A couple of days ago, my internet friend Séan tweeted about an article that talked about 15 things you should do to make your life happier (or something like that). Here’s a link to the article.
The basic gist of the article is that we should stop worrying about what others think about us. Much of what we do that results in stressing ourselves out involves doing something that doesn’t resonate quite right because we are doing whatever we’re doing in order to make someone else happy because we are worried about what they think about us. (As a quick aside, I apologize to all of my English teachers in high school for the hideous syntax I just used to construct that sentence. I don’t think I left anything dangling but sometimes I write the way my brain processes something and we all know about the organized chaos I have up there).
Anyways, since reading that article, thinking about it and having a good discussion about it with Earl, I have come to the realization that it’s absolutely on target. I have made a conscious effort to not worry about what others may think about me in a variety of situations and it has markedly lowered my stress level. So I got a little more ‘ranty’ than usual on a conference call yesterday. I got my point across (using sentence construction much like that paragraph that precedes this one) and things are happening that need to be happening now on one of my work projects.
In all honesty, I wouldn’t be walking around with a mustache the size of a small country if I truly cared what people think about me, but there are some things here and there that I am self-conscious about and this has slowed me down and deterred my original path in the past. Dropping the charade of trying to impress and just doing my thing because it’s true to me has lowered my blood pressure and put a bigger smile on my face.
And if people notice a bigger smile, then they can share the happiness I’m feeling. And that’s always a good thing.
Love it! Good strategy! Stick with it!!
It’s one of those things that really should be obvious, but is actually not as easy to implement as one thinks. I guess it’s a self-awareness thing too. If you’re aware of your impact on others you usually to try to modify that and that results in you behaving to please people, rather than you behaving how you *want* to. Generally I think that’s a positive else we’d all be selfish twunts. But there’s a lot to be said for selfish with a small “s” I think. Or actually, maybe it’s not selfishness. Maybe it’s simply being true to who you are. But in a good way.