Humans Are Meant To Care
As emotional beings, we tend to pay attention to not only our emotions but also others. We care about their thoughts and feelings as we empathise with them. The level of empathy each human carries is different, but we all carry it to some extent.
We know that each human has their own feelings just like we do, so we tend to care for their well-being and emotions. This mainly may boil down to the fact that we relate to them. The more you can relate to someone, the more you empathise with them.
Past Memories
We care about the thoughts of those we have the most memories with. Past memories involving others can make us think about their opinions of us.
If you have had a bad memory with someone where either of you hurt the other, you will tend to care about what they think of you. And if you have a good memory with a person, you will start to wonder if they still think of you the same way. We often look at people’s opinions of us very seriously, especially with those whom we share memories with.
The Need For Validation
Positive validation from others gives us a sense of accomplishment, acceptance and happiness. Most of us tend to seek validation from others as we care to know whether we are accepted or not and whether our actions are right or wrong.
This is because we may have a lack of right judgment, trust in our own abilities, low self-esteem and low self-respect. And this leads us to seek the validation of others through their judgement of our actions instead of our own.
We also think that the words and actions that people have taken on us are the truth. We take their opinions as the right judgment, especially if we are subjected to strict judgment of our actions from childhood.
Wanting To Fit In
Humans have a need to be a part of the community and have a social life. We long for social acceptance, interactions and relationships. They make us feel important and accepted. They give a sense of status.
Not being in a community could mean not having all of these benefits and pleasures. And this scares us. We tend to want to fit into the community. We don’t want to do something that results in us not being a part of it anymore. So we care about what the community has to say.
Also. Social activities are a necessity for people whose jobs are reliant on social interactions. Doing anything against the norm of this social structure may cause harm to one’s professional life and status.
Reasons To Stop Caring Too Much
You Will Stop Being Yourself
When you overthink about others’ opinions, you will start to be more conscious of yourself. You will start over-analysing everything you do. Your behaviour may change completely if you care too much for a long period. You will stop showing your personality to the world so that you can protect yourself from being judged.
Holding Back
You will start to hold back on many of the things you want to do, especially if you have been called out by others or have been judged directly. You may start to doubt yourself too much. You will start to overthink your actions. You may not do many of the things that you truly want to because you may think that you are doing the wrong thing. Fear of failure tends to kick in.
Demotivation
Oftentimes when we set out to do something, especially when it’s ambitious, others love to give us their opinions and advice on it. Some may be encouraging, but not all. This may discourage you when you want to follow your goals. You will be demotivated and confused by hearing so many opinions, especially when you take them to heart.
Depression
It is one of the most concerning symptoms of social pressure. Over-caring of others’ thoughts and judgement can make you feel depressed as you feel like you’re not doing the right things. When this emotion sets in for a long period, it turns into a serious issue. This can also lead you to believe that you are the one who’s always at fault and makes you seriously doubt yourself and your abilities. You may start to dislike yourself when you have for a long period of time taken others’ judgment as the truth.
Lack of Authority
People’s thoughts and judgments can indirectly affect our behaviour and actions. The question we need to ask ourselves is who is the authority figure in our lives? If most of our behaviour, actions and words are turned to people’s liking, then it is definite that people have a slight authority in our everyday life. You need to start living on your own terms.
HOW TO STOP
Stop The Fear Of Being Judged
Judgement of others is one of the main things we are influenced by. If their judgement reflects positively on us, then we are happy. If their judgment reflects negatively on us, we are unhappy. This needs to stop because it is like giving our key to happiness to other people. And they may choose to do anything with that key, regardless of how we feel.
The truth about human judgment is that it is never-ending. No matter what the situation is or who the person involved is, people have a judgement. It doesn’t matter what you do, good or bad, people will judge you regardless.
If you do something wrong they say you could’ve done it right, and if you do it right they say you could’ve done it better. They always have an opinion on how you should live your life.
And since they judge you no matter what you do, you might as well do whatever you wish to without considering how they will judge you for it. So it is best practice to do what you want to without fear of other’s judgement.
No One Cares
Understand that most of the time, people are so focused on their own lives that they barely notice others.
Most of the people who you think are judging you are too caught up in their own lives and problems to be thinking of others. And the people who may be judging you won’t remember you the next day. This is how caught up and self-centred we are with ourselves. For all you know, the very same people who you think are judging you may be the ones who think you are judging them.
This is important to understand especially when meeting new people or when you’re out in public. Take it easy and be yourself. Most people have too much going on in their own lives to focus on others.
Develop Self-Liking
Your thoughts of yourself are the most important. What people say about you doesn’t matter as much as what you say to yourself.
For you to believe something about yourself, your brain has to process all the feedback given by others and the thoughts you about yourself have to conclude. So no matter what a person says about you, it is only going to be permitted as a truth if your brain allows it. And your brain can only allow it if you think it to be true.
Hence, judgment from others will not be an issue for you if you have firm self-esteem and self-respect. You need to start trusting yourself and being confident to stop focusing on people’s opinions about you. Your opinion of yourself should be the most important.
Their Judgement Is False
Understand that the people who judge you don’t know everything about you. They only see the surface layer. They only see what you show them.
And that’s a very limited portion of you for them to judge you perfectly. You can only perfectly judge someone when you know every single detail about them. So whatever people judge you for is not even the truth. They don’t know anything about you to judge you well in the first place.
