Stop Caring About What Others Think Of You

If you have ever experienced the anxiety of wondering what other people are thinking about you or even saying about you after you left a room, boy do I understand where you are coming from. This anxiety has kept me up many of nights and has caused me not to post some content here on YouTube because I wonder, if I post this video, what will people say? What will people think? But I've recently been making some changes to really work on this anxiety. And I want to share with you some of the things that I've done to stop stop caring so much about what other people think. So maybe these things can help you too. Hey, welcome back. If you are new here, my name is Trena and today we're talking about how to finally stop caring so much about what other people think of you. Psychology Today actually states that to feel accepted is a nearly universal human desire. So you aren't alone when you feel this way. Your need to control what other people think about you is normal. This control can come in a couple ways that I've noticed in my life can come as people pleasing. So maybe you get a client and you're really happy to be working with that client, and then that client asks you to do something that's not necessarily in the client contract or the scope of your work, but you want her to like you, so you do it anyways. And then she adds something else on. And again, it's not necessarily what you're paid for and it actually costs more for you to do that, but you want her to like you, so. So you do it anyways. Have you been there? Or maybe you're overanalyzing that conversation you had with somebody on that virtual coffee date or that you met at that last conference you were at. You find yourself up all night going over and over and over that conversation for any little teeny tiny nuance that says you did something wrong or you said something wrong. Did you talk too much? Did they like you? Did they like what you were saying? Will they just tell people to avoid you because you're a total weirdo to talk to? I felt that too. Or maybe it's that anxiety to post here on YouTube where maybe there's content you want to create or a video you want to post, but the anxiety of posting a video here on YouTube and your family or your friends finding out has you too afraid to even post a video. Yeah, me too. Look, I may look confident here on camera, but here's a secret. There's nobody else in this room. I'm talking to you on the other Side of the camera, I'm talking to one person. True story. I was at a conference a few weeks ago and I had a friend actually list out a bunch of icebreakers for me to use to go talk to people. I was gonna totally skip the welcome party because I was overwhelmed walking into a room with lots of people. What do I say? Am I gonna say something weird? Are they gonna expect someone different than who they see on YouTube? What if they don't like me? What are they gonna say to their friends after they met me? And were they disappointed when they met me? Because, yeah, I have those same feelings. So I'm going to share with you these things that I've been working on to help calm that anxiety just a little bit. The first thing I had to do is I had to address what I was actually thinking. Look, as humans, we always tend to lead towards negative thoughts. It's just human nature. And that way of negative thinking can easily affect the mood that we're in. And more importantly, it can cause us to kind of snap, snowball into this negativity of thinking and feeling till you eventually assume the worst about everything. And then you're only paying attention to the bad, you're only looking at the negative, and you come to a point where you're totally forgetting to look at the good in a situation. So the one thing that I've been doing to combat this way of thinking is journaling a little bit more. Now, as a mom, I don't have a whole heck of a lot to journal, but I've used Emily Leigh's journal recently to just start thinking more positive, having more gratitude, changing the basic way I'm thinking about things on a day to day basis. Really being able to address those negative thoughts first thing in the morning has definitely affected the way I then think throughout the day. So I'm able to get all those negative thoughts down at the beginning and start to shift them and relook at those thoughts in a more positive nature. Because the first step is we really need to address the negative thinking that consumes us. So I was doing a lot of negative thinking when I was going through postpartum a year and a half ago. I wasn't negative thinking about my family. It was more on my business that my business wasn't successful enough. I wasn't good enough to be successful. The work I was doing for my clients wasn't good enough. My YouTube content wasn't good enough. And it continued to sort of snowball where I was creating content. I wasn't happy About I was just doing the motions and I wasn't creating good content that I was proud of because I just had this negative thinking that people weren't going to like me anyways. I'm just going to put this content up just because I need to. Another check on my to do list. So once I really started addressing the way that I was thinking, I was then able to shift my thoughts into, wow, my content is able to help one person. Wow. My client actually said I reached this amount of people on her channel. And so being able to think about the positive instead of the constant negative allowed me to really stop caring what other people were thinking. Because if I was positive about the things I was doing, that's what mattered most to me. And listen, I don't completely have this under control. I still have negative thinking. It's not rainbows and unicorns over here all the time. I still go through this process. But the key for me has been to stop when I have that negative thought, address it, maybe write it down, look at it and think, how can I change this into a positive? I got this negative comment. Okay, well, is there anything constructive out of it? What about where's this person stand at in their life? Maybe they're not happy. What could I do to change the way I think about that negative comment? See how just rethinking about something negative could totally shift your mood. The next thing I did was major and it's just reach out to people. Being in this online world is, for one, lonely, and not having somebody to talk about it can be tough. I mean, I have my husband here every single day, but he doesn't understand the way of an online life. Whether it's posting YouTube videos, showing up on Instagram, those things. He just doesn't get it because he goes to an office every single day. Also, if you're sitting here in your office alone from like 6am to 5pm Like I am, it is so easy for your brain just to run with what people are thinking about you when you post that Instagram, what people are going to write on that YouTube video when you upload it. So. So having somebody to reach out to, when you start to have that brain going into a negative spiral that they can say, stop. That video was great. Here's what I thought of it. Go post on it. Go like it. Having those people that you can reach is game changer to really start shifting about caring what other people think of you. A situation that I had a few months ago is I had heard that somebody was talking about me at a conference and obviously being here by myself, my head can start to spin spiral. What that person said, could it affect my business? Could affect my credibility and spiraling. So by having somebody that I could reach out to, I instantly sent her a text and said, hey, can we jump on FaceTime real quick? I need to talk to you about something. Having her to talk to and say, look, what's the worst that can happen? Where are we at with this? What effect could this have on you? Allow me to pull back that negative spiral and realize it's not that big of a deal. That person has more problems than I need to address. I need to focus on my clients, my students, my audience and put my time and effort on those people and stop key caring what other people are thinking of me. Sometimes we also just need a gut check to remember that people don't care about us as much as we actually think they do. We tend to be self involved people. So while you're being self involved, that person's probably being self involved and does not even have you on their radar. But. But because we are so self involved, we think they do, but in reality they probably don't. The next thing I've been doing is really focus where it counts. You really need to realize that spending all this time worrying and having all this anxiety about what other people are thinking of you is actually holding you back from being amazing. While you are up all night going through that 222nd case scenario, you could be getting a good night's sleep, getting up, exercising and crushing that next day. Instead of waking up tired, exhausted and still in a negative spiral. Instead of worrying about what people are going to say when you post that video or you post that selfie, think about that person that you are going to help. That's really what I'm doing right here by sharing this video with you. I mean, I'm no expert on this and I'm really getting a bit anxiety thinking about having to post this, but I'm thinking about you and how this will help you start showing up in your business and how it will allow you to finally stop caring about what people are thinking about you so you can put your focus into things that are going to change your life. This is also something that I do when I go on stage to speak. I get butterflies and I get super nervous before I go up on a stage to speak. Even though I'm showing up here and I look confident again, it is still scary to speak in front of even 10 people. But then I start Telling myself certain statements that help me build the courage to get up there. Like my message is really amazing. What I'm going to teach them today is going to change their business. What I have to share with them is going to help them in their day to day life. Those are the statements that I tell myself so I stop worrying about what are they going to think about me standing on stage so I can really focus in on the message that I'm going to share. This next one is a good one and something that I always revert back to when I get nervous about posting something on social media. And it's accept that you aren't going to be everybody's cup of tea. You aren't gonna please everybody. You aren't meant to be for everybody, right? And there's nothing that you can do about it. It's so cliche to say, but it's better to be loved by a few people you care about than liked by everyone. This can really hit hard here on YouTube because showing up on video is really your most vulnerable state and you're putting this out for the world to see. And I totally get it. When I got started on YouTube I was so afraid to post that video because, well, where people I work with had to say I what were friends going to say from college, from high school, what was my family going to say? But then I realized the friends and the family were going to support me because if it was something that I cared about, they also cared about. And the people that have the time to write negative things on your videos, we got to think about where are they sitting at right now? Are they sitting in their parents basement because they have no job and the only thing that they have to do in their life is to sit here and troll YouTube and write negative comments? Do we really care about what that person thinks about us? And what's made them get to the point where they're trolling YouTube videos? Maybe they've had some kind of situation that's made them a negative individual. But that doesn't mean we need to think less of ourselves and that we should even care about that comment. You can by all means go ahead and delete that comment and totally forgot it existed. Because there will be people out there, no matter where you are, business and in life, that are going to be trolls. But what makes us different is brushing it off and not letting it affect the good and the amazing things that we can do with our voice and our message. Side note, I actually love when people write troll comments on like a Facebook ad or a YouTube video. Because when I write them back, nine times out of 10, they don't even respond because they already know they suck at life. I mean. But just understand, there are always going to be people who will judge you. Even if you were absolutely perfect, people will still judge you for being perfect. That's on them and not at all on you. You really need to realize that you are awesome. And you shouldn't let the way other people think about you affect the journey that you are on. And remember, the people that you do love, they're right beside you, cheering you on. They're not going to be judging you at all. And this next one is really important. And it's that life is too short. And I know that's cliche as well, but life is short. Sometimes it's really hard to accept that and realize it until something tragic smacks you up alongside of the face. But we only have one life to live. And it goes by so stinking fast. It's gonna be almost five years since I quit my job, and I can't believe it's been that amount of time. If it feels like just yesterday, and you need to remember, it is your life, you get to pick what you want to do, and you get to care about the people you want to care about. You get to live how you want to live. Look, I hate cleaning. So right now, my bathroom in my bedroom is full of dirty clothes, and I don't make my bed every single morning. But guess what? That is my life. And that's how I get to live as long as my husband's okay with it. You may judge me for not cleaning up my clothes and making my bed, but guess what? That's how I like to live. And I don't have a perfect morning routine. Even though I have tried and tried to follow the perfect morning routine format, it's just not for me. And that's okay. I get to choose that. And so do you. So I want you to focus on what's important to you. Focus on your goals. And let's stop worrying about what trolls and other people have to say about our goals. Because our goals is what's allowing us to lead our best life. And that's all that really matters when it comes down to it. So when you're standing outside of a conference or you're hovering over that publish button for YouTube, think about this. If I walk into this conference, if I publish this video, how far is that going to take me to my next goal? What is this next step? Going to help me accomplish. Remember, your biggest fans are going to be cheering you on. They're going to be sending you those little texts to help you have an icebreaker for people at a conference. They're there for you. One of my favorite people to watch here on YouTube is Amy Landino, and she did a video similar to this, and she has a whole different perspective on this that I really think you should watch. So click the video that's on your screen right now to watch Amy's video on how to stop caring what other people think. Let her know I sent you.