5 Ways To Stop Caring About What Other People Think Of You

Oftentimes in life, we hold ourselves back from living as fully as we can because we value the opinions of others over our own. We don’t believe in ourselves enough to create the life that we’ve always wanted, thus we find ourselves constantly trying to appease others, only to find ourselves incredibly unhappy in doing so. Nevertheless, while learning how to detach ourselves from outside opinions is important for our goals in life, it’s even more important for your happiness. Because after all, if we live our lives on the basis of a vision someone else created for ourselves, then we not only give up our innate power to choose, but we also give up our valuable time here on earth to live, and time is something we can never get back. Thus, here are five ways to begin finally living for yourself again:

1. Change Your Beliefs.

The world outside of you is merely a reflection of how you view yourself as well as the beliefs that you have. As such, people respond to you based on the way that you identify yourself. Become aware of the limiting beliefs that you have formed. Begin changing the idea of yourself and start defining yourself in a new way, as when you radically change your internal world by focusing on the thoughts and feelings you have about yourself, others will begin to see you differently as well. This comes down to being courageous enough to understand your beliefs, while also realizing that you have the innate power to change them.

2. Identify trigger memories.

We are a result of our past, but that doesn’t mean we have to be defined by it. Oftentimes we can go back into our past and identity triggering moments that formed the identity that we have today. Being brave enough to identify these moments that have dictated who we are will allow us to claim our power back. To understand that perhaps these memories may have served us in the past, but that we can let them go now and instead take the lessons and learning curves that we obtained from it in order to grow and become a better version of ourselves. Identify instances where you cared about how people thought of you and realize that in that moment, they were only responding to how you viewed yourself the entire time.

3. Understand that you are coming from a place of “lack.”

If you are constantly looking for validation from others, understand fully that this frame of mind is coming from a place of lack in your own life and your own state of being. Until you get down to the core of your self-image and build an internal confidence that comes from within yourself, you will never be able to create lasting change. This is because it is a part of your current identity and how you define who you are. In an age of social media, our worth is often programmed to come from the amount of likes and comments that we receive. Instead, form a new metric for your sense of worth based on things that are true for you, not the truths society has formed for you.

4. Start being your most authentic self.

Authenticity is the bridge to inner confidence. Give yourself permission to visualize and create a “new” self, one that is true and authentic to who you really are. So often in life, we wear a mask and hide ourselves from the opinions of others. By removing your mask and showing your true colors to the world, you pave the way to build confidence from within, based on the metrics of your own choosing. This is freeing; this is liberating. This is what life SHOULD feel like. But most importantly, when you truly start being authentic to who you really are, you’ll start to wholeheartedly value your own opinion over others.

5. Understand that your worth is so much more.

So much more than the opinions of others or the box that they put you in. You are enough and you always have been; you always will be. Remove the filters you’ve tried so hard to hide. Remove the lens in which you are seeing the world from in order to see life for what it truly is—an amazing experience that you ultimately create for yourself. You do not need others to validate you. Rather, you simply need to start validating yourself. So become aware of who you REALLY want to be, then have no shame in saying out loud, “This is who I am!” and owning it as though your life depends on it—because it does.