Untangling Draining Habits – Worrying About Other People’s Opinion

If you have been in my world for a while, you will know that I am passionate about habits and untangling draining habits to live a fulfilling and whole-hearted life as a well-being. So I am writing a series to shed some light on some draining habits that have come back in to my awareness recently.

Before I start sharing about draining habits, let’s have a look at what draining habits are.

What Are Draining Habits?

Basically – habits can be useful or not so useful, helpful or not so helpful, stress inducing or not. Sometimes we are conscious of our habit/s (i.e. often chosen and intentional) or the habit/s can sit within our blind spots or the unknown.

When I refer to draining habits, I am referring to habits that are impacting our overall life, business or well-being. They could be adding extra stress, suffering or draining life force energy in our lives. The draining habits could be showing up in one or a variety of areas within our lives (i.e. physical, emotional, mental, financial, environmental or social).

In order to start to untangle from draining habits, we need to develop self-awareness, so we can be more responsible and take ownership of our own life. Today I wanted to introduce worrying about other people’s opinions.

Draining Habit: Worrying About Other People’s Opinion

In this draining habit, I am going to divide up the words and will start with worrying. If you are a habitual worrier or worry excessively, you may already be familiar with the following definitions of worrying –

• “causing anxiety about actual or potential problems; alarming.” ~ Google and Oxford Dictionaries
• “to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts; fret” ~ Dictionary.com
• “To feel uneasy or concerned about something; be troubled ~ The Free Dictionary

In the above definitions of worrying, you probably noticed the words –

• uneasy, torment, and
• actual or potential problems.

Is there anything you would add to these definitions of worrying?

And Other People’s Opinions…

Other people opinions relates to judgement, advice and feedback you are given with or without consent (e.g. social media).

Where Does Worrying About Other People’s Opinions Show Up?

Worrying about other people’s opinions can show up in many places within our lives. For example –

• within ourselves – for example worrying about their opinions about our capabilities or something about ourselves – worrying about if other people think we are good enough or not, their opinions about the food we eat, sport/s we play or do not play, our weight, happiness levels etc.
• in our relationships – worrying about if they think we are a good enough partner,
• outside of our immediate relationships – for examples of social media, people who haven’t seen you for a while, workplaces etc.

Don’t worry, I imagine most of us have experienced worrying about other people’s opinions in our lives until we develop self-awareness, so BE self-compassionate 🙂 I love the quote by Dr Wayne Dyer –

“What other people think of me is none of my business.”

Over to You…

Now you have this awareness, what is your next step? Feel free to share any insights on worrying about other people’s opinions or a reflection below. Sometimes change can take a while, so be patient and of course self-compassionate. Also – remember when we focus on the right people’s opinions and they are consciously understood it supports our adventure of wholeness and heartful living.

If you are ready to take yourself on the adventure of getting to know yourself (your true Self), why not join the Toolkit? A place where I share tools, inspiration and ideas to live a courageous and openhearted life.