your life, your only thoughts should be about yourself – and maybe the direct family members who truly depend on you. Worry about what Bobby from accounting will think if you go for that promotion he also has his eye on, or what your boss will think if you try to move up in the company and leave her behind, will only hinder your growth. You have to free yourself of this burden to truly be the most successful you can be.
4. True Confidence Has Nothing To Do With Others
All too many people let what others think control how confident they are. If they feel that people view them positively, they act with more confidence, taking charge and making the big moves that are necessary to truly shake up the world. Conversely, people who view themselves as inferior, or develop the feeling – true or not – that people don’t like them, will act with more trepidation.
In truth, whether people like you or not should have nothing to do with your confidence. True confidence comes from inside. True confidence is wearing that polka-dotted dress to your office full of black pencil skirt wearers not because you think others will like it, but because you don’t really care. Develop confidence, independent of other people, to truly build your self-worth.
5. Opinion Isn’t Truth
Everyone has opinions. Loads of them. They have opinions on everything, from what elements go well in a salad to which movie was the best ever. These opinions are, however, just that – opinions.
Someone’s opinion of you, whether positive or negative, isn’t necessarily a truth. People’s opinions are contingent on an array of factors, many of which you cannot control. Because an opinion isn’t a truth, it’s really not worth trying to control it anyway.
6. You’ll Fail To Be Yourself
The only way to influence how others view you is to marginalize who you really are. If you’re so worried about what other people think that you change what you do to appease them, you aren’t being your authentic self. You have but one life to live and such a short time in which to live it. Don’t waste the time you have not being the real you just because you think people will like the fake you better.
7. It Will Bum You Out
There is plenty to be upset about in the world. From human-caused tragedies to natural disasters, the news is littered with stories that will leave you feeling less than thrilled with the state of this world. With all of these sources of sadness already available, you don’t need to create any of your own.
Very rarely do people who spend time considering how others feel about them arrive at the conclusion that everyone thinks they’re awesome. More often than not, these people develop notions, true or not, of people perceiving them negatively. This is a natural buzz-kill. Don’t make yourself unnecessarily upset, particularly since what others think of you doesn’t matter anyway.
8. Negativity Breeds Negativity
If you’re preoccupied with potentially negative thoughts others have about you, this negativity will naturally color your interactions with others and views of the world. Whether people view you negatively, you just perceive them as doing so, and allowing this negativity to invade your psyche will have a negative impact on your thoughts and actions.
There is nothing you can do to change what someone thinks of you, even if they think negatively, so allowing this negativity to make you negative in turn makes no sense.
9. No One Has Got Time for That!
As Sweet Brown once said in a video that has long gone viral, “Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That!” This piece of homespun wisdom can aptly be applied to spending hours, minutes or even seconds worrying about what others think. Doing this requires the expenditure of mental energy. You have much more important things on which to apply this energy. Select carefully and focus your concerns on the things that will improve your life.
