Someone else’s opinion of you is none of your business.
Rachel Hollis
Sometimes people make opinions about us, sometimes they share them. Sometimes we make opinions about other people and sometimes we talk about them around the water cooler (is that still a thing?) The thing about opinions is that they are developed through one’s own experiences. This includes things people learn in school, people they talk to, things there parents teach them, lies their siblings tell them, who knows! Opinions can sometimes be factual, but they are never definitive. Rachel Hollis says, “Other people’s opinions are none of your business.” To me, this means other people’s opinions don’t have much to do with you at all. It’s mostly just a collection of their own experiences and knowledge. Opinions are not to be ignored however. It is important to be aware of how other perceive you. But it a perfect world I would hear an opinion, internalize whatever is valuable and forget it. Unfortunately, that’s not how life works. Hell, I still think of what people’s opinion of me in middle school was. During spring break in the 7th grade, I got an email from a “friend” calling me a “penguin” and telling me that no one liked me anymore. I came back from spring break and had been kicked off the popular table. But that’s a story for another time. Let me tell you why opinions are dangerous for me now.
As I stated before opinions are peoples perception of you. This perceived notion can come from facts learned in school, ie. Doctors, or other “grow-ups” who we usually blindly listen to. I go to therapy and pretty much listen to whatever my doctor says as fact. So when she says I’m doing a good job, I’m sure I am doing a good job. But what do I actually think? Yes experience and 7 years of medical school has taught her that the signs of my behavior shows I’m living my life pretty well, but is her “pretty well” the same as mine? Don’t get me wrong. I love my doctor, she is awesome. No nonsense, doesn’t sugarcoat anything and doesn’t let me ignore conflict like I would prefer. But I need to take what she says and then consider how I feel about it. I’ll give you an example with a different professional who’s opinion I took as fact by mistake. When I was about 25 I went to a hypnotist for weight loss. Before (unsuccessfully) being hypnotize we talked about my history with anxiety. She told me that it was no wonder that I couldn’t lose weight because my body was so overwrought with stress that it was in survival mode and had no energy to devote to burning calories or fat. FINALLY! An explanation. It felt like a relief almost. Look, I don’t know the science here. Maybe there is some validity to it. But in reality I was doing barely anything to try to lose weight on my own. I was maybe making it to a personal training session twice a week, eating what I normally ate and definitely drinking too much. But this explanation excused me from making the changes to improve myself. I was convinced that the problem wasn’t me it was my “biology.” It sounds silly saying it now, but I truly believed that my anxiety was preventing me from losing weight and there was nothing I could do about it. Then this theory expanded to other aspects of my life. If I didn’t get important things done it was because of my biology or chemistry or whatever. And here we are 5 years later and I am starting to lose weight. And guess what, I still totally have the same anxiety I had before!
So here is what all of this means to me. Opinions are important. They sometime hold validity, and it is important to be aware of other people’s perception of you. But that is all. It is a perception. My INTENTION is what I really care about. When I focus ferociously on my intention, other people’s perception fades away. People often think I’m abrasive or a bitch. That is their perception, my intention is to be direct and clear, so I don’t apologize for this. But I do realize that some people do not respond positively to this kind of communication so I have to be able to adjust my approach when necessary. Just as the hypnotists opinion was that it would be difficult for me to lose weight because of my circumstances, but when I focus my intention on losing weight, I am able to do it just as anyone else.
When people form opinions about you, YOU MUST remember their life experiences have caused them to form these opinions and not YOU. They did not create these opinions out of nothing, but they probably also don’t have much to do with you.
The purpose of this blog was created out of this theory. It was my families opinion, and my doctors opinion that I was doing well for myself, considering my anxiety and depression. So I went along with it. “Yeah, I’m doing great! I get out of bed in the morning. I have a job. etc.” But is that really what “doing well for myself” meant to me? NO! I want more than that! I decided I had set the bar too low because I was convinced by outside opinions. Now I have set goals that are much larger than getting out of bed in the morning. In MY opinion, I am capable of SO MUCH MORE.
To the Limit 