How to stop making decisions based on what other people think
At some point in our lives, we have all made decisions based on what other people think rather than what we feel is right. Worse than that, we’ve probably made a decision based on what we think other people think.
For me, I’ve experienced this most when I drink alcohol. I really suffer from hangovers to the point where I will have to spend the whole day in bed and still feel the negative effects for days afterwards. I lack energy and clarity in my thinking and often find it difficult to shake feelings of anxiety, guilt and sadness. So the question is; why on earth would I drink to the point of giving myself a hangover? If you drink, it’s probably a question you have asked yourself at some point in your life. There are lots of reasons people drink, but for me, one of the contributing factors is social pressure.
Peer pressure is something most of us are aware of but probably don’t like to admit we give in to. It’s an extremely powerful psychological phenomenon which was first popularised by Solomon Asch. The polish psychologist was a pioneer in his field and was known for creating the Asch experiment, in which participants were tested on their visual judgements using shapes and lines. Asch found that despite participants knowing answers were wrong, they conformed to the groups answer because they didn’t want to be the odd one out. Half a century later, Gregory Berns replicated this study using MRI imaging to detect brain activity. Berns concluded that people who resisted the group pressure actually experienced emotional discomfort ±.
This helps us to understand why social pressure is so powerful and hopefully makes you feel less guilty when you find yourself being influenced by social pressures but how do we stop this from happening? Drinking alcohol is just one example, but there are so many ways in which our behaviour can be by other peoples opinions and expectations. Everything from a romantic relationship to a career choice, but whatever it is, there’s usually someone with an opinion.
The question is; how do we stop ourselves making decisions based on what other people think?
Specifically, how do we stick to what we feel is right, and stay true to our values, despite what society and our peers may think?
I have realised there are three key elements;
Step 1: Awareness
The first and most important part of the process is to be aware that we are doing it. Without this, we have no power to challenge or change it. I find it useful to ask myself questions in order to create this awareness. For example;
Is this decision based purely on what is best for me? How often am I making decisions based on what I believe to be other people’s perception of me?
This question is the catalyst for change and without it, it’s easy for these actions and decisions to be a subconscious process. Like all forms of mindfulness, the key is in observing your own thoughts and being able to see things objectively, rather than getting caught up in them.
Step 2: Challenge your assumptions
The second part of the process is about challenging those assumptions and thoughts. Do you really know your friends will respond in that way? Maybe they have in the past, but have you tried explaining why it’s important to you and how you would like them to support you? Ultimately, your real friends will support your decisions and just want you to be happy. If people are annoyed you aren’t drinking, it’s actually a reflection of their own wants and desires, not their feelings about you and your actions.
We also make decisions based upon false assumptions. We don’t do things because we are worried what people might think, and ultimately that is beyond our control. If we are to be truly free of this, we need to accept that we never really know what anyone is thinking until we ask them. Even then, there is no guarantee that they are telling the truth. By adjusting our actions based on our perception of other people’s thoughts, we are giving away our power to external factors beyond our control and setting ourselves up for a life of internal conflict and unfullfilment.
Step 3: Get in touch with your authentic self
The final piece of the jigsaw is dealing with people who do vocally oppose your actions. This is often hard to overcome because we will often experience emotional discomfort and pain when someone judges or disagrees with us. If I find myself in this scenario, I revisit a concept I learnt about years ago when I first became interested in psychology, which suggests we have three versions of our self.
The first version is our pretend self; this is the image of ourselves we project out into the world and the one that we want other people to see. It’s based on how we would like to be perceived rather than how we are actually perceived by other people. We all have a pretend self and it’s driven by our ego, it’s worried about superficial things and can often dominate our personality if we aren’t careful.
The second version is our negative self-image. This is who we are afraid we are. The things that we don’t want other people to associate with us. It’s often based on our previous experiences, where we’ve had pain or been judged for a certain belief or behaviour. Our pretend self is influenced by our negative self-image as a way to cover up for the behaviours we fear. For example; we might try to make people see how honest we are if we believe that sometimes we can be dishonest and we believe that to be an extremely negative trait. It’s wroth noting that the things we dislike in other people are often part of our own negative self-image.
The final version is our authentic self. This is who we truly are. The version of ourself we connect to when we are alone and there is silence. The version of our self that isn’t influenced or motivated by other people’s views or opinions. This is the hardest part of our self to stay in touch with and it’s why we feel internal conflict when we behave in a way that goes against our core values. Many people have lost touch with this version of themselves and find it very difficult to reconnect after years of practising their pretend self. Often our authentic self is uncovered by life changing events such as a death or relationships break down.
The authentic self is a huge topic, but for the purpose of this article, it’s important to realise that our authentic self is the version that resists giving in to peer pressure and our negative self-image is what makes us change our behaviour and conform. The only way to stay in touch with your authentic self is to really understand and believe there are significant benefits of doing so.
Whenever you feel you aren’t being your authentic self, fast forward to the end of your life and imagine how you would feel, knowing that you lived a life that wasn’t in line with what you truly valued. Visualise how that would feel and really step into that pain.
Then imagine what you could achieve by being your authentic self and all of the great things that could come of it. Step into that image and play it through in your mind. What could you achieve? Who could you become without the barriers of your pretend self of your negative self-image?
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“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” ~ C.G. Jung
