Do you live your life trying to control what other people think of you?
Here is the good news, you cannot control other people's opinion about you. How freeing that is, right? Trying to control anything that you don’t have control of is exhausting for the most part and completely unnecessary.
You tend to people please by trying to look good all the time or you try to always have good manners and be appropriate all the time. When your kids behave in front of other people, or you do really well at something, you think you're controlling people's opinion. But I promise you that you are not.
People choose their opinion based on what their brain tells them. My favorite quote is “you can be the juiciest peach on the tree but there is always going to be someone that doesn't like peaches.” That, in and of itself, says it all. I would also like to point out that there are things that happen where a person may make it mean something totally different than what another person may intend. You can’t control everything, but the one thing that you can control is your thought about a particular situation. You can’t go out and do your work in the world, or be the person you want to be or create a personality that you would like to have if you are afraid of what a few people might think. You become afraid of a few people's opinions which means you won’t go all out and create what you genuinely want to create in the world for yourself or for others. Most people don’t put themselves out there because they are afraid of what people will think about them. They're afraid of what their mom will think, they're afraid of what their friends will think, they're afraid of what their ex-boyfriend will think…I’m tired just thinking about all that!
Here is a perfect example of a conversation between Brooke Castillo and her client, that explains how powerful opinions can be. “I was coaching a woman one time who kept talking about how much she loved her husband, how great he was, and how terrible she was and all her own self-doubt. And I said to her, "Why are you so worried about what everyone thinks of you?" She goes, "I want everyone to like me." And I said, "But what if somebody told you that they didn't like your husband?" She goes, "Well, they're an idiot." I said, "Oh, really?" She goes, "They don't know what they're talking about if they don't like my husband. My husband's amazing." I said, "Yes. Now, you really love your husband and you really believe he's amazing, so other people's opinions don't matter about him. When you can feel that way about yourself, other people's opinion won't matter to you." That my friends, sums it all up and you then will have freedom.
I want you to ask yourself these question: what is your opinion of you? And how strongly are you willing to commit to it? And are you willing to have your own back when someone else is wrong about you? It's like me saying being a professional football player isn't hard. Who cares that I think that? Certainly not a professional football player. It's not relevant to them. They're not going to be like, "I want to do something where Karen thinks I'm cool, so I better give up on football." But how many of us live that way? We are all struggling with not moving forward in our life because we are afraid what other people might think about us. Always remember, other people's opinions are none of your business.
So, don't stop being a peach because you're afraid there's someone that doesn't like peaches.