Other people’s opinions
“The Professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most,that which he would have done himself - if he had had the guts”
One of the most challenging aspects for me over the past six months has been overcoming fear. I have come to the realisation that fear is not something to be afraid of, fear is there to serve me, protect me and to know that by feeling the fear I am moving forward. Be that in the pace of a hare or a tortoise, moving is moving.
Many fears come up when setting up your own business, at least for me.
What if it doesn’t work?
What if I have to go back teaching in schools?
What if I can’t make the same money I made before?
What if I make a mistake?
The list really could go on, but for me the biggest fear is:
“What will other people think?”
We spend our lives from an early age seeking approval from others. Most probably the first people that we seek approval from is our parents (I don’t know that that ever goes away), then it is maybe our teachers, and of course validation is often sought in our friendships.
Starting out in school, nobody wants to be the child that is left out of the game. We want to fit in, we want to feel like we are fun to be around, we want to be liked. For many children and young adults growing up, the early years of schooling is where they first experience an awareness that not everyone is kind and not everyone is going to like them, no matter how hard they try.
For over twenty years in my career as a schoolteacher, watching children play there would always be some children that no matter how hard they tried, they were rejected. Often their neediness to please others would be so desperate, that even small children could sense this and whether conscious or not, would reject them. This was amplified even more over the last 14 years where I witnessed children, some with severe mental health issues, sabotaging every relationship and willingly destroying everything and everyone in their path. Conversely, some children by the mere fact that they are born with good looks and are considered attractive can potentially have a better time of maintaining friendships, even if they don’t possess a pleasurable personality.
What has all this got to do with people opinions of us?
People may well form opinions of us based on the family that we were born into (born into poverty/born into money). Their opinions of us might be because of how we look; empirically beautiful or considered unattractive, too fat or too thin. Judgements can be made on the way we speak, our level of education, our belief systems, the colour of our skin, our religion and so on. Therefore, it is impossible for the most part to try to create a world where everyone likes and approves of us, but we never seem to stop trying.
When starting out on my own in business, people’s opinions seemed to matter more than ever. I knew I was going to have to make new contacts and build networks but I never realised that one of the most crippling of fears would be about what others thought about me.
In building any business today, social media presence is necessary. Social media is all about getting noticed, video marketing, selling yourself and your skill set particularly in the life coaching/professional organising realm. I have only had a few bits of trolling on “the gram” but it was enough to make me want to delete my account and get that Aldi application in pronto. I know that I have not always been everyone’s cup of tea, no one can be EVERYONE’s flavor. My intentions for wanting to go into this career have always been to support other’s confidence and help them live their best lives, yet it seems you can attract slander for that.
It has been said that:
“You can be the ripest juiciest peach in the world and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches.”
We all go through life having had hundreds of experiences both good and bad and we are all unique and very different. If I stood in front of 20 people and talked with them all at the same time, each one of them would have heard the same words, have seen what I looked like in the same outfit, and all have made some judgement about me. Some might love me because I am a little quirky, others might like my sense of style or my hair, whereas for others they might have an association with my name, or the shoes I wear, or my accent, or the fact I remind them of someone they could not stand. They might hate all teachers, or think everyone from Wales has an intimate relationship with sheep!
But more importantly:
NONE OF IT WILL HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH ME.
Imagine how freeing it is to know that no matter what I do or say, there will always be people that love me or loathe me but it is their thoughts about me, which is their truth and nothing to do with me.
I cannot control what people think about me and my actions BUT I can control my thoughts around me. What other people think of me is really none of my business because it is never about me, it is always about them.
If they like me and I am one of their people, it might be because I said something they resonated with, I made them laugh, I remind them of themselves.
So whilst there are those of us opening up our hearts and minds on blogs or videos (which I find both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time) we have to expect that the more exposure we have prepares us for opinions of every sort to be shared with us and for potentially lots of criticism.
So what can you do when other people’s opinions about you affect you?
Know that it is never about you, it is always about them and their thoughts around you.
Criticism in and of itself is not painful it is when we take it on as a belief that we make it to mean something.
Be bold, be confident and if you have a well-intentioned message to give, know again that there will be those that will hear it, love it and resonate with it and those that strongly oppose
Just as you don’t like everyone, not everyone has to like you.
No amount of action is going to make some people change their opinion on you, let it go.
We need the freedom to allow people to be who they are and think what they think.
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With love and gratitude,
Siân
