In my twenties, I’d be very wary of new people, worrying hugely what they thought of me, both at work and socially. I’d tense up and hold myself back, scared to say the wrong thing, inadvertently upset them or come across as ‘too much’. I felt I had to be pleasing to others, I needed to appear perfect, easy-going and calm – which is more than a little challenging for someone who is undoubtedly imperfect and kind of a control freak.
I used to feel as though the real me only came out after several G& Ts drunk in quick succession, when I could let down my defences, or when I was with friends who knew me so well we were practically family. They’d seen me at my worst and still hung around so I figured there was less chance I could horrify them with my flaws, less chance of me being abandoned.
It’s true that a small amount of concern for the opinions of others can be helpful. If we gave absolutely zero fucks about other people, we might find it hard to fit in at work – and our friends might not hang around for long, either. But caring becomes a problem when it causes you to hold yourself back, not stand up for yourself and not ask for what you want and need.
The problem with filtering yourself is that when you filter out the ‘bad’ bits of your personality, you lose the ‘good’ too. When I’m concerned with what people think of me, I suppress my sense of humour, my quirks … my whole personality. The result? Dull. When you try to smooth your rough edges, you also dim your sparkle.
But even by holding yourself back until you’re a shadow of your true self, you can’t control the other person’s perception of you. Research suggests people make a first impression of you within a matter of milliseconds anyway.1 And for all you know, they might find the repressed you more annoying than the ‘too much’ you!
The fact is, you can’t control what people think of you. The more you try by contorting yourself, the less ‘you’ you become. And that’s a big waste of who you are. Ask yourself: Is being watered down ever a good thing?
So why do we worry so much what people think?
If we feel secure, loved and valuable within ourselves, what other people think matters less. We don’t need anyone else to tell us we’re good enough, and when others tell us they think we’re great, we believe them. We’re able to meet our own need for acceptance from within ourselves.
However, if we’re doubtful, unsure or insecure about ourselves, we’re more likely to seek approval from others or take criticisms to heart. And positive comments from others are less likely to stick.
The reason often goes back to experiences in our early life. How you were treated while growing up creates the blueprint for how you feel about yourself in your later life. It’s like an internal script that our subconscious uses as rules for life. But there is hope; it’s totally possible to change the script. Later on, I’ll walk you through the steps involved in changing the stories you tell yourself and shifting your beliefs to more positive ones.
First, it’s useful to know why we feel such a strong need to fit in. Regardless of anything that may have happened in your life, all human beings need to belong. Most of us felt this most strongly in our teenage years, when having the right trainers for PE class or being up to speed with the latest telly sensation was priority number one. I mean, it felt life-or-death important. But that’s because, for our ancestors, fitting in actually was.
Human beings evolved as social creatures; we thrived because of our ability to cooperate and work together in groups. For 99 per cent of the 200,000 years we’ve been on earth, we lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. If a prehistoric woman was rejected by her tribe, she’d be kicked out of the community, exposed to the elements and predators – and she wouldn’t have survived long. We are hard-wired to bond with the tribe. So our fear that people will reject us is a deep and primal one.
This is one reason why, for some, going on stage to give a talk, or getting into a confrontation with a colleague, can put you into full-blown fight-or-flight mode. You feel you’re at risk of rejection. And because, according to evolution, rejection is life or death, the stakes feel incredibly high. In modern times, fluffing a presentation or pissing off a workmate is hardly a death sentence – but it feels that way.
As worrying what people think of us is wired into us for our survival, know you’re not alone in this. And, in modern times, you can also know you’re safe no matter what people think of you. Knowing both those things, now you can begin to retrain your mindset to care less so you can be free to be yourself.
When you care too much about what other people think of you, you are taking on a lot of other people’s stuff. This guided meditation will help you begin to care less:
Close your eyes, take some deep breaths and imagine each part of your body relaxing in turn.
Imagine you’re carrying a heavy rucksack. In the rucksack are all the unhelpful stories you’ve taken on board in your life. Recognize how they’re all based on the past; you took on other people’s judgements, insecurities and stress. Imagine feeling the weight of that on your shoulders. But it’s all out of date and it doesn’t apply to you any more. Those old stories that were designed to keep you safe – playing small, bending yourself out of shape to try to fit in, rejecting yourself before anyone else has a chance to – they’re all out of date. The past is over now. It’s time for a new way of thinking, feeling and responding.
Allow the rucksack to slide off one shoulder and to the ground.
Feel a sense of relief, like a weight having been lifted off your back.
★ It’s impossible to control what other people think of you; so you may as well be yourself.
★ A desire to fit in is hard-wired into all of us.
★ When you filter out the ‘bad’ bits of your personality, you lose the ‘good’ too.