WHO CARES WHAT THEY THINK?

 

Each year I go for a New Year’s Eve walk with one of my clients. It’s become a tradition of ours. Last year she asked me, ‘What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned in 2021?’. I told her, ‘I’ve learned not to worry about what other people think about me’.

It’s human nature to want others to like and respect us but it becomes a problem when we think about this too much. I’ve mentioned before how much I admire Denzel Washington and I heard him talking about this. He was saying that if he started thinking about others think of him, it would become a barrier to living his life. He wouldn’t have achieved such success if he let others affect him. I could relate to this.

I often found myself dwelling on what others might think of me. I would literally create problems in my head, wondering what others thought, doing their thinking for them. Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher wrote ‘Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner’. This quote rings true as it is so easy to get trapped inside your head.

Yet there have also been times in my career when people have said negative things about me and on these occasions I used to doubt myself. So there are two problems: one in my imagination that exists only in my own thoughts, and a real one in which I can only control how I perceive and react to it. Both of these things took up time and space in my head, energy I required to move myself and my business forward. There were things that wouldn’t get done because my thoughts were on others and not the task in hand.

I know I’m not alone in this – lots of people suffer with this. People from all walks of life and in different areas of their lives – career, friendships, relationships. Here’s some of the things which have helped me to stop caring:

Stay in your own lane

This is something I’ve heard a lot of since starting CrossFit. Watching the person next to you doing burpees faster than the speed of light is not going to make you go faster and you can guarantee they’re not judging your snails pace burpees. All they’re thinking about is getting through the workout. It’s the same in other areas of life too. One of the things I put into action now if I find my thoughts wandering is to focus on the task in hand whether that be setting programmes for clients or dealing with my daughter having a tantrum in the supermarket. Trust me, in this day and age when everybody is running around at 90 miles per hour trying to survive the rat race, nobody is watching. Even if people are judging my parenting in the supermarket, I guarantee they’ll have forgotten by the time they walk out of the door.

Look at the evidence

I used to worry a lot about whether I was providing a good service, if clients were enjoying their sessions, if they were happy with their results. These days I look at the evidence. I have clients who have been returning for years and I see differences in performance and progress pictures. One of my former clients would talk about imposter syndrome as she was studying then again when she got her dream job. She often thought she was winging it. But the evidence was, she won scholarships to pay for her place at university, she got her dream job and her feedback in that job is positive. You can never know what another person is thinking so look at the evidence in front of you. There’s probably proof there that you’re doing well.

If you’re unsure, ask

One of the things I used to do was worry about what clients thought about their sessions and progress. Now, I ask for feedback. We update goals regularly, ask how they feel and whether they want to change anything. By communicating we can work together to ensure I’m providing the best service possible.

As humans often do, I could only change this once I was aware of the impact it was having on my life. I listened to the Denzel speech multiple times before it sank in, and I figured out what I needed to do to change my thinking. Now I don’t listen to my head. People will make judgements or have negative opinions of me and unless it’s someone close to me with my best interests at heart, it’s none of my business. As the saying goes, ‘Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind’ (Bernard Baruch).