How to care less about what people think of you
If you’ve ever held back from going for a role, speaking up or putting yourself forward for something because you’re worried about what people might think, you're normal.
Belonging is one of our core human needs, so we’re hard wired to care about what other people think of us. This means we can expect balancing the need to feel we fit in with being true to ourselves to cause some tension.
But if you know that other’s opinions are stopping you from achieving what you’re capable of, the good news is that there are ways to move past this, ground yourself in what is true and take back control of how you feel.
Here’s five questions you can explore to get started:
Define your values - what’s important to you?
I think of values as something solid you can plant your feet on.
When you know what yours are, you can stand and say ’this is me and the things I care about’ - and it’s ok if people have a different view.
For me, freedom, creativity, authenticity, bravery and love are all pretty high on the list. When I wobble, a check against this list will often show me what’s off.
But what most people don’t realise is that your values evolve with you. So if you’ve not checked in on yours recently, reassessing what matters most to you right now will likely give you clarity and certainty for your next step.
2. Discover your strengths - where do you shine?
Getting clear on your strengths means you can work with them - not against them.
You can define your value, rather than letting someone else’s view of your value or contribution or even what you feel you should be as a leader be in control.
One of my favourite tools is Gallups StrengthFinder. This particular assessment has 34 strengths themes and the chances of you having the same top five and order as someone else is 1 in 33 million. Talk about people being unique! As an example, my top five strengths are:
Strategic - this means I can see patterns easily and ‘a way through’ where others can’t. It enables me to help people define their value and purpose. But it’s also about thinking differently which is why I’m well placed to support people with mindset work and becoming thought-leaders who challenge perspectives in their field
Activator - I make things happen. As a coach, this is about supporting and energising you to do the same and take action in your life, work and business in a way that’s right for you
Communicator - this is where you can see my messaging skills fit in. I support clients to position themselves, captivate audiences and present effectively through storytelling
Futuristic - this strength is about being able to look ahead and help others to do the same, which is why I tend to work in the vision and purpose space.
Relator - this strength is about how I like to work with people. I enjoy deep relationships which is why I love to work 1:1 work as coach.
When you are clear about your strengths, you can focus on dialling them up and owning them.
3. Question your thoughts - what is true?
Your brain has a negativity bias because it wants to keep you safe. So it turns out, the things you think are not always factly true. They are just thoughts.
Because of this biased, you can easily think that things are worse than they are - especially if you feel threatened (or judged) by someone. So here the work is to start to unpick what is true.
Want to try it out?
Try spending even just an hour questioning the things you think. Write down what comes into your brain - perhaps in relation to what you think people think of you. Ask yourself, is this true? What else could be true? See what comes up for you.
4. Choose your tolerance - what do you want to feel?
In the words of Brené Brown, guilt is about what we’ve done, shame is about who we are.
But you can choose to tolerate, or move past, shame through self-compassion. It sounds soft - but it’s hard to master. And can be the root of stress.
I saw this in action with a client the other day. At the start of a coaching session she was feeling massively stressed about an upcoming assessment.
‘When I think about it, I feel like I can’t breathe’, she told me.
Together we unpicked what was happening. The root of it was that she needed to forgive herself for an earlier ‘perceived’ failure she felt embarrassed about. This awareness led to her being able reframe how she wanted to feel about the upcoming assessment and she left the session feeling relieved and in control.
5. Judge less, see more - what do you want to change?
People don’t care about you as much as you think they do. Often, if people have an opinion about you, it’s rooted in their issue.
Let me give you an example. Someone says ’they look/sound like a [insert what you don’t want people to say about you here]'
Do you know why they care or have commented? It’s often because they don’t want to look/sound like that. They are judging based on their values. But are those values what you really care about?
Next time you catch yourself judging someone else (we all do it sometimes), try asking yourself ‘what is this telling me about how I want to be perceived?’
This awareness around what you want people to think about you will help you to see new ways to shape how you show up and where to focus on building your confidence next.
Helping you to care less about what people think of you is just one part of the work I do with clients in my StoryMasters Leadership Coaching programme. If you’d like to explore more about how StoryMasters can help you to become a more confident and credible leader check out the details here or get in touch for a chat.