Other People’s Opinions

Show up as yourself without making everyone’s approval your job.

By Brooke Hicks · The Life Coach School

How much of your life is organized around what other people might think?

You consider the business you want to start, the thing you want to say, or the work you want to share. Then you imagine the reactions and adjust yourself before anyone has even responded.

Trying to manage every opinion is exhausting. It also asks you to control something that belongs in another person’s mind.

You are not in charge of their preferences

Different people can meet the same person and have completely different responses. Their histories, preferences, and interpretations are different.

If someone doesn’t prefer your personality or your work, that is information about their opinion. It is not a universal verdict on your worth.

Notice how quickly you turn someone’s preference into an identity. One person doesn’t like you, and suddenly you decide you’re unlikable.

That leap is a thought. You can examine it.

Approval of a performance can feel lonely

When you act like the person you think someone wants, they may like the performance. But you still haven’t given them a chance to know you.

You also have to keep maintaining the version of yourself you created for their approval.

Showing up honestly means accepting that some people will like what they see and others won’t. It gives the people who appreciate you a chance to connect with the actual you.

This isn’t permission to be careless or unkind. You still get to choose your behavior and take responsibility for it. You simply stop making universal approval the measure of whether you’re allowed to be yourself.

Criticism is part of putting work into the world

When you publish, teach, or create something, people can have opinions about it. Some will disagree. Some won’t find it useful.

If avoiding criticism is your highest priority, you may keep your most meaningful work hidden.

Ask what criticism means to you. Do you believe it proves that you shouldn’t have tried? Do you make one response outweigh every reason you wanted to create the work?

Thoughts create feelings, feelings drive actions, and actions create results. An interpretation that creates shame may lead you to hide. A more considered interpretation may let you learn and continue.

Take useful feedback without surrendering your worth

You can listen to criticism and look for something helpful. You may discover a clearer way to explain an idea or a mistake you want to correct.

You can also decide that a particular opinion doesn’t fit your purpose. Neither choice requires fighting the person who offered it.

Practice receiving praise with the same awareness. Enjoy it without making your next action depend on getting more of it.

When approval becomes something you must keep earning, even compliments can become a form of pressure.

Choose how you want to show up

Identify one action you’ve been avoiding because of imagined judgment. Write down what you predict people will think and what you would make that mean.

Then decide how you want to behave based on your values. What would you create, say, or try if you were willing to let another person have a different opinion?

You don’t have to become indifferent to everyone. You can care about people, consider their feedback, and still remain responsible for your own choices.

Give yourself permission to be known. Give other people room to decide what they think.