Who Cares What They Think?

One of the most significant reasons that many people never achieve in their lives is that they are addicted to the approval of others. The problem with this habit is that it leaves you vulnerable to being manipulated. People pick up that you're anxious to please them, that your main priority is that 'everything be okay'.

For many of us, this came as conditioning from our parents. All children want is acceptance and love, and we learned that if we did what mommy and dad approved, we sometimes got that love.

Well-meaning parents knew that they could manipulate our behavior through their use of granting approval and love.

So what happens to the poor child? They grow up to think that they’re only valuable if they are approved of.

If you do good, Joanne, we’ll like you, and that means you’ll be worth something.

Otherwise… well, you’re just what you want to think you are.

The thoughts of other people have no real impact on you if you have a strong enough sense of self. Let me give you an example:

Say for instance you had a great childhood. You had a lot of friends that you considered great friends. They served as a foundation of your high self-image through school, and you went on to more success in college and in your first career.
One night, you get a call from John, the one person you considered your closest friend over the years. John tells you he’s been having problems, and his therapist suggested he call you up and tell you his true feelings. John tells you he was never very fond of you. He then goes into all the things he hated about you and why he acted like your friend just to stay popular with other people. In fact, John tells you, no one in your group of friends liked you that much. At the end of it all, John hangs up on you.

What do you make of this?

Was your entire sense of self based on an illusion? Are you really not who you thought you were all those years? Everything you did based on that assumption that these were your friends was a mistake? A lie?

Or could John have been lying about it, distorting things through the lens of his own mental problems?

What’s the end result?

Even if you believe your “friend,” you’d still be the same person. You’d still have accomplished the same things and the same successes. Only now you can see even more clearly that what other people think about you isn’t what matters. It’s what you think about you.

Now, there are two extremes to this behavior. On the far right end is where you don’t care what anyone thinks and you do only what you want. You become a sociopath, with no real barometer of what right and wrong is, acting purely out of self-interest.

On the left end of the spectrum is what I call the approval-seeking toadie. He’s a guy who is so totally caught up in being approved of – usually because his self-esteem was never built up by his parents – that he will do anything just to be liked.

The place you want to be is somewhere just to the right of the middle between these two extremes. You have to be able to fit into society in some way, but you should not let too much of this “majority” thinking decide your life. The vast majority of people do not aspire to the heights you are, so you must be willing to stand out and be different. If this means that a few people don’t like who you are or what you do, then so be it.

Oh, and if you think you can make everyone like you, you’re in for a big surprise.

No matter what you do in life, there will always be people who don’t like you. Get used to it.