TTM #25 OPINIONS
You are listening to me talking to myself. Welcome to the podcast, where I share useful tools to create more space, more freedom, inner peace, connection, and life on purpose.
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We spend so much time in our life trying to control other people's opinions about us. What will they think of me? Will they like what I'm wearing? Did I say that right? Should I try that? What will people think if I do that? People twist themselves into a life that they don't even want because of their idea of what other people will think. So much of what we do is because we try to control other people's opinions. We can't control other people's minds. We think we can control whether people like us or don't like us, or think we are cool or smart, or successful. Many of us spent a lot of time pretending and lying to people because we want them to have a certain opinion of us. But even if we do all of that, we still can't control their opinion of us. So that's just good to know and remember.
When you're going through your life, taking action or not taking action to control someone else's opinion, you're only controlling your thoughts about their opinion. You never really know what someone is thinking. They can tell you what they might think, but you don't really know what they are really thinking. The truth is, it is none of your business. It is none of your business, what other people think is based on other people. People always get to choose what they want to believe about us and what they believe is a reflection of who they are not who we are. If you were the one controlling the opinion of how everybody thought about you, everybody would have the same exact opinion, but they don't, right? Because people's opinion of you is based on them. You might remind them of someone they know, they like, they dislike, they shared experiences with, they might have preferences for colours and shapes as all people do. You don't know why people like you and you don’t know why people don't like you. We also do not know everything that has happened in their life and shaped their worldview. When we try and act in a way to be certain way, so someone will like us, what happens is, we do not show up as ourselves. We show up as some version of ourselves that's trying to please other people. If you show up as a version of yourself, that you think someone will like, you're acting in a way that you think would be pleasing to them. They don't even get to know the real you. They like this version of you that isn't even you, that does not exist. Would you rather have someone dislike you for who you are, or like you for who you are not?
What if you decide to show up as yourself? Be loud, saying what's on your mind, having opinions, dressing a certain way. Showing up as you, telling the truth without hiding the parts of you you don't like, without pretending to be someone you are not. You can be the most beautiful and sweetest apple in the world, and there will be people who don't like apples. It has nothing to do with the apple. There will always be people who like us and people who don't. And your people will like you for you being you and the rest of the people are not your people.
It's not your job to be likable. Your job is to be you. People have preferences and opinions that have nothing to do with you. Give people permission not to like you. You are not the one that decides whether someone likes you or not. It is not up to you. It is up to them and their experience and their life. Their thoughts and their preferences. If someone does not like you, they miss out on the opportunity to feel a positive emotion.
Give people permission to judge you. Be entertained by it because most people don't even really know you and understand what you do and who you are and have an opinion and a story about it. And that's okay. Enjoy their perception of you. give people permission to judge you, give people permission to have that opinion of you. Give people permission not to like you and notice the peace that it will create within you.
The reason why we don't want people not to like us is because of what we make it mean. What does it mean when someone doesn't like you?
What we attempt to make it mean is that there is something wrong about us. Whether someone likes you or not has nothing to do with you. You can't control and you will exhaust yourself trying to. You can just relax and be the best apple you can be, show up the best way you can, knowing that some people will not like it. And that's okay.
One of the things that are scary for most of us is criticism. We can be okay with people preferring someone else but we don't want them to criticise us. We don't want to put ourselves in a position where they are going to hurt us. Here's the truth. When we are putting ourselves out there and creating content and putting out our ideas, we are putting out material to be criticised. That's just the way it is. That's what we are signing up for. You put out a YouTube video, you put out a podcast, you put out a product you designed, a programme you created, a book you wrote and people will and are allowed to not like it. What is it about criticism that is so upsetting for some of us? What is criticism? It is basically somebody having an opinion of you. Somebody who has never met you, has never read your book, has never listened to your podcast might have an opinion on it, which might not be positive. And those are mostly people who don't put anything out there. And are not in the arena getting their ass kicked to. You cannot please everybody. People are going to not like the things you do. If you can be with criticism, if you can be with people not liking you, if you can allow it and give permission for all of it, this is freedom. You don't need to fight it. You don't need to prove anything to anyone. And if you don't, your life will be so much bigger. You will be willing to show up even bigger because you will not be afraid of experiencing a negative emotion from being criticised. Be willing to put yourself out there enough, so people do have an opinion of you.
People that are the most successful have a lot of people not liking them and agreeing with them and critisizing them. The more you do and create, the more
people will dislike you. The more people know about you, the more you stand for something, the more people who dislike you you are going to have. But also the more people, the more of YOUR people you will attract and who will like you.
You will attract to your people. If you show up as yourself, it will become more clear who are your people and who are not. Criticism is not painful. It's just an opinion. It's just a sentence. It is painful when somebody criticises us and we believe it and we make it mean something about ourselves. If someone makes a criticism towards you, and it is something that you know is not true for yourself, then you don't take it personally It is when someone criticises you and there is part of you that believes it, this is where it gets uncomfortable. If someone criticises you, and you make their opinion mean something about you that's when it is upsetting and frustrating. That's when you start hiding and getting away from that criticism because you don't want to expose yourself to that. The reason you don't want to expose yourself to it is because of what you are making it mean, not because it is true. You are the one causing all your pain, not the people that are criticising you. They are just offering their opinion which might not even be intentional criticism. Allow people to criticise you and allow them to have opinions of you and allow them to judge you and not make it mean something about you and not make it mean to stop what you're doing or the way you're showing up.
Criticism is not an invitation to hide. It's not the criticism we are afraid of, it's our interpretation of it. People are paying attention. People are taking the time to write something about you. This is an indicator that you are standing for something, that means that you are showing up. You have an opinion, put yourself out there to get criticised, it will make you stronger to show up even bigger, to practice being with rejection, being with and processing negative emotions. It is also not an invitation to fight back and attack people who don't like or agree with you. It is okay for someone to have an opinion of you based on their life, based on their experience, based on what they know about you. A lot of people that criticise you don't even know you. They just know a piece of you. And that's okay. Let people be wrong about you. It is not worth your anger and frustration and your energy you could invest in what you actually want to create more of in the world. Allow people to be who they are and sometimes people are critical and negative. And can you hold space for that? That's a really important question to ask yourself.
The opposite of criticism is approval. Many of us show up for approval. It is not always a negative thing to be motivated by approval. It becomes negative when we don't get the approval and we change the way we show up or the things we create. And so often we don't get the approval because people aren't paying attention. They're doing their own thing and creating their own projects. Often, they're not paying close enough attention to us to give us approval, so we become upset by the lack of it. The likes, the comments, the views. If you're not getting applause, if you're not getting approval, you don't want to show up. Can we show up how we want to show up regardless of how many likes we get? Are you willing to live your life in a way where you're not seeking that approval? The only approval that you really want is your own. Figure out what would it take to get your own approval because that is the only approval you can always provide for yourself. So you can keep taking action. It does not keep you from showing up as the best version of yourself, because if you're only going to do things where you can get approval, you will be doing a lot of things you don't even want to do, only to get approval from somebody else.
The reason you want people to like you is because you make that mean something about yourself. The truth is you can make it mean something about yourself even without them liking you. For example, if somebody likes you and you think, ‘Oh, I must be great. I must be doing it right.’ You can think those things even without people saying that.
Think about what would it take to get your own approval. What would you be proud of yourself for doing, what do you approve of in your own life? If you have your own approval, and you can also make space in your life for other people not to like you, that's when the magic can happen. That's how you evolve into the best version of yourself by actually owning that you are the only one that needs to give yourself approval. That is not someone else's job.
It is not someone else's job to like you. You don't need to negotiate with them over what they like or don't like. It also does not mean that you walk around being rude and disrespectful and mean to others, because you don't care what they think. It usually happens when you're afraid of other people's opinions and you project your insecurities by attacking other people. You start acting like that when you're trying to manipulate people and control their opinion of you. When you get frustrated that they don't act the way you want them.
Show up as the version of yourself you want to show up, allow other people to judge you and allow other people not to like you. Accepting other people's opinions requires courage to continue to be yourself, to continue to show up with confidence when it comes to being who you are. people's opinions of you are not about you. Have compassion and understanding and see where people are coming from. And maybe use that criticism and apply it as really good constructive feedback. Let other people be who they are. Let other people change their mind about you. Let them have their opinion about you. And this is freedom.
What is your opinion of you? And how strongly are you willing to commit to it? What do you believe about you? What do you want to believe about you? And are you willing to have your own back when someone else is wrong about you? decide how you want to show up. Live your life where your opinion of you impresses you, and only you.
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