It is possible to overcome the tendency of taking things personally only when it is fully understood.
This advice is for those who have trouble taking control of their lives.
– It shouldn’t be a problem!
– Don’t be so hard on yourself.
– He was not implying anything.
– Or, our personal favorite…
– It is possible to just let go of things.
Although we are confident that those who offer this kind of advice are good people, they don’t consider the most important question:
Sometimes, there are powerful psychological reasons to take things personally.
It is possible to overcome the urge to take things personally only when you understand it.
Social perfectionionism is when you are unable to bear the thought of others seeing your mistakes or flaws.
If you think you must be perfect, you will start to worry about how others view you. It is almost impossible to take things personally if you worry about what other people think.
This is what happens.
Making mistakes is okay. It’s fine to make mistakes.
We are social creatures after all. Our greatest strength as a species is our ability to coordinate and work with one another. This ability is dependent on our ability to see and imagine the feelings and thoughts of others, as well as about ourselves. It’s not surprising that we care so much about what others think of us.
We have been taught by the self-help industry that we should not care what other people think. This is absurd!
Fundamentally, we are social creatures. Worrying about the opinions of others is part and parcel.
Social perfectionists are too focused on their own needs and not interested in what others think.
You can stop worrying about the opinions of others and start to take things more seriously by validating your concerns rather than judging them.
If you are worried about what other people think of you, it is normal.
Many of us learn early that being tough on ourselves is the only way to succeed in life. This leads to a powerful, but subtle, negative self-talk.
Many of us have a similar attitude towards ourselves to the drill sergeant that insults his new recruits in order to “make them men.”
We believe that being hard on ourselves will make us more successful. This reasoning has a problem.
Performance is affected by being tough and critical of oneself.
It can also lead to a negative self-talk pattern that lasts a lifetime. This can cause anxiety, low self-esteem, and other side effects like depression, self-talk, and even worse, taking things too seriously. You can.
If someone criticizes or makes harsh comments about you, it can have a negative effect on your thinking. Instead of seeing the incident as an isolated event, you may start to see it as a pattern.
Instead of trying harder at this part of my job we say that we are a loser.
Instead of feeling disappointed by my work, we can tell ourselves we are disappointed in our own shortcomings.
You can’t take things personally if you don’t want to make a mistake.
To be free from negative self-talk and to realize that you don’t have to be harsh on yourself in order to remain motivated and successful, is the true freedom.
Cognitive restructuring and self-compassion are two techniques that can be used to break the cycle of self-conversion.
Pride is everyone’s favorite sin!
Partly because of the Christian heritage of Western culture many people believe that pride is evil or sinful. That’s why they expelled Adam and Eve out of Paradise and kicked Lucifer from heaven. Are they thinking too highly of themselves?
We aren’t so sure. The sin of pride is when you think you are superior to others.
Recognizing your strengths and virtues is not a bad thing.
Even though we cannot talk about the spiritual side, it can be very beneficial psychologically to have a healthy sense pride in oneself.
What does this have to do with taking things personally?
Sometimes taking things personally can mean that you don’t value your own opinions enough and others too much.
Take, for example:
Let’s suppose your spouse makes a rude or sarcastic comment about you. If you believe that other people are smarter and more capable than you are, and you also believe that your spouse is foolish and weaker, you have a higher chance of believing the comments and internalizing them.
However, it’ll be easier to maintain a healthy sense pride and remind yourself regularly of your positive qualities and strengths. I am very meticulous. I am very conscientious and hardworking. Don’t take your partner’s words too seriously.
A healthy sense of pride can be a powerful defense against unfair criticisms and taking things personally.
It will make it easier to resist criticisms and blame.
Most people are taught early in life that it is important for us to be kind, compassionate and personable. We also need to prioritize the needs and wants of others.
Then, we become so reliant on this that we take it to the extreme and care for others while neglecting our own needs.
This is not sustainable over the long-term. You may find yourself taking things personally more often if you are constantly depriving your needs and wants by being too accommodating to others.
It’s worth thinking about:
What are you teaching yourself about your relative importance to others if you don’t take care of your needs?
You don’t matter.
It shouldn’t surprise that people criticize you for doing something. Your automatic assumption is that they are right and that your thoughts and feelings are not very important. You don’t need to be a psychologist in order to understand how this will lead you to take things personally.
Learning to assert yourself is the solution.
Being assertive is the ability to ask for and reject what you want, while being honest with yourself and respectful of others.
You will begin to value yourself when you are more assertive. You will be able to resist taking things personally when you start to assert yourself.
After being criticized, it’s common to take things personally. It’s tempting to take the words of another person as their fault, but technically that’s not true.
Cognitive scientists validated a theory about emotion that philosophers tried to convince us for over 2,000 years. It was 50 years ago. Cognitive mediation is the name of it.
Cognitive mediation is the belief that the world does not cause emotions. It is our thoughts about these things that influence how we feel.
Here’s a concrete example.
As you drive down the road, a man in a red sportscar passes you and cuts you off. This forces you to slow down and almost causes an accident.
It’s understandable to get angry. It is understandable that you get angry. But, the question is: Was the man who cut you off provoked your anger.
Technically, no. Your story about what has caused you anger and how it can be resolved.
You were an idiot if that was the first thing you thought of after being cut off. You will likely react with anger, so please pray they stop.
However, if your first thought is OMG! Fear could be the predominant emotion.
You must take things personally. Not the stories that others tell, but the stories you tell.
It is a good idea to not take criticisms too seriously and to be more aware of the stories you tell about yourself. If possible, make those stories more realistic or, even better, stop telling them.
It’s easier said than done, but our natural tendency to tell ourselves stories is a habit. With patience and practice, habits can be changed.
As babies and toddlers, we learn a lot about ourselves from the people around us.
A baby learns from his mother when he smiles at her and she smiles back.
A child begins to see himself as useless and lazy when he hears his parents say he is “useless” and lazy.
Social beings are at the core of who we are. This is true not just for children…
Adults are influenced more by the people they spend time with than we would like to admit.
The talk show that you listen to every morning for 8+ years… If you deny it, you are denying the reality.
You’ve been living with an overly critical boyfriend for two years. Do you think that your self-esteem hasn’t been affected?
We are all extremely sensitive to the influences of others in our lives. This is especially true for those we spend most time with.
You will treat yourself the same way if you surround yourself with people who don’t respect you.
You can make a huge change in your friendships and relationships.
It will not be easy to make new friends, end an unhealthy relationship or put limits on toxic family members. It is still important.
Hello my name's Nancy Venable and welcome to my blog.
Here I talk about lifestyle issues. For me, my world is centred around attention deficit disorder where my husband suffers from this.
I have created this blog as a means of expressing myself and also to do something together with my husband that will enable me to enrich our lives as well as our readers.
