And hello to you and welcome to the Richard Nichols podcast, the Personal Development

podcast series that's here to help inspire, educate and motivate you to be the best you can be.

I'm psychotherapist Richard Nichols, and this is episode 216.

It's titled, Can We Not Care What Others Think?

And if you're ready, we'll start the show.

Hey there, you fabulous folk. Have you had a good month? What you've been up to? I've been making little five minute videos every Friday and putting them on YouTube. If you haven't seen those, do subscribe there. Link is in

the show notes. Actually, I've started videoing these podcast episodes too, so they're on YouTube

too. If you'd prefer to watch a podcast than listen. This is

the 21st century. There are lots of ways to get content nowadays, isn't there? And because there are so

many ways of putting yourself out there too, no matter who we are, we might all need a slightly

thicker skin than we needed 20 years ago. You might meet

people who say, I don't care what other people think, but it's likely that either, one, they're lying to us,

or two, they're lying to themselves.

Caring about what other people think is one thing, though, but worrying about what other people think is another.

It's a common thing that so many people who come into therapy will talk about.

And when they do, it's worth drilling down on who they mean when they say to themselves that they worry about what other people think. Who are these anonymous other people?

If you can be a bit specific about who you mean, you've got a bit more control over it.

But if for decades you carry around this feeling, even if it only

belongs with one person in your life whose opinion you care about, it can spread out to everyone

until you've totally forgotten that it was really only your dad you were trying to impress when

you were 10 and he's long past caring anymore. Do you actually care what other people think?

Or is it just a feeling?

...