Change your thinking, change your life.

When I finished my trip around the USA my son asked me to tell him what one of the most important lessons was that I felt I had learned. I thought for a minute and then said, “the biggest betrayal you can ever have is the betrayal of yourself when you actually believe your own BS.” He experienced the reality of this a year later when he decided take time off of college after one semester. When he told me about his decision I asked him what made him go straight to college after school. He grinned broadly and replied, “I believed my own BS!” It turned out, as I had always known, that he saw everyone else excited and preparing to go so made himself believe that that is exactly what he wanted. He was concerned about what his friends would think if he chose to take a year off.
He now has the quote about believing your own BS as his favorite quote on his Face book page!

When your life is hectic, there is too much to do and you feel under pressure, guess where a lot of that comes from? Your mind. To simplify our lives let’s start with our minds, our thoughts and change the way we think. Here is one possible all consuming thought we need to clean out right now!

The thought is ‘what do other people think of me?’ We can think this consciously and even sub consciously shown by our actions. This thought actually dictates our behavior in many ways. We think about it of every one from our mother, our friends, work colleges, family and even people we don’t know. How do I know this? Because it is the question I am asked most, ‘how can I stop worrying about what everyone else thinks?’ Sometimes, when I am asked this, my response is “tell me whom ‘everybody’ is?” When investigated ‘everybody’ usually turns out to be one or two people, a handful at the most. We put our lives on hold, stay in a job we hate, raise our children in a certain way, agree with groups of people at a party we actually disagree with all because we are concerned with what ‘everybody’ will think. How time consuming does this concern turn out to be for us? I used to be right there with you, I was always very worried about what everybody thought of me. I would put on such a farce. It made me miserable often; other times I just didn’t realize just how unhappy it made me feel.

The only person’s approval you need is your own. The only opinion you should worry about is yours and here are some reasons why: It is your life and your happiness at stake always. You cannot have any control over or change the way other people think, you can’t make them think in a certain way. People will think what they think whatever they actually tell you and whether you worry about it or not so let it go! It often turns out that the people we really love and care about love us regardless of the choices we make, who knew? These are the people I choose to spend time with.

When we think about what someone else might think of us it causes us stress, fear, anxiety and a feeling of failure. We spend time on this even though we can’t affect it in any way. Ask yourself this question, when has worrying about other people’s opinions ever worked for you, when has your worrying ever changed someone’s mind? If I change my mind it is because I choose to.

Imagine how your life would be if you never had the thought about what other people think of you. Think of how much time you would save and how much more peaceful your life would be.

Try this, write a list of all the people who you know would just love and support you no matter what you decided to do with your life. Those people who would hug you and speak wonderfully encouraging words if you decided to hire a yacht and sail around the world for a year or quit your high paid job and start your own business. Now make a list of the people who would have something negative to say or those you think would. Who matters most? Of course the bottom line is only your approval that matters but isn’t it interesting who our ‘everybody’ or our ‘general other’ turns out to be!

Is it possible to live a life free from the concern of what other people think? Absolutely!

Questions? Email me without obligation.

Angela Sharp
Martha Beck certified Life Coach.
angela@livinglifedesign.com

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