Do You Care What Others Think Of You?
When life isn’t the way you imagined it’d be, how often have you told yourself that you’ll do something about it … someday?
And if you do care about what others think, how do you get to the point where you can free yourself from other’s opinions?
All of us have fallen for this trap of we will be happy when:
Start a business.
Become a millionaire.
We get that internship. Get that executive job.
Fall in love.
Get married. Have kids.
Buy a house.
Arrive at that exotic vacation locale.
Get a promotion.
Get rich.
Retire.
I could have named this “Why people stay unhappy” or “Are you Delighted with yourself”, as Andy Shaw stated in an email.
We have it backwards when it comes to happiness. We think we need to achieve some accomplishment FIRST before we can have contentment and joy.
According to Aytekin Tank, it’s called focusing illusion, it’s a cognitive bias where people place too much emphasis on a future event and as a result inaccurately predict the reality of the event.
The 18 year old in me would have definitely looked forward to a 9 to 5er. Oh has times changed. I would be a terrible employee at this point unless you ask the people I volunteer with or MOTB crowd.
Something good happens — maybe you achieved a big goal or got something you’ve been wanting for a while — and for a moment, you’re really stoked. Things are going your way! Life is good!
You feel upbeat and optimistic. You have a spring in your step.
But for most of us, that feeling doesn’t last.
An hour or a day later we’re right back to our regular self, which may mean feeling low-level dissatisfaction, depression, or worry.
Even when we get everything we think we want, we can’t help but wonder if there’s more to life than what we’ve achieved thus far.
It’s disheartening to spend years working so hard to reach a goal — starting a business, buying that dream home, getting married, authoring a book, getting that dream job — only to enjoy the benefits for a short time and then want more.
Our elation over getting what we want seems to be a mere blip on the radar of our lives.
Before long we start to look for what we need next in order to feel happy and at ease.
Why can’t we always feel content and at peace, especially when we have so much to be grateful for?- Marci Shimoff
This might shock you. When you focus on yourself and your happiness first I learned something about what happens to your health, wealth, and relationships.
All these areas of your life transforms.
The only difference between truly happy people and everyone else is that happy people have specific habits.
What habits? Let’s find out!
Why people stay unhappy, according to Diana from the Worth Project.
There is a lot of different reason why people stay in jobs they hate, stay with spouses they can’t stand, and give up on living a really good life.
One that really rang true for me is that we like certainty, even if that certainty isn’t ideal. We’d rather take $100 than flip a coin to have a 50/50 shot at $200. We’d also prefer a terrible, but certain outcome over an uncertain outcome.
For us, veering off course leads us into uncertain territory. Changing our life means we’re no longer following a path that is supposed to lead us to a certain yet moderately happy outcome.
‘Always remember to be delighted with yourself. Because there is no value in not being delighted with yourself.’-Andy Shaw
Only a small number of people achieve this easy thing of not caring what others think…
The problems with it are widespread.
Some may not trust their gut and instincts and feel like they have to ask permission first.
Others may think if they do something they think others wouldn’t like? They would start to get disliked and then feel bad about it.
But wait. It seems obviously right then it is almost universally ignored or just forgotten.
Which means… They were not delighted with themselves. Then there ego quickly distracts them and the power of always being delighted with yourself is lost.
People don’t really like themselves because they can see all of themselves, and they/we don’t like the weak bits, the weak choices, the arrogance, the lack of confidence etc.
…And all of the weak bits get worse as you get older according to Shaw.
And we see everything! Which mainly means we carry all this baggage with us, and our ego delivers the relevant poke in the eye just when you don’t need it!
Secret #1. No matter what. To always love yourself, flaws and all. To truly find the success you are looking for you gotta go against the status quote and take the road less traveled. Andy Shaw states: The secret is to choose, to consciously choose… To always be delighted with yourself no matter what.
How we do that is by living to the line that I often say…
‘No thought stands still, every thought is either helping you or harming you.’
Is feeling bad about yourself and therefore treating yourself badly, helping or harming?
Harming of course.
Now when you can become consciously aware in the moment of the harmful thought, you have the option of instead choosing to be delighted with yourself. To love yourself regardless of what state you are in.
If you just feel bad because you’ve been bad previously, or will be bad later, then you are not conscious to the choice and therefore cannot make it.
Secret 2: Get rid of things and people that are more trouble than they are worth. This is how you start to drop things you don’t need to take your life to the level of it being, better, good, great, and then finally exactly how you’d like it to be.
Dropping things comes from the Lao Tzu quote:
“In the study of the way each day something is dropped…”
The next part of the line is…
“…less and less do you have to force things…”
So now by having dropped, and keep dropping all the bad, the resistance you’ll find in life diminishes away…
The last part of the line is…
“…until you finally arrive at the place of non-action where nothing is done and nothing remains undone.”
This is you finally living exactly how you’d like your life to be.
One very cool thing about understanding and living to this is the by-product it eventually creates…
You are no longer concerned about what others think of you. It creates a incredible amount of freedom.
Which is secret #3:
Achieving that is a HUGE personal achievement, and one hardly anyone ever gets to… But it is all available if you are the controller of your thoughts…
It will not work though if you only think you are the controller… You have to be the actual controller ;-)
According to Shaw, achieving detachment from what others think without direct effort is wonderful for many reasons, but a really cool one is…
When you realise that most humans in society (pretty much everyone) have this existential problem of not always feeling good about themseves…
And have achieved always feeling good, and know others are not thinking that way too… Then a by-product of it is, it empowers you to either rule them, or help them…
I chose to help, but if I was looking to grow by treading on others, then always being delighted with yourself is a very effective way of doing it…
Think about it, we all wonder how people who do awful things, such as betray the people around them, or how people can rip people off for money and live with themselves after…
Well it’s actually easy if they are always delighted with themselves.
Because they merely see their actions as part of the greater good for the path they have chosen.
It’s only when faced with the pain they have caused does this faith in their chosen goal expose all the warts….
If you want the very best for yourself, then it is incumbent, or necessary for you to always be delighted with yourself
…To not do this equals less of life.
Now that is a structured thought…
Secret 4# Recognising value, discovering none and then deciding it is worthless.
Shaw states:
But lets say it isn’t worthless… That there is some value for you in not being delighted with yourself…
Good extract the value, find what you did that was really bad, extract the value and see what happens…
As you do that you will discover thereafter that either you stop doing the bad stuff, or you do the bad stuff less…
So always being delighted with yourself is much more than painting over a mess…
In carrying out this action the structured thinking is actually re-wiring your neural pathway so that you have less to not be delighted about…
Which means…
You put zero effort into trying to stop something, like alcohol, or cigarettes, and instead you put effort into being delighted with yourself.
A by-product for some, not all is you’ll drink less, smoke less, do bad stuff less.
What is the external benefit to you doing this for yourself, Shaw asks?
You are better, and the world around you is therefore better. So you become less part of the problem, and more part of the solution.
The truth is there are endless benefits to this very simple thought structure.
To discover more of them, simply choose to start using it whenever, you do not feel delighted with yourself.
This is taking care of yourself properly.
When we can see the problem Bugs we can work on erradicating them…
My thing is to not start smoking in the first place. I had a fake cigarette for a acting role once, and it’s the type you blow into. If someone from school ever starts a rumor that I smoked, NOT TRUE HAHA. It’s my job as an actor to be the role. In real life I can’t stand the smell of smoke. Those smoking commercials are pretty scary too.
A universal secret of success is…
Confront things that frighten you forthrightly and with courage… No sh*t Sherlock, how do you do that then?
Another example is…
Treat yourself like someone you care about…
However, we know everything about ourselves! So often we are not delighted with ourselves, nor even moderately okay with how we’ve done.
To always be delighted with yourself no matter what takes diligence and persistence, and a very strong mindset.-Andy Shaw
So what can you do?
Diana suggested that you can go to George Kinder and ask these three questions.
Are you currently the person who would attract the level of success youseek? Your outer conditions are a reflection of your inner reality. As James Allen has said, Your circumstances reveal you to yourself.-Ben Hardy
- While others are trying to improve their job, you’re continuously improving yourself, expanding your vision, skills, and abilities. This is akin to Stephen R. Covey’s 7th principle: Sharpen your saw. Most people are trying to chop down their tree — their “job” — with a dull saw.
- You need to put yourself into positions that create immense pressure. The kind of pressure that will either make or break you. This is how you purge out your weakness and small-mindedness. It won’t be pretty. But it will change you. And eventually, you’ll rise up. New. Changed. Better.
- How do you put yourself into these situations? You initiate. You don’t wait for life to come to you. You don’t wait for the “next” opportunity.
- “From this point, your strategy is to make everyone else get on your level, you’re not going down to theirs. You’re not competing with anyone else, ever again. They’re going to have to compete with you.” — Tim Grover
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Hello There! I’m Alesha! I’ve been involved in different businesses in several different capacities from being ceo, coo, co-founder, and more. I’ve learned so much from creating businesses, and I look forward to all the learning experiences I will have from starting new ventures. 2019 I’m excited to announce that I’m going to add more businesses to my portfolio. STAY TUNED! I’m going to introduce them sometime next year!
With one business I was involved with, we made it possible to install a little device with customized hardware and a SaaS solution implemented to the router, the business owner was able see live data about social media info collected.
With another company, we had professional internet marketing company that focus on digital marketing campaigns, services and jobs such as SEO, PPC, Online Reputation Management, and social media marketing.
With EYT, I oversaw day-to-day operations and keeping the CEO apprised of significant events;Yes I actually talk with my business partner on a daily basis. I created operations strategy and policies; Communicated strategy and policy to employees and interns; Fostering employee alignment with corporate goals; and overseeing human resource management. I also delegated tasks to my team.
With Bones’ Custom Guitar. We created custom guitars for musicians with imported wood. No one Bones’ guitar is the same.
The Wish Benefit Concert is a concert founded by Ayana Carter, Mel Sexton and Alesha Peterson. It’s privately held at Riley Hospital For Children.
