How Do I Stop Worrying What People Think of Me?

There’s a kind of exhaustion a holiday or an extra night’s sleep doesn’t seem to touch. It’s the exhaustion of living with a court in your head that never closes. Every decision, from what to study to how to reply to a message, goes through the same questions. ‘What will they think of me? How will it look? Will I come across as capable or just about good enough?’ The personal growth library’s section on self-worth has more on what happens when those questions start to run the day.

Many people who know themselves well still get caught in this loop. They’ve read books, talked things through and done work on themselves. Yet when criticism comes up at work, a partner expects something or they want to do something for themselves, the familiar tension returns. Worry about what others will think takes over, and they set aside what they wanted again.

The first-century Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote about a pain that still feels familiar. Why hand other people so much power over how we live? His observations about trying to prove ourselves are worth reading today.

1. The reputation trap: who gets to decide what you’re worth?

In On Tranquility of Mind, Seneca considers the strain of keeping up an image in front of others. If my peace depends on what the audience thinks, even a simple decision can become a trial I conduct in my head before anybody speaks.

Trying to prove yourself can become an agreement you never meant to make. If your sense of who you are depends on other people’s opinions, you’ve built your house on shifting sand. You can’t decide what someone else thinks or feels. What might change if you stopped putting your peace in their hands and started paying attention to your own compass?

2. What are we afraid criticism will mean?

Why is it so hard to quiet the voice asking what people will say? In his thirteenth letter to Lucilius, Seneca turns to the fear of what might happen.

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

When you consider saying no, changing direction at work or offering a different opinion, you may already see a disappointed look and everything that could follow. Criticism can happen. The question is whether you’re already giving up your choice because of a response that hasn’t happened yet.

3. What it costs to keep up an image

In On the Shortness of Life, Seneca suggests that what makes life feel short is how much of it we spend on things we never chose for ourselves.

If that tension around other people’s opinions feels familiar, the guide to building more stable self-worth can help you look at what happens when approval falls away.

Think of the energy you spend making sure you came across well. You replay a meeting and wish you’d said it differently. You analyse a look. You try to please everyone in advance so they’ll have no reason to criticise you. Seneca reminds us that the time and energy we spend this way are part of our lives. The years we spend proving our worth are years we take away from ourselves.

From recognising the fear to working with it

Seneca’s writing can help us see the problem clearly. The hard part is carrying that insight into a moment when your body tenses at the prospect of criticism. You can tell yourself a thousand times that their opinion doesn’t matter and still feel the words catch in your throat. Read more about why we repeat patterns we already understand.

With the M.S.A. approach, we start with one familiar moment. Say you’re about to disagree at work and you tense up before anyone reacts. We map what you expect will happen and what you’re about to give up to prevent it. In the Shed stage we work with what comes up around that fear, such as the shame you anticipate or the feeling that being corrected in public would decide what you’re worth.

In the Advance stage you can choose an action that fits. In a meeting, you might say, ‘I see a different risk here. Can we look at it?’ even if you know some people will disagree. Afterwards, look at what happened, how you responded when challenged and what you want to carry into the next meeting.

You can begin to put down some of the weight of having to prove yourself.

If this is the moment when it feels as though you lose your say, read how we work on it in personal emotional coaching.