Why You Can’t Stop Caring What Other People Think

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

“I want to stop caring about what other people think.”

This is something I hear often from not only clients, but also people I’ve encountered throughout my everyday life.  I also hear a lot of, “I don’t care what people think.”  This one makes me chuckle.

Why?  Because it simply cannot be true.  Everybody cares what people think, at least to some degree.  Nature has a reason for this, but more on that later.  What I assume people mean when they say they don’t care what others think is that they don’t consider their opinions the be-all-end-all when it comes to their own self-evaluation.  This is healthy, but too much rejection of what others think might actually not be.

Here’s why:

Surviving the Wilderness

From the beginning of human existence up until just a few hundred years ago, fitting in was necessary for survival.  Picture this.  You’re living in a log cabin in the middle of the wilderness, and the closest river is starting to dry up.  The other people in your community decide they don’t like you very much.  One morning, you wake up to find that while you were sleeping, they all packed their things and took off in search of a new place to set up camp.  What would that mean for you?

You guessed it.  You’d probably be done for.

For thousands of years, people evolved in the context of needing one another to survive.  Yes, you could probably survive on your own now, but the coding of our brains hasn’t changed as quickly as times have.  Hence, the gut-wrenching feeling that shows up whenever you notice that someone might not like you.  Rejection from others was once dangerous, and sometimes, it still is.

Survival in the Modern World

What would happen if your boss liked you more?

Right now, you might be imagining a promotion.  An easier time taking vacation days off.  A down payment on a condo paid for by your next bonus.

Now, imagine what could happen if your boss didn’t like you.  Say goodbye to that bonus, your job, and maybe even your next meal if you go too long without finding a new one (another task that requires being liked).

Even in modern society, others’ opinions of us play an important role in our quality of life.  Things tend to be easier when others like us and more stressful when they don’t.  Going through life completely disregarding what anybody thinks is not only impossible, it’s unwise.

Caring Too Much

Caring what other people think becomes problematic when it starts to interfere with your acceptance of yourself.  Regardless of how we behave, there will always- and I repeat always- be people who don’t like us.  Without a firm grounding in self-acceptance, you might find yourself constantly chasing praise, overthinking your social interactions, people pleasing, or hyperfocusing on your physical appearance- all of which can take a toll on your career and personal relationships.

How to Care Less What Other People Think

Love Yourself:  If you’re spending too much time and energy worrying about what other people think of you, the first step you must take is to learn to love yourself.  Picture the person you are when no one else is around.  Make a list of all the things you like about that person.  When you truly like who you are at the core, you don’t need external validation to make you feel worthy of love and acceptance.

Check the Facts:  How many times are you telling yourself that other people don’t like you, even when you can’t know for sure?  We get in the way of our own happiness when we start trying to read minds.  Next time you see your coworker making a nasty face during a meeting and think, “She hates my idea,” ask yourself, “Do I have any evidence to support this thought?”  If not, consider other possibilities.  Maybe your coworker just had bad leftovers for lunch.

Consider the Source:  Your roommate thinks your new highlights look trashy.  Maybe her ex-boyfriend cheated on her with a girl who had a similar hair color!  There’s an example of a judgment that has almost nothing to do with you and everything to do with your roommate’s background.  Anytime someone evaluates you, they are doing so through their own set of filters and biases.  Does this mean that their opinion doesn’t matter?  Not necessarily, but it does mean that you should take other people’s judgments with a grain of salt.  What one person sees as your greatest fault might be someone else’s favorite thing about you.

Stick With the People Who Love You for You:  One of the greatest ways to build self-esteem and stop caring too much about what other people think is to stay in the company of those who love you for your authentic self.  Surrounding yourself with people who point out the best in you will help make you immune to the criticisms of others.  Seek out a community that inspires you to grow while reminding you of your inherent value.  Avoid relationships that feel competitive or cut-throat, as these will likely bring out the worst in you anyways.

Caring what people think is part of being human.  Depending on the issue, others’ opinions can be more or less important.  Your boss’s thoughts on your performance last quarter?  Important.  A snide comment from a girl at a party about how you shouldn’t be wearing white after Labor Day?  Useless.  The point is, you get to decide how you react to your brain’s semi-outdated alarm bells.  In this case particularly, I say wear the white.

Finding Happiness Now

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

Rumor has it, quarantine might soon be coming to an end.  States like Florida recently started welcoming customers back into bars and restaurants, allowing what some may consider a much-needed dose of normalcy.  Here in Illinois, we have yet to hear of a specific reopening date.  The end of solitude seems so close, and at the same time, so far.

Anticipation, whether about the end of quarantine, a new job, a new apartment, or a vacation, pulls us into the future, where we plan for and fantasize about glorious things to come.  This kind of daydreaming can feel like an escape, especially when the present isn’t exactly ideal.  It provides relief from the monotony of another day spent at home and offers delicious, even if only imagined, happiness.  Or does it?

While you might think that picturing upcoming days of freedom is the only way to make it through the rest of lockdown with your sanity still intact, research shows that this kind of mental time travel actually decreases happiness overall.  After conducting a study on thousands of people using a happiness-measuring smartphone app, Harvard psychologist, Matt Killingsworth, found that happiness is only slightly connected to life circumstances and events.  However, subjects who reported being mentally engaged in whatever tasks they were doing right before rating their moods showed much higher rates of happiness than those who were “mind wandering” instants before checking in.

In other words, while mentally drifting to better days ahead might seem like the cure for quarantine blues, doing so might actually be decreasing your mood.  In the same study, Killingsworth assessed the impact of mental wandering during unpleasant situations, such as while commuting.  Again, participants who zoned out while commuting reported lower happiness levels than those who remained focused on their drives, even if the former were thinking about something pleasant.

This information, while perhaps surprising, is hardly new.  The ancient Eastern practice of mindfulness, the awareness of one’s present physical, mental, and emotional state, has boomed in popularity in the United States since the late 70s, promising peace and fulfillment to its practitioners.  The idea is that when we trade in the present moment for visions of the future or past, we lose contact with the only reality we actually have, therefore robbing ourselves of the ability to enjoy it.

It’s important to remember that just because staying present in the moment leads to greater happiness than mind-wandering does, presence does not guarantee total happiness all the time.  Life inherently brings about a wide range of emotions, some of which are more comfortable than others.  Mental escapism serves as a distraction but renders us unable to respond to our current emotional needs, much less experience the good that almost always comes with the bad.

Next time you find yourself drifting through your thoughts, try asking yourself one of my all-time favorite questions (if you’ve been in therapy with me, you understand):  How helpful is this?  Are your thoughts helping you prepare for something or inspiring creativity?  Or are they leaving you feeling scrambled and disconnected?  If the answer to my question above is, “Not very,” gently bring yourself back to the moment and experience the mood-altering effects.  The present is a gift.  Let yourself have it.

Values-Guided Action (Even When It’s Hard)

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

How many times in the past month have you chosen to do something even if it meant putting up with uncomfortable feelings?  Maybe you woke up at the sound of your morning alarm although staying in bed for another hour would have been much preferred.  Maybe you worried about looking silly while wearing a mask to the grocery store during the COVID-19 crisis, but you wore one anyways.  Or perhaps you chose to forgo watching your favorite Netflix show in order to write a paper or study for an upcoming exam.

We do difficult things all the time, but why?  I have a feeling you might be thinking, “Because I have to,” but is that really true?  Do you have to go to work?  Did you have to wear a mask to the store?  Did you have to study for that test?  The truth is, there isn’t much of anything that we actually have to do.  In fact, it might have been much easier to skip the studying and opt to fail the exam.

This brings us back to the question:  Why do we choose to do things, even if doing them means experiencing uncomfortable, or even downright painful, emotions?  There are typically two reasons- either to achieve a goal or to live in accordance with our values.

Let’s go back to the studying example.  If you’ve ever chosen to sacrifice a night of fun for a night of studying, it’s likely you had a goal of getting a good grade in the course.  Maybe this fit into a larger goal of earning a degree or getting a certain job.  In the case of the mask example, someone who fears looking dorky but wears a mask in public anyways probably does so because he or she values the health and safety of other people.  Can you think of any other times you willingly endured discomfort in order to accomplish a goal or adhere to your values?

Now, think of a time when you didn’t.  Some examples might include skipping a social gathering because you were worried about not knowing many people there or dropping out of a course because the syllabus made it seem too hard.  What kind of thoughts were you having at the time?  What emotions were you experiencing?

Russ Harris, the author of The Happiness Trap, a popular self-help book about living a meaningful life in the presence of difficult emotions, admits that even he struggled with motivation for writing because of his own uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.  Now a bestselling author, he offers readers the following tips:

1. Identify your goal.  What is it that you want to accomplish?  When and where will you accomplish it?  Be specific!
   

2. Identify related values.  Nobody knows the future.  We cannot guarantee ourselves that we will accomplish all our goals.  If we act in accordance with our values, however, the journey towards a goal is meaningful whether we achieve the goal or not.  For example, if you, like Stephen Hayes, have a goal of publishing a book, you might value learning, hard work, and creativity.  By writing the book, you are absolutely learning new information, working hard, and exercising your creativity.  Even if the book never hits the shelves, the time you spent writing it was still meaningful.
   

3. Identify thoughts and feelings that will likely come up.  If you’re learning to fly a plane, you might feel scared.  You might have thoughts like, “I can’t do this”.  By anticipating these experiences, you can prepare yourself for them instead of letting them take you by surprise.
   

4. Remember that thoughts and feelings can’t hurt you.  Are they unpleasant?  Yes.  But at the end of the day, thoughts are nothing more than words or pictures playing in your mind, and emotions are nothing more than sensations in your body.  Instead of fighting them, let them be, and remind yourself that they are temporary.
   

5. Choose to act anyways.  Once you know that thoughts and feelings are not a threat, you can choose to act in spite of them, not according to them.  Break your desired action down into manageable steps (eg. First I will gather my textbooks, then I will study for 30 minutes, then I will take a break and have a snack, etc.), and focus on completing them one at a time.

Following these steps can seem daunting at first, but with practice, acting according to your values and goals becomes easier and easier.  Keep a written list of all the times you do take valued action regardless of uncomfortable feelings.  You’ll be surprised to see how much you’re already doing this and how capable you are of doing it more in the future.