One of the most common questions I get from teens is, “How do I stop worrying about what other people think?” Parents of teens ask how they can help their kids feel more confident in themselves and avoid common peer pressure traps that lead to poor decision-making.
With the ever-increasing visibility of lives portrayed on social media as “personas” rather than real representations of all aspects of individuals’ lives, a new mentality is perpetually enforced as “I am who I think YOU think I am.” Think about that for a moment…I will be who I think YOU expect me to be. I will show up as the person that I believe YOU want me to be.
1. Pay Attention to What YOU Think
If you want to stop worrying about what other people think, an obvious good starting point for eliminating this worry is paying closer attention to what YOU think.
How is this done? I give my clients the assignment to do a daily thought download—a “mind dump” of their thoughts on paper. We have over 50,000 thoughts a day—how many of them are we aware of? Likely, only a small portion.
Just as we clean our homes on a regular basis, deciding what we want to keep and what we want to get rid of, we need to clean our brains. Taking a look at our thoughts and deciding what we want to keep thinking ON PURPOSE is a powerful exercise.
2. Decide Ahead of Time
Since our thoughts form our beliefs and values, we need to know what these are for us personally. We can ask ourselves important questions like, “what are my beliefs about friends, family, education, religion, material possessions like clothes, cars, money, etc.?” We can evaluate what our parents taught us and decide what we want to believe for ourselves going forward. We can think about important values we want to uphold.
If we decide ahead of time how we will respond when offered drugs, alcohol, an invitation to lie, steal or cheat, or participate in crude behavior, sexual activity, or making fun of others, it will eliminate much of the nervous worry of what others think which often accompanies such decisions in the heat of the moment.
Building a solid sense of self comes from the thoughts we choose to think. Whether we adopt healthy thoughts, beliefs, and values from someone else or carefully explore who we want to think, believe, and value, this is an essential part of establishing personal identity and self-confidence. We are going to worry less about what others think and more that we are being true to ourselves, when we have taken the opportunity to explore these things intentionally, decide on purpose, and decide ahead of time.
2. Accept Differences
Part of growing up and reaching emotional adulthood is recognizing not everyone will like you, and that’s OK! When we examine our beliefs, like “what other people think of me matters,” we can see the sneakiness of this thought—we may want to have a good reputation among our peers, but the truth is we can’t control what other people think. Sometimes they are wrong about us and that’s ok.
When we get caught up in trying to change what other people think, we aren’t being genuine—and we’re wasting time and energy. If we are worrying about what others think of us, we are likely getting caught up in MANIPULATION—trying to change someone else’s view by what we say or do. In this process, we are effectively giving our power to them at the same time because we can’t rest until we are ok with their thoughts being what we think they should be.
We can adopt the thought, “I let people think what they want” or “MY thoughts and values govern what I do.” When we get to know ourselves better and understand our personal values and individual worth, we are less likely to worry about what other people think of us. This is a process, but one that is worth the time and investment. Learning how to be comfortable and confident with exactly who you are is a beautiful thing!
