Struggling to care less about what other people think? Care more instead.

My whole life, and especially my whole career, I have been given the well-intentioned but horribly unhelpful advice to just care less.

Maybe you have received this advice. Perhaps you’ve even said it to yourself. “Care less about what other people do and care less about what other people think. Stop worrying so much about others and just don’t let any of it get to you.”

If you are like me, you have wanted to scream back at the person delivering this advice, “Don’t you think that if it was that easy I would be doing that already?! Don’t you think that if I could just shut it off, I would, rather than remain in this miserable state?”

Instead of screaming back, I spent years of my life feeling guilty for not being able to “just let it go,” and carried around the growing belief that I was too emotional, too insecure, too intense, and too much. 

I even crafted a well-practiced persona of aloofness that I successfully wore in the world most days. However, in the moments that I couldn’t keep up the facade anymore, everything always came tumbling down Humpty-Dumpty style. 

But here’s the thing - for leaders, entrepreneurs, and people working in the creative industry - our work is deeply personal. We CARE. And this is not a bad thing. Passion is powerful. It’s the fuel behind inspirational work and meaningful change in the world. It drives greatness, and for many of us, it drives our careers and our lives forward.

Is it always helpful to care about what other people think? Absolutely not. 

However, addressing the issue by taking away (or more typically, shoving down) the caring is not productive. What is productive is to take that caring and give it a new home. 

If you feel like you care too much about what other people think, say, and do - here are some things to care more about instead…

• Care more about the company you keep. Surround yourself with people who support you, lift you up, and foster your growth. Seek out people who inspire you, not only with their achievements but with their daily actions and how they show up in the world.

• Care more about your physical environment. What do you need to give yourself today to have a better tomorrow? Is it more sleep, more food, more movement? Humans are complicated plants - the basics are more important than we like to believe.

• Care more about your level of integrity. Are your thoughts aligned with your words aligned with your actions? Operating from a place of integrity doesn’t just benefit others, it is a turbo boost for our own self confidence. 

By caring more about the factors that directly contribute to our own happiness, we can slowly and permanently turn down the volume on how much we care about what other people think, do and say.

Please stop leading with “we” in meetings

Have you ever spent an hour (maybe even hours) of your life sitting in a meeting only to leave with less clarity about what the next steps are?  

Have you had multiple meetings, conversations, and email threads about the same project with a ton of repetition and redundancy, yet no apparent progress is being made?

Is nothing specific is ever assigned to you in meetings, but somehow you still end up executing ideas that you didn’t even suggest?  

You, my friend, have got a “we” problem. 

A “we” problem is what happens when a team or organization engages in a pattern of assigning new ideas, projects and endeavors to everyone and nobody at the same time. Suggested responsibility is just clear enough to gain approval while being just vague enough to kill productivity.

The thing is that this problem usually starts as a quest for solutions. The “we” pattern typically forms when an organization decides to begin brainstorming in meetings without an actual process for the communication and implementation of new ideas. 

Maybe it starts when a manager hears the advice that they should be soliciting innovative input from their team. So they do! Until this point, success in meetings was measured by progress updates. Now the staff is not only encouraged to generate new ideas, they are assessed on their ability to do so.

As a result, a tentative energy creeps into the meetings. Does a good idea mean that it will immediately be implemented? What even constitutes a good idea? What if someone suggests an idea that creates more work for their colleagues? What if someone suggests an idea that creates more work for themselves?

Enter the grand “we.”

“We should explore new programming that attracts new audiences.”

“What if we launched an expanded marketing initiative around this event?”

“I think we need to create a process to better onboard people onto the team.”

All of these ideas may be valid, and even exactly what the organization needs. But they all raise the question….

“Who’s we?”

“We” could be anybody or nobody. Usually, the work suggested in “we” land either remains in a suspended limbo, or falls to the person least practiced in shoving work off onto others. So while the work might eventually get done, the credit and acknowledgement is diffused across the group. And the cycle continues on.

The good news? Stopping the “we” cycle is wildly simple. The next time you’re in a meeting and someone makes a “we” suggestion, be sure to ask “who specifically will be responsible for taking lead on this?” 

Seriously, it’s just that easy. It might feel a little awkward at first, but you raising that question a few times will eventually create a cultural shift towards clarity.

The “we” problem is only a problem as long as it remains silent and unseen. As soon as you spot it, you can stop it, and save you and your colleagues hours of confusion, anxiety, and tension.

Integrity - The Magic Key You've Been Searching For

In the quest for better - a better job, a better relationship, a better collaboration, a better friendship - integrity is the primary attribute we want to be looking for in ourselves and in others.

I define integrity as the alignment of thoughts, words, and actions. If one of these aspects is out of alignment or inconsistent, we are out of integrity.

The introduction of integrity as a concept was a huge game changer in my own life. Understanding integrity alleviated a lot of guilt, blame, and anger for myself and for others. It also allowed me to easily identify and eliminate people and situations that were not serving my own growth as well as identify and attract those of a higher quality into my life.

Just to be clear: lack of integrity does not equal lack of likability or appeal. There are plenty of likable people and shiny opportunities that are totally out of integrity. In fact, many people who exist in a non-integritous state will naturally hyper-develop their charisma and social graces to compensate.

So, how do we spot low integrity, and how do we handle it? Let’s break it down:

It starts with the Thought to Words connection

People experiencing disjointedness at this stage forget that the world can not read their mind! They may later attempt to employ actions that reveal their true thoughts, or maybe they just suffer in silence. 

At their worst, they end up blaming others for not possessing mind reading capacities and refuse to take responsibility for using their words to accurately represent their thoughts. 

Usually, it’s just that they are so afraid of sharing their true thoughts in all of their messy, uncertain, undeveloped stages - because then they might not be accepted, respected, and loved.

If this is you - try prefacing a thought share by saying “This is difficult for me, but I want to discuss some not fully developed thoughts I have.” 

Then Words turn into Actions

People whose actions do not match their words usually have forgotten the enormous importance that words carry in today’s society. They may not realize how much of an impact their off-handed comments and promises can have on others. 

At their worst, they end up blaming others for being too sensitive or having unrealistic expectations of them. 

Usually, its just that they have a diminished concept of how much others pay attention to them. They might be “playing small” in many areas of their life due to a fear of failure or a fear of success.

If this is you - take some time to look at your concept of self-love and self-confidence. It may seem woo-woo, but the more you build yourself up internally, the easier it will be for you to follow through on your promises externally.  

Integrity is a practice, and all of us slip out of it from time to time. However, when we decide to seek out integrity - both internally and externally - we are able to take ownership of our own life experience, and ultimately create the experience we want.

Work breakups are the worst breakups

You’re exhausted. You feel unseen, unheard, and under-appreciated. You know you deserve better, but you just can’t leave. It’s like if you can get them to see how wonderful you are, they’ll finally treat you better.

The truth is: your employer is just not that into you.  

Ouch! If you’ve ever been in this position at work, you know just how painful it can feel. And leaving that workplace that is no longer a fit (or never was), whether you are asked to leave or choose to, can feel like a deeply painful breakup. 

Of course it does! Our work takes up between one third to one half of our week. Most of us want to feel useful and appreciated in life, and the workplace is a prime environment to prove ourselves. Plus, most people seek to do work they are passionate about. Passion is an emotional word, we are emotional creatures…and so when we are experiencing difficulty at work? That’s emotional too.  

When it comes to romantic breakups, there is widely accepted advice about how to move onwards and upwards. However, society’s advice regarding the workplace tends to revolve around the sentiment, “Work isn’t emotional. It’s business.”

So when you feel emotional about leaving a job that didn’t even feel that great to be in? You feel wrong for being so emotional and don’t have any mechanism to feel differently. 

Like with romantic breakups, there is a tried and true path to getting over that work breakup. And it revolves around you owning your emotions and taking the steps to process them efficiently and effectively.  

Step 1: Decide on the why.

When your employment ends, whether you chose to leave or they chose to let you go, the reason why it didn’t work is entirely up to you to decide. There may be many things to choose from (e.g. it was their fault, it was my fault) so try to choose a reason that is conducive to the mindset you want to have once you feel resolved (e.g. it wasn’t a good fit from the beginning but it took some time to uncover why). 

Step 2: Create distance.

Seriously. If you are at all triggered by a past employer of yours, if seeing your replacement makes you feel angry, if seeing their press releases makes you feel rejected - you need space. It’s not embarrassing, it’s a temporary need that will bring you the peace and space to heal if you let it. So do what you need to do - and don’t be afraid to tell your ex-coworkers you need them to chill on the workplace gossip updates for a few weeks. 

Step 3: Make it about your future, not your past.

What do you want in your next job? Your ideal career? What types of qualities, what types of employers, what types of colleagues? What are your core values? What are your non-negotiables? Every job we take informs us about what we do and do not want from our next employer. What about this situation worked well? What didn’t? How can you seek out future opportunities that are more aligned with your priorities?

If you are feeling complicated emotions around leaving a job, it’s totally okay! You definitely aren’t alone, and the sooner you accept that your emotions are valid, your experience is yours, and the feelings will pass, the more quickly and easily you will be able to move on towards a more joyful and fulfilling future career.