How to stop focusing on what others think of you
From the time you were a child you learnt to do as you were told and follow instructions. How your parents, role models and other children interacted with you taught you whether you were doing the right thing or not. But as you grew up into the teenage years and then adulthood you began forming your idea about how you want to live your life, you started fighting for what you felt you had the right to do but you still cared about what others think. In some way you are always going to care about what others think of you, but you can stop focusing on these opinions.
Living in alignment with who you are is the beginning of this. Define who you are, what is important to you and what you want out of life. Recognise that people aren’t necessarily going to understand why you live the way that you do but you don’t need anyone else to understand the journey except for yourself. People understand from their frame of reference. They also make comments about others based on their confidence level.
Be very intentional what opinions and advice from others you absorb. Ask yourself if the person is qualified to comment. For example, when someone who is arrogant comments on my confidence, I take it with a grain of salt because I know that they haven’t taken the action themselves. It is when someone who has done the work says something to you that hurts the most, because you know what they are saying is legitimate. In these cases, the advice is probably on point, and you need to take more time to think about what was said and come up with an action plan to tackle it.
Taking on criticism won’t make you feel comfortable, it will help you grow as a person. The secret is to start working on the actions so that you don’t get caught up in what he or she said to you. This brings focus to those opinions, takes you out of logic and into a highly emotional state where you stop doing the work. When you do the work on yourself and can confidently say that you are aware and are taking action you stop being so worried about the opinions of others. The more you practice this the better you will feel.
