How To Not Care What Other People Think About You

In this episode of #AskStefan, I answer a question from someone about whether or not people laughed or made fun of me when I first publicly started sharing my goals in 2012.

I also talk about how it's important to not care what other people think about you.

A quote by Lao Tzu sums it up perfectly – “Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”

Everyone else will have a plan for your life and will judge you for not living what they believe is right.  I faced a lot of this growing up in my family.

Ultimately, you have to be able to make your own decisions based on what will make YOU happy and help you create the life that YOU dream about.

At the end of the day you are the only person who needs to approve of your own choices.

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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Video transcript

What's up, everyone? This is Stefan from projectlifemastery.com coming to you guys from a beautiful little island in Thailand right now. It's called Ko Lae, and it's literally the smallest island I've ever been on. You can literally walk across it in about a minute.

We took a boat and went to Ko Phi Phi Don, went snorkeling, and then we went to Maya Bay, which is where the movie “the Beach” was filmed with Leonardo Di Caprio, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. We went to hang out with monkeys, and we've just been having an awesome day. It's been great here.

I only have a few minutes right now, because our boat is parked on this island for about a half hour. I want to make sure that I get off this island because I don't want to be stranded here.

Did your friends and family laugh at you and make fun of you?

I thought I'd take out the camera and shoot a video for you guys and answer one of the AskStefan questions. Now the question that I have is from someone named Claus Schmidt, and the question, I don't have it actually in front of me, but the question was, “Did your friends and family laugh at you and make fun of you when you originally shared your goals on your YouTube channel and on your blog back in 2012?”

Just so you're clear what he's referring to, back in 2012 is when I started projectlifemastery.com and my YouTube channel. I still use Project Life Mastery as a way to be accountable, to declare my goals, to share my life. Just by publicly declaring my goals, it forces me to be accountable, step up and achieve them.

Did people laugh? Did people judge me? Did people make fun of me? The answer to that is actually no, but yes. People didn't explicitly judge me or make fun of me to my face or anything like that, and I think one reason for that is you have to understand, before 2012, I was already doing a lot of online marketing and already had a fair level of success in my life.

Maybe I didn't outwardly have a nice car or apartment, but by that point in my life, I was still doing really, really well. I had achieved financial freedom. I was making at least over $60,000 to $100,000 a year just from online marketing and was doing really well.

Before that, though, I remember when I was 21 years old and I left the family business, I was working for my dad. I decided to quit that business and then go start a dating coaching business with two friends called Lifestyle Transformations. Previously before that, I was a very shy person. That's how most of my family knew me before then. I definitely … It wasn't something that my dad really approved of back then, but you know what?

You can't live your life worrying about what other people think

You have to live your life for yourself, making sure that you're doing what makes you happy. Because if you're making everyone else happy, but you're not making yourself happy, then what's the point of it all? There's no point in doing that. You have to make sure that you make the right decisions that are best for you and your life.

If other people don't like that, that's okay. You have to be okay with that. The truth is, not everyone's going to agree with you. Not everyone's going to approve of the decisions that you make, but you have to do what's right for you, what feels right, and what ultimately is going to help you create the life that you want, the vision that you have for your life.

Despite that, I kept moving forward. I've had a lot of adversity throughout my life, a lot of judgment, a lot of negativity, a lot of rejection, but after a while, you just become numb to that. You become desensitized towards what other people think of you.

That's essentially what's happened throughout my life, because that was one of the only ways that I could actually overcome the shyness and the fear and insecurity that I had was actually to purposely go out there and face those rejections and fears, and purposely try to find ways to put myself in situations where I'd be in awkward or uncomfortable situations, and being able to move forward from that. I think that builds a lot of your confidence as well.

Now back in 2012, though, when I first posted my life and my goals and everything, another reason why a lot of people at that time didn't really make fun of me or anything is because I've always been very conscious about surrounding myself with the right people.

I've always believed that who you spend time with is who you become

It's really important to surround yourself with people that are positive, that are supportive of you.  If you have people in your life that are negative, that are pulling you down, that are making fun of you, and judging you, and laughing at you, then these aren't the people that you want in your life. Even if they're on Facebook, if they're on Facebook and they're making fun of you and stuff like that, why are you friends with them? Why would you want those people around you in your life?

I'd be personally delete and eliminate those people from your life because it's almost like you've got to pull weeds out of your garden. If you have this beautiful garden, one or two weeds can destroy the whole thing. You have to be very careful of that. Whenever there is negativity or people that are holding you back in your life, you have to be quick to eliminate that.

If it's friends, if it's family … friends, it's challenging. I've been there before. I have friends from high school that I used to be close with that I had to distance myself from over a period of time because we just weren't aligned.

I remember, actually, when I really wanted to change my life and become more outgoing and social, a lot of the friends that I had back then, they just wanted to stay at home and play video games. I just knew that wasn't what I wanted anymore. I wanted to be free from that. I wanted to evolve. I wanted to develop my social skills and confidence.

I knew that to get to where I wanted to go, I couldn't hang out with friends that just wanted to play video games on Friday and Saturday night. I had to find people that were more outgoing, that were more social, that were more confident, be around them, and distance myself, unfortunately, from a lot of the friends that didn't really have the characteristics, or the division, or the same alignment of goals and habits and behaviors and all that sort of stuff that what I really wanted.

You can distance yourself…

When it comes to family, though … I've only got a few more minutes, because they're actually calling me, but when it comes to family, the family is a tough one, because you can't just eliminate them from your life, but you can distance yourself. I remember for me just living at home when I was young, one of the best decisions I ever made, I'm so grateful for, and I'm sure many if you guys can relate to this as well, has been moving out of my parents' house.

I just remember for myself, living with your parents, at times you get frustrated with each other, annoyed, or maybe your parents have certain rules and stuff, and that can kind of limit you from really growing in your life. When you decide to move out, you become more independent, you get to make your own decisions, and it's a really good place to be.

I just remember for myself, that was a big decision for my life. Then the great thing is, once you move out you can see your family and spend time with them more on your terms. If you have people in your family that are negative and not supportive of you, then you can still hang out with those people when you see them and what not, but I would just consciously distance myself from them, at least for a period of time so that you can really focus on achieving your goals and making them happen.

The funny thing is eventually once you achieve massive success in your life, all of those people that might have laughed at you or made fun of you or judged you or thought certain things, they won't be thinking that anymore. Sure enough, they'll actually all come to you and want to know exactly what you're doing, and want to learn from you, and benefit from you as well. I can relate to that as well.

Once I started having massive success and doing these amazing things, all of a sudden all my family members, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my brother, sister, all of them wanted to know what I was doing. Sure enough, a lot of them got into Kindle publishing and went through my courses, and they totally treat me and respect me on a much different level now as well.

Same thing with a lot of old friends, a lot of friends from high school, people that might even just be acquaintances, they'll start reaching out to you and whatnot. It's really kind of amazing how that can happen.

Get over what people think of you

That's kind of a unique experience that you go through once you achieve massive success is that results speak for itself. People don't really judge you or make fun of you or anything like that at that point. Overall, the message that I have for you is just get over what people think of you.

Part of being a confident successful person is being the kind of person that is unfazed by that, that just is unaffected by that. They live their purpose. They do what they feel is right, make decisions that are based on the greater good, what they want to serve in the world, and also what's right in their heart.

As you become more successful, in many ways you actually get more criticism, more judgment, more negativity, but it's more so people that might be jealous of you, or insecure, or threatened, or just you become more of a target, in some ways as well. You have to be able to deal with that also, if you want to have a lot of success in your life and not be affected by it. There are people out there that don't like me.

I don't know why. I've never met these people before. Maybe it's something that I said or did, or maybe how I live my life. Who knows, but you can't let that affect you. Someone that's on the internet who you have no idea who that person is, and it's … I kind of view the internet sometimes as just kind of this fantasy world and not really as real life, because it just feels like a different universe and everything.

That's something that comes with the territory

I think just developing your confidence in who you are, and just doing what you feel is right, as long as you stay true to that, yourself, and you can look yourself in the mirror and feel good about yourself, that's ultimately the most important thing. Don't let anything like that hold you back, and stop you from sharing your goals, your life.

You want your friends, the people in your life to support you, to cheer you on, to like your posts on Facebook, cheer you on with your goals and support you. If they don't, then maybe you have the wrong people that you're surrounding yourself with. That's another thing to think about as well.

I've ranted now for about ten minutes. Hopefully, I can get off this island now, but hopefully, you guys also enjoyed this video. I feel really blessed and grateful just having this chance to be able to communicate with you guys, and share my message, and answer your questions, and be able to connect with you.

Looking forward to seeing what you guys think of this video, and I got some more videos coming for you guys soon, but I'm going to get going now. Make sure to like and leave a comment below, and I'll talk to you guys soon. Take care.