 Hey Psych2Goers and welcome back to another video. Thank you all so much for the love and support that you've given us, enabling us to make yet another exploration into everyday psychology. So let's begin. Do you invest too much value into words uttered by strangers? No matter what you do or say, how you act or the decisions you make, people will always have an opinion of you. And if you let them get to you, you'll allow other people's opinions to not only hurt you, but oftentimes define you. Granted, our insecurities and hypersensitivity are also formed due to trauma suffered in early childhood or negligent and abusive parents. Not only that, but social media has also set widely photoshopped expectations of who or what we should be. But if you could stop caring about what others thought, what would happen then? The possibilities are endless. But one thing's for certain, you would feel a lot lighter and happier. So here are six ways to stop caring about what other people think of you. Number one, not everyone cares. Are you too anxious about being liked by others? Are you worried about the impression you made on someone you've just met? The truth is, everyone is plagued by insecurities and they might be too busy to immediately recognize yours. So it's most likely they too are fretting over the same thing. All around you, people have enough to occupy their minds. They're way too busy thinking about their families, work, and whatever else to form a detailed opinion about you. It may sound harsh, but the idea of not having all eyes on you feels liberating, doesn't it? Number two, who do you wanna be? Do you place too much value on others' opinions of you? How important is setting and living up to your own standards to you? The only opinion that should matter to you is yours. The value of another person's opinion should correlate with the nature of your relationship to that person. By allowing others' opinions to influence and dominate your life, you're handing them your power and agency. If you can relate to this, ask yourself, what do you want and what do you like? Are you making these choices solely to impress others? Viewing your decisions through this lens will help you become self-assured. Number three, accept your flaws. Do you strive for perfection? Is it by choice or do you feel compelled? Such a pursuit is fruitless when you're more concerned about someone's perception of you. It becomes damaging to your self-esteem and confidence. Some negative perceptions of ourselves have been ingrained into our subconscious since childhood. Tackling these thoughts can be difficult when you internalize them and operate based on past erroneous perceptions. One way to break free from these shackles is self-acceptance. Self-acceptance is a journey to embrace all of the facets within yourself unconditionally. The journey can be difficult as it requires you to trapeze along the fine line of acceptance and complacency. It serves as a building block for self-esteem and personal improvement. Four, be selective about the things you care about. Have you read the subtle art of not giving enough by Mark Manson? The bright orange book with black bold titles. Like its cover, the book presents bold ideas. On page five, there's a simple but powerful concept. One of the first theories presented states that the key to a happy life is to be selective about the things you care about. This revelation is not new, but reading it helps put things in perspective. Spending your time fretting over the most unnamed things makes you lose focus on what really matters. Five, accept that not everyone will like you. As Jane Austen would say, it is a truth universally acknowledged. In life, some people will like you and others might not, and that's okay. Your uniqueness and the qualities that you possess make you who you are. It's no less than a challenge. It is no easy feat facing someone who has negative views of you, but most of the time that's their mindset and their mindset only. It has nothing to do with you. There will be people who will accept all of you. People who will be supportive and kind. These are the people who deserve to walk with you. And six, take on the challenges. Are you afraid of making mistakes? Do you have a knack for cognitive distortions and negative patterns of thinking? It's an evolutionary trait that was formed to keep your ancestors from danger. However, it often keeps you from going after the things you want in life. You worry about ending up looking like a fool because of a mistake, but mistakes are inevitable and avoiding them is futile. When you surpass your fear of making mistakes and build resilience to the pain that may come from failure, you will be unstoppable. One way to deal with anxieties about messing up is to make a list of all the possible things that could go wrong. This can help create some distance between ideations and reality. It also allows you to logically process possible outcomes and provide solutions. If it feels as though you can't handle the outcomes on your own, you can then ask someone supportive and reliable for help. It's fine to wanna make a good impression on others. In the end, the reason why we all care so much about others is because of our survival instinct. After all, our happiness and quality of life depends on the quality of our relationships. We want to be in their good books so that we can develop and nurture our relationships with them, but learning to dial down that inner self-conscious voice also is important. It allows you to create space for things that matter and can help you lead a happy and fulfilled life. We hope we were able to give you a little insight into some of the ways that can help you to stop putting too much stock into others' opinions of you. Do you have this tendency? Let us know in the comments below. Please be sure to hit the like and subscribe button and share it with someone who cares a little too much about what others think. Hit the notification bell icon to get notified whenever Psych2Go posts a new video. And as always, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time.