Throughout my life, I’ve had a tendency to worry too much about people’s opinions. Growing up, my thoughts circulated around likeability, but as an adult, it’s more about my perceived value. How good I am at what I do—being a wife, a parent, a friend, or an employee.
I tend to rely too much on the feedback I hear about myself for validation. Words of affirmation is undeniably my love sign but I don’t like having to depend on it to feel good about myself. But, I heard something recently that helped me re-frame my thoughts.
“Will someone’s opinion of you directly impact your life?”
Not my day or my mood, but my life. Will the result of this person’s opinion change how I live my life?
That was really powerful for me and helped me mentally put situations into two buckets.
Bucket 1: I don’t like this and it’s unpleasant, but I’m going to be okay.
Bucket 2: Well crap…
I realized that the things I was worrying about belonged in Bucket 1. After my thoughts simmered in Bucket 1 for day or so, I could release them back into the wild.
It’s a balancing act of determining what opinions matter and which ones are just noise.
I work in an industry in which there are a lot of people to please and a lot of opinions that can be formed. At times, balancing them all ate away at me. But, I’ve learned that I cannot please everyone, no matter how hard I try. I know which opinions truly matter and where I should be focusing my energy.
A piece of advice that I got from someone wise was to tell yourself 5 Truths before you get out of bed in the morning. Basically giving yourself words of affirmation.
“I am a good mother. I am a good employee. I will be successful today.”
We cannot control everything in life, and certainly not what people think of us, but we can control what we think of ourselves and that’s the opinion that matters most.
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