Why Do We Care What Other People Think?

In short, because we're human.

We all have unfavorable personalty traits. May they be bitchy, selfish, loud, or just plain annoying, we all have them.

We also all have wonderful personality traits. No one person is all around terrible. I like to think that people are inherently “good people,” but external factors like how we were raised, past traumas, and judgment/shame that society has casted on us makes people jaded.

It makes sense.

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I listened to a good podcast episode today, “Caring What Other People Think,” (episode 12) and highly recommend giving her a listen. Especially if you’re in a place of comparing yourself to others or are feeling insecure about who you are.

The podcast is Therapy Thoughts, and the woman of the hour hosting it is mental health coach Tiffany Roe. Tiffany has pink hair and lives in Utah. She is on my wish list of people to have dinner with.

Why do we care what other people think of us?

Here is what Tiffany had to say:

“Your self-worth may feel really solid in some areas, and really vulnerable in others. We are hard-wired to love and to be loved, so we seek safety. Attachment is key to our survival. If our needs aren’t met, we develop mistrust for the world, with others and with ourselves.

Because we are biologically hard-wired to seek attachment and responsiveness from our caretakers when we are young, caring what other people think is kind of crucial to our survival when we become adults.”

Tiffany, along with other psychologists and therapists on this beat, believes that caring what others think no longer serves you because it causes distress and impairs your functioning. Caring so much about what other people think prevents us from living authentically. It prevents us from living our truth.

I thought that was really powerful. How many times have we made ourselves smaller to make someone else feel more comfortable? How many times have we been unable to concentrate at our jobs because we’re stewing over a comment that was made the day before?

We can choose to get upset by what someone else says or thinks about us, or we can choose to listen to our own truth. At the end of the day, your happiness matters most. Your truth matters most.

Takeaways

Choose to see the good in people. We can’t change another person. What we can change is our response.

Ask yourself what’s important to you, and disregard whatever isn’t serving you well.

What’s important to me is my role as a mother, my marriage, and my work. Anything (and anyone) that is negatively impacting any of those areas will be cut out. If that sounds harsh, so be it. You have to lookout for you first.

Be you.

XOXO,

Ashley