If you want to be your best and perform at a high level, fear of people’s opinions may be holding you back.
How to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You
Pay less attention to them and more attention to your values.
May 02, 2019
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Summary.
If you want to be your best and perform at a high level, fear of people’s opinions may be holding you back.
Our fear of other people’s opinions, or FOPO, has become an irrational and unproductive obsession in the modern world, and its negative effects reach far beyond performance. If you start paying less and less attention to what makes you you—your talents, beliefs, and values—and start conforming to what others may or may not think, you’ll harm your potential.
If you really want to conquer FOPO, you’ll need to cultivate more self-awareness. Most of us go through life with a general sense of who we are, and, in a lot of circumstances, that’s enough. We get by. But if you want to be your best while being less fearful of people’s opinions, you need to develop a stronger and deeper sense of who you are.
You can start by developing a personal philosophy—a word or phrase that expresses your basic beliefs and values. This philosophy isn’t a platitude or slogan; rather, it’s a compass, guiding your actions, thoughts, and decisions.