Do you ever worry about what people think? Well you are not alone! Most people do! But why? I have asked myself this for so many years! Starting clear back when we are young, we learn to try and manipulate how people feel. How do we do this? Well, if we do something good, that someone else wants us to, we are rewarded in some way. For instance, when a mom asks her child to make her bed and clean her room, and the child does an extra good job, often a mom will praise the child. Which then the child learns that if I do what my mom likes, I will get praise and she will be happy. And the other component is, that if mom says after we have cleaned our room, "you're amazing, thanks honey," then we believe something about ourselves. The same is true for when we don't do something right. Maybe a friend says, "You're such a dork! I hate when you say that!" Then what do we learn? One, that the friend doesn't like it when we say that, and we often take that to mean that if the friend said it, then I must be a dork! Well is that really true? Only if we believe it. But why does it matter if the friend thinks we are a dork? Because maybe deep down, we believe we are a dork and so the friend just confirms that to us. Do you see how oftentimes it's all really about how we think about ourselves?
Think about how you have formed your thoughts and opinions on everything on planet earth. So we are born, and we start to grow and develop. From our environment, family dynamic, religion, culture etc. we are taught to look at life a certain way. And so however we look at life, we look at others expecting them to live life the way we think. So often we judge other people for doing things that are different than how we were raised or what we believe is the "right" way to do things. So growing up trying to get praise from outside sources, reaffirms or or negates what we think about ourselves. But do you see how skewed that is? So I am trying to get praise from other people, who have their own way of looking at things, so I have permission to feel good about myself? That's crazy right? But we do it! And then if we add all the cultural things that tell us we should weigh this, study this, drive this, believe this, etc. No wonder we all walk around insecure in ourselves.
There is no way to please all people at all times. For instance, in the American culture, because some clothing designer grew up believing we need to be tall and skinny, she portrays this in the media, so we look at that and think, I need to be that way. But all it really is, is someone's opinion. But did you know in Tonga, they like their women fat? In fact the bigger you are in Tonga, the more respect you have. What???? Again, someone had the opinion that fat women are amazing, and then they starting advertising this and pretty soon everyone in Tonga is trying to get fatter! So there are probably women in Tonga who are sad because they are skinny! I think I want to move to Tonga!
But do you see the pressure we put on ourselves trying to behave, or look, or act, a certain way, based upon someone else's opinion? What would happen if we just loved ourselves as we are and didn't care about other peoples opinions? Wouldn't that be nice? Well we can! We can choose to think good things about ourselves, and that could be looking inside to who we really are instead of looking to outside things to determine our worth. We are all 100% human and worthy. We don't need other people to tell us that, if we already believe it. So who cares what other people think? Lets be the best that we can be and work to improve upon ourselves because we want to - not because we think it will please someone! Want to join me?
If you're always worried about pleasing other people, come talk to me through a free no obligation mini session. Sign up on my website Directyourlifecoaching.com. You'll be so glad you did!!