8 Reasons to stop worrying about what others think

Are you concerned with what other people think about you?

I used to be really concerned about what others thought of me. It would affect everything from conversations, not taking action on things that were important to me, to not being authentic.

Part of me worrying about what others thought of me, was that I wanted to be liked by everyone and if I wasn't, I'd take it to heart. But trying to be liked by everyone made me a pale imitation of the 'Real' me.

What's the one thing in business that makes you stand out from the crowd more than anything else? It's being your authentic self, not being another generic vanilla clone that the world already has too much of.

Our natural state in uncertain times is to crave control and certainty. That's when we go into self-protection mode to not stand out from the crowd.

For most of human history, this was a great strategy to ensure you survived, by not standing out. But that time has gone, in fact, your survival in business may depend on you standing out from the crowd.

When you're running a business, like it or not, uncertainties are part and parcel of the landscape, as they are in life. A lot of the time, we'll fool ourselves that we have control over things we don't, to give us that feeling of certainty.

But this leads us to not reaching our full potential and playing small.

So what do you do, when you're concerned about what others are thinking of you? Accepting the basic premises below will go a long way to no longer being concerned about what others are thinking of you.

1. Accept that no matter how much you'd like to, there is no way that you can ever know what someone else is thinking.
2. Most people are so wrapped in thinking about themselves, that they don't have the time or bandwidth to think about you.
3. You can't change how another person thinks about you. Just like you may hold opinions and judgements about others, others may have those about you. It's part of being human.
4. Realise that when you're worried about what others may think. What you're doing is listening to your imagination, which is amazing at making up stories and you're believing the story you're making up.
5. You'll never be truly happy if you're trying to conform to what you think someone else wants you to be. It's hard work trying to 'BE' something or someone other than who you are. The easiest thing is to be yourself, that takes no effort at all, it's who you already are.
6. Truth Bomb! Not everyone is going to like you, just like you're not going to like everyone you come across. Being your authentic self will drive away those that don't 'Get You', but it will also attract those to you, that do 'Get You' and you get them.
7. When we're worried about what others think of us, it can be hard to say 'No' to things we really don't want to do. Remember though, you're not saying no to the person, you're saying no to the task.
8. Worrying about what others think of you, tends to hold us back in life, and we play small. It's time to let the world see the 'Real' you.

I hope you found those points useful? I'd love to hear what you think?

Can I ask a favour? I'm trying to grow my audience and serve as many people as possible. I'd love it if you'd share this newsletter with someone you think it may help.

Love Mike