34. Rewire Your Brain To Stop Worrying What Others Think
Do you often find yourself consumed with thoughts about what others think of you? Whether it’s friends, family, or co-workers, are you constantly worried about being judged for your looks, your work, or your life choices? If so, you're not alone. We've all been there, desperately wanting to be liked and accepted by those around us.
So why do we care so much, what is it costing us, and what can we do about it? If you're ready to break free from the judgment of others and live life on your own terms, this episode is exactly what you need. Get ready to discover the true costs of giving too many F's about what others think.
Tune in this week to discover how worrying about the judgment of others drains your time, money, presence, and even physical health. But don't worry, we also share our three-step framework for rewiring your brain to prioritize your own thoughts and beliefs over the opinions of others. Make sure you come back next week because we get super vulnerable and share our own personal experiences of doing this work in our own lives.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why humans are hardwired to care about others' opinions for survival.
How women are conditioned from birth to seek validation, and why this is a tough pattern to break.
The surprising ways that worrying about judgment drains your time, money, and health.
Why you can't simply decide to stop caring what others think overnight.
3 steps to finally letting go of the opinions of other people.
Some real-life client examples of what this work really looks like.
Why others' judgments are simply projections of their own struggles.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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28. Feminine Leadership: How To Lead With Authenticity and Confidence
Full Episode Transcript:
Kelle: Have you ever thought, I wish I didn’t care what other people thought of me?
Nina: Yeah, so have we and basically everyone we know.
Kelle: That’s why today we’re breaking down why we care so much, what it’s costing all of us and how to stop giving so many damn effs.
Nina: We all need this. Let’s get going. This is Ambitious-Ish.
Burnout? Check. Daily overwhelm? Check. Resentment rash, stress, and a complete lack of well-being? Check, check, check! You’re not alone. We’re your hosts, Kelle & Nina, and we are here to help you feel calm, balanced, and empowered so you can redefine success, make choices that feel authentic, and ACTUALLY enjoy the life you work so hard to create. You ready? Let’s go.
Kelle: Hey, I’m Kelle.
Nina: And I’m Nina. This is going to be a good one and we’ve been doing this work personally in our lives. We can’t wait to tell you all about it in the next episode. So today we’re going to break this all down, put it into practice with some client examples. And then next week, we’re going to show you how we put this into practice personally. So, stay tuned for that.
Kelle: We’re going to get really vulnerable next time, so I’m already feeling it.
Nina: Are you sweating?
Kelle: Yes, I’m sweating, frazzled and sweaty.
Nina: Me too. Yes, okay. Alright, we all have some form of this, this fear of being judged for how we look, what size or shape our bodies are, for what we say, for what we believe, for how we parent, for how organized or unorganized we are. For who we are in relationship with, whether it’s friends or spouses or our parents, for the quality of our work, for the decisions we make, for how we manage and lead.
Kelle: Yes, all of those, and there are endless examples, endless ways we can worry about what other people are thinking about us. We worry if a text or an email doesn’t get answered right away or at all. We wonder what’s going on if someone gives us a look. We ruminate on the tone our spouse used or the words our co-worker said, or the laugh when we said something that wasn’t actually supposed to be funny. We worry we’re not funny enough or smart enough or organized enough. We have anxiety over being fixated on people just generally, if they like us or not. And we’re just going to tell you we all want people to like us.
Nina: Yeah, we’re all wired for connection. We humans are herd animals. As hunters and gatherers back in the day, being accepted and liked was essential for survival. You are here alive because your ancestors worried about what other people thought of them and acted accordingly.
Kelle: Yes. So, it makes sense, you want to be liked. You don’t want to be judged, of course, and then this fear of being judged is perpetuated. As women, we’re taught there’s a culturally acceptable standard, way to look and act and eat and parent and be a wife and work. And that we need to check ourselves and get outside validation that we’re acceptable, that we’re doing it right as if there’s one way to do it right, as if there’s one way to live.
Nina: We’re conditioned from birth to be judged and evaluated for academics and school, or for our athletics and sports. Were rewarded with positive attention for our socially acceptable looks and the shapes of our bodies.
Kelle: And in the process, we lose our own sense of discernment, our own opinions stop mattering. Of course, we believe that other people’s opinions of us are what matters most.
Nina: And then at some point, we’re told we shouldn’t care what other people think, that we should be confident and bold, we should be independent thinkers, and authentically ourselves. A lot of women, when we talk to them, they’re like, “What does that even mean?” They’ve been doing what they’ve learned, living in a socially acceptable way for so long, pleasing people, burning out and living out of alignment.
Kelle: Yeah. You can’t just decide you’re going to stop caring what other people think when you’ve spent a lifetime being trained and conditioned to care what other people think.
Nina: I don’t know if you’ve tried, but it’s really hard to all of a sudden stop doing something we’ve been conditioned and programmed to do for a long time.
Kelle: Yeah, so true. It’s not like this is going to happen overnight. Unwinding these thoughts and beliefs we’ve had doesn’t just happen overnight. This all takes practice and patience, but it is absolutely possible.
Nina: Alright, let’s talk about what it’s costing you to care so much about what other people think. First and foremost, time. The amount of time spent worrying, obsessing, being consumed with what they’re thinking about you is time, our most precious resource, you’re not using wisely. Time you’re not getting your work done, for example, time you’re not in your life enjoying moments with friends and family. Which leads right into the next thing, worrying about what other people think is costing you money. Buying beauty products, clothes, cars, things because you think they’re important, that’s what you’ll be liked for.
Kelle: Yeah, I was just visiting a friend in South Carolina a few weeks ago, and she had all the Gucci, the Gucci purses, the big purse and the little purse.
Nina: Oh my God, I love some Gooch.
Kelle: Yeah, all those things and people in Park City just don’t care about that. And I was just admiring hers, going, “Yeah, that is just so not practical for Park City life, but yeah.”
Nina: It’s also costing you presence. When you’re worrying about what other people are thinking about you, you’re not in the present moment. You’re not present with the people in your life. You’re not present, experiencing your own life. Haven’t we all been there?
Kelle: Yeah.
Nina: Yeah, another cost is just simply, insecurity. When you’re worried about what other people think, you’re less secure with yourself and who you are. You doubt yourself, your worth and the value you bring. And this kind of becomes another cost to your identity and I was almost going to say self-concept, Kelle. You might even try to change who you are and how you act depending on who you’re with so they like you more.
Kelle: You don’t act like yourself, you put a mask on, you pretend to be someone that you’re not really because you think that will make them like you more.
Nina: And this kind of leads to the next cost, self-trust. This is like a domino effect in a way. Worrying about what other people think, erodes self-trust. You stop caring about your own opinions of yourself because you think they know better. And this can also lead to the next cost, which isn’t funny at all, but physical health. worrying, feeling anxious causes stress in your body, mental and emotional for sure, but physical more than anything. You lose sight of freedom and joy and all of the lovely sort of feminine, energetic qualities that we talked about a couple of episodes ago, right?
Kelle: 100%. And I’m sure there’s so many more that we’re not even hitting.
Nina: Okay, let’s talk about what you can do about it, how to stop, right, Kel?
Kelle: Yes, let’s do this. Let’s give our three step framework and then we’ll walk through some examples. What do you think?
Nina: Awesome.
Kelle: Okay. So, the first step in our three step framework is to stop caring what other people think. So, the first step is to recognize. You have to recognize the thoughts you’re having, the thought patterns. We can do this with a thought release where we write down the thoughts you’re having on a particular subject, what you want to stop caring about. So, this is called a thought release. Again, just get out a piece of paper, write down what you want to write down.
Sometimes we use prompts like what am I worrying about? That’s one of our favorite prompts for thought releases right now. And then the next step in how to stop worrying about what other people think about you is to rate. So read through those thoughts and rate them. Find out what isn’t helpful, what’s not useful to you. So how will you know if it’s useful or not? It’s a check in with how it makes you feel. So, hang tight and we’ll hop into some examples so this will make a little bit more sense.
And the third step in the process is to replace. So, we replace the unhelpful thoughts, what you’re fixated on with new thoughts and beliefs you want to have, thoughts and beliefs you decide you want to have about yourself and your life. And then you have to practice those thoughts over and over until they become stronger, then the un-useful thoughts you had about worrying what other people think. Alright, so it’s recognize, rate and replace.
Nina: Yeah, you’re not telling yourself to stop worrying, that you don’t care anymore about what other people think of you.
Kelle: Yeah, there’s no amount of trying to convince yourself that will get you to stop caring. So, believe me, I’ve tried, and I’m going to give you all the details next week about what I wanted to stop caring about specifically. So, stay tuned next week because it’s going to get really personal.
Nina: What you have to work on is deciding on purpose what you want to believe about yourself, and then practice that. And just a reminder, I know we’ve said this, but beliefs are thoughts we’ve practiced over and over.
Kelle: Yeah. Okay, Nina, let’s jump into some examples here. So, this might sound familiar to some of you. I think we’ve used this example before. So, we had a client who was on the sidelines of her son’s soccer game and one of her friends was also at the soccer game but didn’t say hi. And when she looked at her, her friend kind of gave her a look, they didn’t talk the rest of the game. And our client, she couldn’t stop thinking about why her friend acted that way.
She ran over and over in her mind about what she could have done. Did she do something to make her mad? Or she started to even feel annoyed with her friend without actually talking to her. And our client asked us for some spot coaching on this, which is something we do for our clients. It’s a 20 minute call between sessions to coach on a specific topic. So, we had her do a thought release and then rate the thoughts. And just looking through her thoughts, her un-useful thought was, I’m not fun for her to want to hang out with me.
But the truth, she didn’t know, she actually had no idea. I mean, how could she know because she didn’t actually talk to her friend? She was just guessing. She was doing what we call mind reading. And the new thought that we had to bring in, the thought that she landed on that felt better was, I wonder what’s going on with her. Instead of worrying about herself, she brought in curiosity to what might be going on with her friend.
Nina: Later, when she talked to her friend, the look was nothing. And she didn’t talk to her at the game because the friend had had an awful day at work. A transaction fell through and she was decompressing. We just never know. Okay, let’s go to another example, we’ll use our client, Rachel. Rachel has her own company and manages a team of about seven, a small business, badass. She works both in the office and from home. And sometimes she’ll log onto the system at work from home, not to get work done, but to make it look like she’s working to her team. Who hasn’t done this?
I mean, so her employees can see that her green light is on or she’ll leave work early to pick up her kids from school and then she’ll feel guilty for leaving early. Rachel is, in her words, consumed with what my employees think of me. And the thoughts she wrote down that weren’t useful were, I should be doing more. I’m not a good leader. I don’t want them to think I’m selfish. How do we know they aren’t useful? Because they all felt some form of awful when she read them back.
And when we look at the thoughts, we want to question them. Take, I’m not a good leader. First, we would need to define what a good leader means to her, what does that even mean? Or if we looked at the thought, I should be doing more, what does more look like? What does enough look like?
Kelle: Yeah. And this is the part that gets a little sticky. The thoughts that you’re worried about other people have about you, they’re the thoughts that you have about you. So, she was worried she wasn’t a good enough leader. So that’s what she was worried about. She was worried she wasn’t doing enough, which is why she was thinking she should be doing more.
Nina: Oh, the shoulds. It actually has nothing to do with what the employees are thinking because she has no idea what the employees are thinking. She’s projecting what she’s worried about onto her employees. What you focus on yourself is what you’re worrying about what other people think about you.
Kelle: So, this brings up a story. I remember I was visiting my sister and I had this huge bruise on my lip. I had passed out in my closet one morning after having chemotherapy. I mean, one moment I was standing in my closet, and the next I was on the floor. My face just happened to find a pair of five pound weights laying there. I don’t know what those were doing there, but I went to dinner later that week with my sister, and while we were out, we ran into some friends of hers.
Listen, I was so worried about what my face looked like with this huge bruise and fat lip, I couldn’t concentrate on the conversation I was having. I was in my head and acting all awkward and weird. And when they left, I was telling my sister how embarrassed I was about meeting someone with this massive bruise on my lip. And she was like, “What? You can barely see it, and it’s dark in here. I don’t think they even noticed.” I was so focused on it. I was so worried about what they were thinking about it, and it actually had nothing to do with them. It was all in my own head.
Nina: And when you change your own thoughts about yourself, you’ll no longer care what other people are thinking about you. By rewiring your brain to think differently about yourself, you will stop worrying about what other people think of you. Going back to our client, Rachel, here are the thoughts we came up with together. Instead of, I want to be a good leader, we landed on, I’m deciding for myself how I want to lead. Instead of, I should be doing more, she chose, I’m doing plenty. Instead of, I don’t want them to think I’m selfish. She decided on, I pay my employees well so I can have more freedom. It’s finding a better feeling thought.
Kelle: Yeah. So again, we’re not trying to stop caring about what other people think. What we really want to teach you is to give more weight to what you think than what everyone else thinks, to make your opinion matter more than theirs.
Nina: Yeah, it’s focusing your mental energy on what you think and a big part of that is discovering where you learned those old stories, those old thought patterns and beliefs about yourself. It doesn’t work to just pretend you don’t have them anymore because they’re still in your subconscious. What we want to do is uncover them, give them space and decide on purpose what you want to think instead.
Kelle: Exactly. Again, it’s looking at it like for Rachel, how has she defined what a good leader looks like in the past? In coaching her, we found an old idea of leadership for her was being the first one in the office in the morning and the last one out at night. No wonder she questioned what her employees thought about her when she was defining leadership that way. We had to redefine what being a good leader looked like for her moving forward.
Nina: I think we think a lot of the time we don’t want to say what we worry about ourselves out loud because we don’t want to give those thoughts energy. But what we unwittingly wind up doing is preventing ourselves from changing them, resisting them creates more pain. Instead of just accepting them, we can change them.
Kelle: Yeah. What’s that saying, Nina, I don’t really remember it, but it’s something like, if you say it first, they can’t say it about you. If you just admit your vulnerabilities, then people can’t talk shit behind your back about it.
Nina: They can’t hold it against you. Maybe that’s in there somewhere, right?
Kelle: Yeah.
Nina: Yeah. Once you admit it, once you accept it, they cannot hold anything against you. They can’t hold it against you.
Kelle: Yeah. If you’re saying it about yourself, if you don’t get it, email us and let’s talk about this more.
Nina: It takes two. The truth is, if someone is really judging you, everyone’s judgment is a projection of what they worry about, what they struggle with in their own lives. Their judgments have nothing to do with you personally.
Kelle: Yes. What’s really important here is that when you discover what you’re anxious about or obsessing on about what other people think about you. That’s your sign to dig in and get honest with yourself. This isn’t necessarily the fun part, but it’s such an important part.
Nina: Yeah. And remember our three step framework. Recognize the thoughts you’re having. Rate them as useful or not useful. And then replace the ones that aren’t useful, the ones that don’t feel good with more useful thoughts. If you try this and you’re still worrying about what other people think, stick around. Like we mentioned, next week we’re going personal. We’re diving into an update on what’s happening with Kelle and what she’s worrying about.
Kelle: Yeah, it’s really what I’ve been obsessing over. Geez, this work has helped so much.
Nina: Totally. And if you want to build new belief systems that are so strong that it truly doesn’t matter what other people think, schedule a call with us, a consultation with us. It’s free.
Kelle: Yeah, come on. It’s so fun, too. It’s so helpful. We dig right into what’s happening with you and you just get all of the info. And then we can decide together if we want to work together or not. Totally up to you. Alright, that’s it for today. Thank you so much for being here. We so appreciate you.
Nina: Yeah. Thanks all, see you next time.
Kelle: Yeah, see you next time.
Nina: Hey everyone, if you want more live access to me and Kelle, you have to join our email list.
Kelle: Yes, we’ll come to your email box every Tuesday and Thursday.
Nina: You can ask us questions, get clarity and get coached.
Kelle: We offer monthly free email coaching when you’re on our list and you’re the first to know about trainings, events and other free coaching opportunities.
Nina: Just go to kelleandnina.com. That’s K E L L E and nina.com to sign up.
Kelle: Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Ambitious-Ish.
Nina: If you’re ready to align your ambitions with your heart and feel more calm, balanced, and connected, visit https://www.kelleandnina.com/ for more information about how to work with us and make sure you get on our list.
Kelle: See you in the next episode!
Nina: Yeah, so have we and basically everyone we know.
Kelle: That’s why today we’re breaking down why we care so much, what it’s costing all of us and how to stop giving so many damn effs.
Nina: We all need this. Let’s get going. This is Ambitious-Ish.
Burnout? Check. Daily overwhelm? Check. Resentment rash, stress, and a complete lack of well-being? Check, check, check! You’re not alone. We’re your hosts, Kelle & Nina, and we are here to help you feel calm, balanced, and empowered so you can redefine success, make choices that feel authentic, and ACTUALLY enjoy the life you work so hard to create. You ready? Let’s go.
Kelle: Hey, I’m Kelle.
Nina: And I’m Nina. This is going to be a good one and we’ve been doing this work personally in our lives. We can’t wait to tell you all about it in the next episode. So today we’re going to break this all down, put it into practice with some client examples. And then next week, we’re going to show you how we put this into practice personally. So, stay tuned for that.
Kelle: We’re going to get really vulnerable next time, so I’m already feeling it.
Nina: Are you sweating?
Kelle: Yes, I’m sweating, frazzled and sweaty.
Nina: Me too. Yes, okay. Alright, we all have some form of this, this fear of being judged for how we look, what size or shape our bodies are, for what we say, for what we believe, for how we parent, for how organized or unorganized we are. For who we are in relationship with, whether it’s friends or spouses or our parents, for the quality of our work, for the decisions we make, for how we manage and lead.
Kelle: Yes, all of those, and there are endless examples, endless ways we can worry about what other people are thinking about us. We worry if a text or an email doesn’t get answered right away or at all. We wonder what’s going on if someone gives us a look. We ruminate on the tone our spouse used or the words our co-worker said, or the laugh when we said something that wasn’t actually supposed to be funny. We worry we’re not funny enough or smart enough or organized enough. We have anxiety over being fixated on people just generally, if they like us or not. And we’re just going to tell you we all want people to like us.
Nina: Yeah, we’re all wired for connection. We humans are herd animals. As hunters and gatherers back in the day, being accepted and liked was essential for survival. You are here alive because your ancestors worried about what other people thought of them and acted accordingly.
Kelle: Yes. So, it makes sense, you want to be liked. You don’t want to be judged, of course, and then this fear of being judged is perpetuated. As women, we’re taught there’s a culturally acceptable standard, way to look and act and eat and parent and be a wife and work. And that we need to check ourselves and get outside validation that we’re acceptable, that we’re doing it right as if there’s one way to do it right, as if there’s one way to live.
Nina: We’re conditioned from birth to be judged and evaluated for academics and school, or for our athletics and sports. Were rewarded with positive attention for our socially acceptable looks and the shapes of our bodies.
Kelle: And in the process, we lose our own sense of discernment, our own opinions stop mattering. Of course, we believe that other people’s opinions of us are what matters most.
Nina: And then at some point, we’re told we shouldn’t care what other people think, that we should be confident and bold, we should be independent thinkers, and authentically ourselves. A lot of women, when we talk to them, they’re like, “What does that even mean?” They’ve been doing what they’ve learned, living in a socially acceptable way for so long, pleasing people, burning out and living out of alignment.
Kelle: Yeah. You can’t just decide you’re going to stop caring what other people think when you’ve spent a lifetime being trained and conditioned to care what other people think.
Nina: I don’t know if you’ve tried, but it’s really hard to all of a sudden stop doing something we’ve been conditioned and programmed to do for a long time.
Kelle: Yeah, so true. It’s not like this is going to happen overnight. Unwinding these thoughts and beliefs we’ve had doesn’t just happen overnight. This all takes practice and patience, but it is absolutely possible.
Nina: Alright, let’s talk about what it’s costing you to care so much about what other people think. First and foremost, time. The amount of time spent worrying, obsessing, being consumed with what they’re thinking about you is time, our most precious resource, you’re not using wisely. Time you’re not getting your work done, for example, time you’re not in your life enjoying moments with friends and family. Which leads right into the next thing, worrying about what other people think is costing you money. Buying beauty products, clothes, cars, things because you think they’re important, that’s what you’ll be liked for.
Kelle: Yeah, I was just visiting a friend in South Carolina a few weeks ago, and she had all the Gucci, the Gucci purses, the big purse and the little purse.
Nina: Oh my God, I love some Gooch.
Kelle: Yeah, all those things and people in Park City just don’t care about that. And I was just admiring hers, going, “Yeah, that is just so not practical for Park City life, but yeah.”
Nina: It’s also costing you presence. When you’re worrying about what other people are thinking about you, you’re not in the present moment. You’re not present with the people in your life. You’re not present, experiencing your own life. Haven’t we all been there?
Kelle: Yeah.
Nina: Yeah, another cost is just simply, insecurity. When you’re worried about what other people think, you’re less secure with yourself and who you are. You doubt yourself, your worth and the value you bring. And this kind of becomes another cost to your identity and I was almost going to say self-concept, Kelle. You might even try to change who you are and how you act depending on who you’re with so they like you more.
Kelle: You don’t act like yourself, you put a mask on, you pretend to be someone that you’re not really because you think that will make them like you more.
Nina: And this kind of leads to the next cost, self-trust. This is like a domino effect in a way. Worrying about what other people think, erodes self-trust. You stop caring about your own opinions of yourself because you think they know better. And this can also lead to the next cost, which isn’t funny at all, but physical health. worrying, feeling anxious causes stress in your body, mental and emotional for sure, but physical more than anything. You lose sight of freedom and joy and all of the lovely sort of feminine, energetic qualities that we talked about a couple of episodes ago, right?
Kelle: 100%. And I’m sure there’s so many more that we’re not even hitting.
Nina: Okay, let’s talk about what you can do about it, how to stop, right, Kel?
Kelle: Yes, let’s do this. Let’s give our three step framework and then we’ll walk through some examples. What do you think?
Nina: Awesome.
Kelle: Okay. So, the first step in our three step framework is to stop caring what other people think. So, the first step is to recognize. You have to recognize the thoughts you’re having, the thought patterns. We can do this with a thought release where we write down the thoughts you’re having on a particular subject, what you want to stop caring about. So, this is called a thought release. Again, just get out a piece of paper, write down what you want to write down.
Sometimes we use prompts like what am I worrying about? That’s one of our favorite prompts for thought releases right now. And then the next step in how to stop worrying about what other people think about you is to rate. So read through those thoughts and rate them. Find out what isn’t helpful, what’s not useful to you. So how will you know if it’s useful or not? It’s a check in with how it makes you feel. So, hang tight and we’ll hop into some examples so this will make a little bit more sense.
And the third step in the process is to replace. So, we replace the unhelpful thoughts, what you’re fixated on with new thoughts and beliefs you want to have, thoughts and beliefs you decide you want to have about yourself and your life. And then you have to practice those thoughts over and over until they become stronger, then the un-useful thoughts you had about worrying what other people think. Alright, so it’s recognize, rate and replace.
Nina: Yeah, you’re not telling yourself to stop worrying, that you don’t care anymore about what other people think of you.
Kelle: Yeah, there’s no amount of trying to convince yourself that will get you to stop caring. So, believe me, I’ve tried, and I’m going to give you all the details next week about what I wanted to stop caring about specifically. So, stay tuned next week because it’s going to get really personal.
Nina: What you have to work on is deciding on purpose what you want to believe about yourself, and then practice that. And just a reminder, I know we’ve said this, but beliefs are thoughts we’ve practiced over and over.
Kelle: Yeah. Okay, Nina, let’s jump into some examples here. So, this might sound familiar to some of you. I think we’ve used this example before. So, we had a client who was on the sidelines of her son’s soccer game and one of her friends was also at the soccer game but didn’t say hi. And when she looked at her, her friend kind of gave her a look, they didn’t talk the rest of the game. And our client, she couldn’t stop thinking about why her friend acted that way.
She ran over and over in her mind about what she could have done. Did she do something to make her mad? Or she started to even feel annoyed with her friend without actually talking to her. And our client asked us for some spot coaching on this, which is something we do for our clients. It’s a 20 minute call between sessions to coach on a specific topic. So, we had her do a thought release and then rate the thoughts. And just looking through her thoughts, her un-useful thought was, I’m not fun for her to want to hang out with me.
But the truth, she didn’t know, she actually had no idea. I mean, how could she know because she didn’t actually talk to her friend? She was just guessing. She was doing what we call mind reading. And the new thought that we had to bring in, the thought that she landed on that felt better was, I wonder what’s going on with her. Instead of worrying about herself, she brought in curiosity to what might be going on with her friend.
Nina: Later, when she talked to her friend, the look was nothing. And she didn’t talk to her at the game because the friend had had an awful day at work. A transaction fell through and she was decompressing. We just never know. Okay, let’s go to another example, we’ll use our client, Rachel. Rachel has her own company and manages a team of about seven, a small business, badass. She works both in the office and from home. And sometimes she’ll log onto the system at work from home, not to get work done, but to make it look like she’s working to her team. Who hasn’t done this?
I mean, so her employees can see that her green light is on or she’ll leave work early to pick up her kids from school and then she’ll feel guilty for leaving early. Rachel is, in her words, consumed with what my employees think of me. And the thoughts she wrote down that weren’t useful were, I should be doing more. I’m not a good leader. I don’t want them to think I’m selfish. How do we know they aren’t useful? Because they all felt some form of awful when she read them back.
And when we look at the thoughts, we want to question them. Take, I’m not a good leader. First, we would need to define what a good leader means to her, what does that even mean? Or if we looked at the thought, I should be doing more, what does more look like? What does enough look like?
Kelle: Yeah. And this is the part that gets a little sticky. The thoughts that you’re worried about other people have about you, they’re the thoughts that you have about you. So, she was worried she wasn’t a good enough leader. So that’s what she was worried about. She was worried she wasn’t doing enough, which is why she was thinking she should be doing more.
Nina: Oh, the shoulds. It actually has nothing to do with what the employees are thinking because she has no idea what the employees are thinking. She’s projecting what she’s worried about onto her employees. What you focus on yourself is what you’re worrying about what other people think about you.
Kelle: So, this brings up a story. I remember I was visiting my sister and I had this huge bruise on my lip. I had passed out in my closet one morning after having chemotherapy. I mean, one moment I was standing in my closet, and the next I was on the floor. My face just happened to find a pair of five pound weights laying there. I don’t know what those were doing there, but I went to dinner later that week with my sister, and while we were out, we ran into some friends of hers.
Listen, I was so worried about what my face looked like with this huge bruise and fat lip, I couldn’t concentrate on the conversation I was having. I was in my head and acting all awkward and weird. And when they left, I was telling my sister how embarrassed I was about meeting someone with this massive bruise on my lip. And she was like, “What? You can barely see it, and it’s dark in here. I don’t think they even noticed.” I was so focused on it. I was so worried about what they were thinking about it, and it actually had nothing to do with them. It was all in my own head.
Nina: And when you change your own thoughts about yourself, you’ll no longer care what other people are thinking about you. By rewiring your brain to think differently about yourself, you will stop worrying about what other people think of you. Going back to our client, Rachel, here are the thoughts we came up with together. Instead of, I want to be a good leader, we landed on, I’m deciding for myself how I want to lead. Instead of, I should be doing more, she chose, I’m doing plenty. Instead of, I don’t want them to think I’m selfish. She decided on, I pay my employees well so I can have more freedom. It’s finding a better feeling thought.
Kelle: Yeah. So again, we’re not trying to stop caring about what other people think. What we really want to teach you is to give more weight to what you think than what everyone else thinks, to make your opinion matter more than theirs.
Nina: Yeah, it’s focusing your mental energy on what you think and a big part of that is discovering where you learned those old stories, those old thought patterns and beliefs about yourself. It doesn’t work to just pretend you don’t have them anymore because they’re still in your subconscious. What we want to do is uncover them, give them space and decide on purpose what you want to think instead.
Kelle: Exactly. Again, it’s looking at it like for Rachel, how has she defined what a good leader looks like in the past? In coaching her, we found an old idea of leadership for her was being the first one in the office in the morning and the last one out at night. No wonder she questioned what her employees thought about her when she was defining leadership that way. We had to redefine what being a good leader looked like for her moving forward.
Nina: I think we think a lot of the time we don’t want to say what we worry about ourselves out loud because we don’t want to give those thoughts energy. But what we unwittingly wind up doing is preventing ourselves from changing them, resisting them creates more pain. Instead of just accepting them, we can change them.
Kelle: Yeah. What’s that saying, Nina, I don’t really remember it, but it’s something like, if you say it first, they can’t say it about you. If you just admit your vulnerabilities, then people can’t talk shit behind your back about it.
Nina: They can’t hold it against you. Maybe that’s in there somewhere, right?
Kelle: Yeah.
Nina: Yeah. Once you admit it, once you accept it, they cannot hold anything against you. They can’t hold it against you.
Kelle: Yeah. If you’re saying it about yourself, if you don’t get it, email us and let’s talk about this more.
Nina: It takes two. The truth is, if someone is really judging you, everyone’s judgment is a projection of what they worry about, what they struggle with in their own lives. Their judgments have nothing to do with you personally.
Kelle: Yes. What’s really important here is that when you discover what you’re anxious about or obsessing on about what other people think about you. That’s your sign to dig in and get honest with yourself. This isn’t necessarily the fun part, but it’s such an important part.
Nina: Yeah. And remember our three step framework. Recognize the thoughts you’re having. Rate them as useful or not useful. And then replace the ones that aren’t useful, the ones that don’t feel good with more useful thoughts. If you try this and you’re still worrying about what other people think, stick around. Like we mentioned, next week we’re going personal. We’re diving into an update on what’s happening with Kelle and what she’s worrying about.
Kelle: Yeah, it’s really what I’ve been obsessing over. Geez, this work has helped so much.
Nina: Totally. And if you want to build new belief systems that are so strong that it truly doesn’t matter what other people think, schedule a call with us, a consultation with us. It’s free.
Kelle: Yeah, come on. It’s so fun, too. It’s so helpful. We dig right into what’s happening with you and you just get all of the info. And then we can decide together if we want to work together or not. Totally up to you. Alright, that’s it for today. Thank you so much for being here. We so appreciate you.
Nina: Yeah. Thanks all, see you next time.
Kelle: Yeah, see you next time.
Nina: Hey everyone, if you want more live access to me and Kelle, you have to join our email list.
Kelle: Yes, we’ll come to your email box every Tuesday and Thursday.
Nina: You can ask us questions, get clarity and get coached.
Kelle: We offer monthly free email coaching when you’re on our list and you’re the first to know about trainings, events and other free coaching opportunities.
Nina: Just go to kelleandnina.com. That’s K E L L E and nina.com to sign up.
Kelle: Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Ambitious-Ish.
Nina: If you’re ready to align your ambitions with your heart and feel more calm, balanced, and connected, visit https://www.kelleandnina.com/ for more information about how to work with us and make sure you get on our list.
Kelle: See you in the next episode!
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