How to Stop Caring What Others Think of You

Sometimes, we worry so much about what other people think of us. We deny ourselves the things that we love because we wonder what others will think of us.

We fail to chase our dreams because we are concerned about the approval of others. We fail to settle with the person that we love because we are too worried about what others will say about others.

Worrying so much about what others think of you denies you happiness. It means that you focus so much on trying to fit in that you don’t give yourself a chance to be authentic.

You want so much to conform to societal expectations that you don’t allow yourself to shine.

Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality. We often hold ourselves back because we are too worried about what others think of us. How can you stop caring about what others think of you?

Work on yourself

Be so busy working on yourself that you don’t notice others or worry about what they think of you. Work on improving your skills, work on making yourself better at what you do. Work on your self-improvement in all areas such as relationships, career, self-awareness among others.

If you focus your energy on yourself, you will pay little or no attention to what others are doing and this will give you great satisfaction.

Others are not as perfect as they appear

We care so much about what others think of us because we think that they are perfect and we are not. They seem to be living perfect lives, making great decisions and being in control of their lives. We think that they have it all together and that we don’t.

Others are not as perfect as they appear. No one is perfect, everyone is struggling in their own way, and we just don’t know it. Change your thinking about perfectionism.

Stop trying to be perfect and stop thinking that others are perfect. No one is. Embrace your flaws and don’t wear them on your sleeves that others can use them against you.

Change your mindset

Your mindset can be your cause of fear of judgment. You see, when you have a fixed mindset, you are often concerned that you need to prove yourself. A fixed mindset makes you think that you can’t afford to look bad in front of others.

It makes feedback and criticism feel like a personal attack. A fixed mindset makes you choose to avoid difficult situations because you don’t want to look bad when you fail. You feel the need to prove how smart you are.

On the other hand, a growth mindset makes you learn that you don’t need to prove yourself. You take failure as a challenge and a way to learn and you appreciate feedback as a way to learn and improve.

When you have a growth mindset, you will not worry so much about what others think of you because you embrace growing and don’t feel that you have to prove yourself.

Learn to accept criticism

Learning to accept criticism and not take it as a personal attack is an important life skill. When you learn to appreciate feedback, you won’t be defensive and start thinking the other person is criticizing you as a person, but critiquing your work.

Repetitive criticism can make you think that you are not capable or you are inadequate. It can make you get into a spiral of self-doubt. Accept that you have flaws and no one is perfect.

Further, not everyone that criticizes you is doing better than you are. In fact, most people that criticize you are not doing as well as you are. Trust me, those doing really well are too busy focusing on themselves to find time to criticize you.

Improve your self-worth

You worry so much about what others think of you when you have low self-worth and esteem. When you don’t think much about yourself, you think that everyone sees it and thinks the same.

Improving your self-worth and esteem gives you a better feeling about yourself. You believe that you are a valuable person and the opinion of others cannot put you down.

Work on building your self-worth so that you get the confidence to be yourself and have a stand even when others don’t approve of you.

Improve your self-confidence

High levels of self-consciousness come from lacking self-confidence. The lower your confidence is, the more self-conscious you are about yourself and what others think of you.

By boosting your self-confidence, you feel good about yourself and don’t allow the opinion of others to put you down. Do whatever it is that can give you confidence.

Improve your knowledge, appearance, relationships and realize that you will be too busy improving yourself to worry about the others’ opinions of you.

Gain self-awareness

Self-awareness leads to self-knowledge. Self-knowledge leads to self-acceptance. Self-acceptance leads to believing in yourself. When you improve your self-awareness, you understand yourself well, the strengths and weaknesses and accept yourself for who you are.

As a result, you believe in yourself and your abilities and understand your limitations. This level of self-knowledge means that no one can use your limitations to bring you down since you already know them and you are accepting of them. You stop caring so much about what others think about your limitations.

Stop overthinking

Overthinking will tell you that people are thinking about you all the time. Here is some newsflash!!! No one is thinking about you!! People may think about you in passing but they are too involved in their own lives to think about you all the time.

If you observe well, you will realize that no one is really paying that much attention to you. They are all worried about themselves. When you acknowledge this, you will realize that just as absorbed as you are with your thoughts, the same way others are absorbed in their thoughts and lives to give you that much attention.

Have some faith in yourself

Your self-doubt comes from not believing in yourself. When you don’t have faith in yourself, you feel as if you need a nod of approval from others before you take any step. You constantly think, ‘what if I do this and I am wrong? What will others think of me?’

You need to have some faith in yourself. Trust yourself more. Allow yourself to make independent decisions. If you make some decisions and you fail, take responsibility for your failure, learn your lesson and move on. Life is like that, you learn by doing and not by thinking.

If you are worried about what other people will think about the person you are dating, for example, quiet these thoughts down. Trust yourself and that you are a mature individual to make a good choice. Take responsibility for your actions.

Decide that your life is your own

When you choose to be an authentic individual, to live life on your terms and not on the terms of others, you gain total freedom. When you decide your life is your own, you realize that what others think of you does not really matter.

Other people don’t pay your bills, don’t determine your destiny but you do. Knowing this, you choose to focus on yourself. You acknowledge that you are a unique individual and you cannot be the same as others. Caring what they think about you is futile since they don’t have many roles to play in your life.

Remember that your life is your own. You are a unique individual and no one else is made the same way as you. This way, you cannot be like another person. Remembering that your life is your own helps you do what is good for you.

If you want to chase after a certain dream, but you are too concerned about the opinion of others, remember that at the end of the day, you will be left alone being disappointed in yourself. Only you can decide what happens in your life and you have to make that decision independently. You are responsible for your own decisions.

You are not in a competition

Remember that you are not in competition. You are not competing with others and therefore you need to focus on your side of the fence. When you view life as a competition, you will always see others that are doing better than you and feel the pressure to comfort.

Stop comparing yourself to others and stop seeing as if you need to compete with others. If you feel so, you will always expect to be judged. Competition is won through judging right?

When you compete, of course, you have to worry about what the judges think of you. Who are the judges in this competition in life? Everyone else! When you view life as a competition, you will always feel as if you are in constant judgment.

Surround yourself with the right people

Surround yourself with people that make you feel like you are being judged all the time. Build a support system of people that encourage you and support you instead of judging you.

The wrong kind of people can make you feel as if you have to behave in a certain way for them to accept you. The right kind of people, on the other hand, will accept you unconditionally.

Get rid of toxic friendships and people that always make you feel as if you have to measure up. Instead, build healthy relationships and surround yourself with people that support you and improve the quality of your life.

Relax, this gets better as you grow older

Caring what others think of you reduces with age. The older you get, the more you care less about others and focus on yourself. When you are young, especially late teens and early twenties, you are constantly worrying about others’ opinions of you. However, as you grow older, you care less.

First, you realize that no one is thinking about you that much. Secondly, you gain more confidence in yourself and don’t need the approval of others. Thirdly, your mind becomes occupied with other things, such as family, career, personal development that you spend less time worrying and more time working on your stuff.

You also have faith in yourself and your decisions and don’t feel the need to seek approval of others before you take action.