What Other People Think: Managing the Mean Girls
I remember when I turned 40 and saying to people, “I really don’t care what other people think of me anymore…That worry is gone.” And to some extent, in some situations, it was. But in others, that worry about what people think of me was right there as loud as it was when I was in high school worrying about what the Mean Girls thought.
We all do this. We worry about what people think of us often. We know its a waste of time, but we do it anyway. Despite the fact that we applaud those who have made it to the other side and genuinely don’t care about the opinion of others, it’s a fight against our normal, primal instincts to get there. As humans, we’re pack animals. We evolved in groups, and learned as we worked our way out of the cave and into modern day high school hallways/office buildings/dinner parties/family functions that we had a better chance of surviving if we were not rolling solo. So worrying about what others think of us, and doing whatever we can to fit in, stay with the crowd, and not get voted off the island is a totally normal way of functioning.
However, as I love to say, just because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s useful. And the fact is when we were (or if we ever are today) in true life-or-death, physical-safety-is-at-risk situations, than yes, having a group around us increases our odds of coming out OK. But for most of us, most of the time, that’s not our existence. Being worried about what the Regina George of your high school class will think of your social media post, or what your mother-in-law will say about your parenting style, or what your friends think of your partner, is not the same threat level as being mauled by a wild boar when you step out of the cave alone. We know this logically - that emotional risk is not the same as physical - but our primitive brains haven’t evolved to understand the difference. Risk is risk to our primitive brains. And that's why hitting “publish” on that blog post for all the internet to see can feel like a life-or-death situation.
I say all of this as a coach and as a person who has - and still does - experience this “omg what will they say about me” panic. I am a life coach after all. Want to worry about what people will think of you? Try telling the average Jane that you are a life coach. As a professional. Just wait for the Mean Girl mockery, the raised eyebrows, the slight smirk or the polite dismissal to appear. People have all kinds of opinions about what a life coach is and who you must be to call yourself one. And if you’re someone like me, whose career has been in a totally different field, and who, on paper, does not check every box on the “has her shit together” list, then the idea of putting yourself out there as a coach, well, brings on the emotional wild boar…..
So what do we do? Just stay in the cave? Never tell anyone we’re a coach? Never post anything on social media or speak to anyone about how we parent? Stay quiet until our lives are perfect so that no one will judge us? (Surprise: they’ll judge anyway).
The way to handle worrying about what others will think is to start by understanding what’s going on with you that makes it so the comments or opinions or thoughts other people have trigger you. In other words, it all starts by understanding that the call is coming from inside the house….
It’s not what the Heather of your past says about you (if you don’t get that reference, I weep for you. Que sera, sera) that’s the problem. It’s your thoughts ABOUT what she says that’s causing the issue for you.
For example, if the one-time high school bully says something snarky about a coaching post I put up on Instagram and I hear about it, I may think, “I’m so embarrassed”. Someone else may think, “That’s so rude”. And yet another person may think, “Who cares what she thinks?”. What she says will create different thoughts from different people. So what she thinks and says is actually totally neutral until I give it some meaning, which happens when I have a thought about it. And this is good news - because our thoughts are choices. So really, Heather only has as much power as my thoughts decide she has.
So in this case, if Mean Girl says something snarky about my post, I can think, “I’m so embarrassed”, and that thought that will create a feeling (likely shame), and that will lead me to an action, such as I delete the post, or don’t post again, or perhaps block her, or decide to believe her and hide under the covers all week….I can take any number of actions, but they’re all coming from the feeling of shame, which was created by my thought about her comment. And note that none of the actions will get me the result I want (which is more people engaging with my post, and my coaching overall)....
All that just because my brain had an unhelpful thought about a flip comment someone I don’t even know anymore said….Again, normal, but just not useful, right?
The other option here is for me to start to change my thoughts about her comment, so that I get the feelings, actions, and results I do want. In order to do this, one place to start is to just question the unintentional thought, “I’m so embarrassed, “ that my brain offered up.
The process of questioning your thoughts isn’t complicated - it’s just what it sounds like (asking questions!) - but the key is to start from a place of curiosity, not judgment, of your thinking. From that place of just wondering “It’s so interesting my brain would choose this thought….I wonder why?” start to question your thinking:
Circumstance: A person I once new in high school made a comment about my coaching post
Thought: “I’m so embarrassed”
Questions I can ask myself:
Why am I embarrassed?
What is there to be embarrassed about?
Why does this person’s opinion matter to me? (be honest here - the knee-jerk response is usually something like, “It doesn't!” but the reality is it does, at least somewhere in your brain. And thats OK! Just start to explore why that might be the case….)
Why is this thought a problem?
When you start to see what comes up for you, you can then ask yourself further questions to help you start to shift your thinking to something that feels better. Other questions could be:
What else could be true here?
Who would I be if I dropped this thought? (Or, how might I think, feel and act in this scenario if I didn’t think this thought?)
What do I want to think instead?
Can I believe that thought right now? If not, what do I want to think that I do believe right now?
Sometimes even a shift as simple as, “I’m so embarrassed, and thats OK”, or “I’m so embarrassed, but I’m working on feeling more confident” can help move you from an intense feeling that will change your actions and results, to a lesser one which will help you keep doing what you want to be doing - even if it still feels a little uncomfortable.
So here’s the thing - other people will always have opinions about what you’re doing, and its likely that you will care what they think to some degree. And there will also be times where it makes total sense to hear other people’s feedback and take it in, versus when it’s not useful to you. In the end though, you get to decide when that is. You get to choose if you want to give someone else - including the Mean Girl inside your own brain - the power of altering your actions and results, or if you want to take that power back, and keep moving in your own direction.
Choose the latter. Leave Heather (even the Heather inside your own head) back in high school.