What Do You Think?

We are too hung up on what others might think of or say about us.

Unfortunately, we are also affected by others’ opinions about us.

The feeling of being judged eventually turns into resentment.

The result? We doubt about ourselves.

Being doubtful towards one’s own abilities is the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Mind is so powerful that it would act the way one thinks. When you second-guess your own abilities, that’s the sign that you subconsciously doubt about yourself.

Read the following lines:

“She compared me with other project manager and said A is smarter and more capable than me.”

“She said I was useless and was not needed here.”

“My club members said that they prefer the other speaker’s message over mine.”

“He said he was looking for someone like B, so he compared me that person, saying she/ he was better than me.”

These might ring a bell as they could be things you experienced.

But read them again. Do you see a pattern embedded in each line above? There is a message being repeated over and over: “What They Think of You”.

Let me ask you this question: would others’ opinions on you change who you are?

Your answer is mostly likely a NO.

If so, you won by 50%. There is the other half you need to work on: What matters is what you think about yourself.

When you can manage to disregard what other people think or say about you and only focus on your own beliefs, you are already at a much better place than you think.

Remember, what others say about you is not the reality but merely assumptions. Often times, we tend to confuse these assumptions with realities, so we easily fall into pigeonhole of what they believe who we are. People who judge others don’t always know whom they are judging on. If they don’t even know you, why what they said about you matter that much?

The reason you fall into the pigeonhole of other’s judgments is because you are not confident enough about yourself. In other words, you always second- guess yourself.

Take Film and TV industry for instance. It’s director’s responsibility to give hard critics to actors who need to drop more into the characters. Most often, those actors who received direct feedback end up thinking that they are not good enough for their jobs. As a result, they took it very personally because they felt embarrassed since the feedbacks were usually delivered in front of their peers. Instead of feeling they are not sufficient enough, they should take director’s feedbacks as opportunities to grow. Meanwhile, they should think the critics as rooms for improvement instead of indication of poor performance.

It boils down to how you think about yourself, despite of others’ opinions. In addition, we forget to recognize our talents because of lack of confidence. When in doubt, ask yourself: what do I think?

At the toastmaster area speech contest this Thursday, our club organizer lost to other club participants. He looked disappointed. I fold him an origami crane for him and said to him:

“How judges rank the presents are very personal. It comes down to how they feel about each speaker’s materials despite of the rubrics. The question here is: what you think how you did. If you are happy with the way you performed, and see yourself grew from it, then you did a great job tonight despite of what other people think.”

He finally resembled a seam of smile on his face.

Yes, it all comes back to the question: What you think you did?

As an ESL speaker, I’m quite often hung up by my accent. I felt nerve-racking especially when networking with native-born flocks that are in much better position than I am. Later I thought to myself: what triggered my nerve around them? Is it the language, knowledge, experience or position?

Once you found your root cause, and then find your solution accordingly. To me, it’s mainly the language: I felt I’m not as fluent as they are. But way, how many languages do they usually know? One and they know it very well. In comparison, I’m trilingual where I’ve mastered two in a decent level and one at elementary level. It looks like I don’t have valid reason to cringe in front of native born Canadian simply because I’m a ESL.

If you are an ESL, you need to imagine English is your native tongue (what you think). The amount of confidence you project when speaking is what really matters. That’s why the way you think means the world.

Doubt about your own abilities is even more detrimental than death, the final destiny for everyone. Death is the scariest thing that could happen to everyone, whereas doubt within oneself is the worse thing ever. Doubt is an ultimate denial to one’s abilities, purpose and soul. When you deny yourself, who would approve you?

Don’t let others’ opinions rack your brain. In the end, these are assumptions not realities. Who you really are is ultimately your call.

Note:

Above content only represents author’s perspective on certain subjects. There is no real story or person (people) used or referred in this blog post. Author was expressing her thoughts in a board and general term. The purpose is to inspire, motivate and share knowledge and experience with others.