“What will they think?”: Overcoming the fear of judgement online

When I first started sticking my head out of the sand and building my personal brand, I worried non-stop about what people would think. These days I generally don't care too much about what people say about me on the internet—but I've learned how to deal with this along the way. In today's episode, I'm sharing the top tips that helped me to overcome the fear of judgement.

– How understanding the connection between what people say about you and what they think of themselves can help you to see any judgement for what it really is.
– The importance of doing what feels right for you.
– Why focusing on the people you're here to help is much more important than what others are saying about you.

 

 
Today we're talking about the fear of judgment. Now, this is something that I have come up against over and over again in my business and when I first started building my personal brand, I worried nonstop what other people would think of me. Now would people think I was weird for putting myself out there? Would people laugh at me? Would people troll me these days? I generally don't care. 

So this episode, I'm going to share three big tips that helped me to overcome my own fear of judgment in the hopes that if you are afraid of what others will think, and you're afraid of putting yourself out there, I'm hoping that these tips will really help you because they have been big shifts for me as well.

 

Tip #1: What people think of you is a reflection of themselves and doesn't have that much to actually do with you. 

Now, a very popular concept in modern psychology is that the things we dislike or resent in other people are often the things that we are unable to see or accept in ourselves. So the things that we envy in other people are the things that we wish we could do ourselves.

Now, for example, if somebody is afraid to speak up and get visible, then of course they're going to resent me or envy me for building my own brand and getting visible that way. If somebody feels guilty for promoting their own work and sharing their own accomplishments, then of course they're going to be triggered by me sharing my wins.

So you can either do nothing and hide under the kitchen table and hope that nobody ever judges you, or you can get out there and do what feels right to you. Do what you really want to do and know that the right people aren't going to judge you. 

 

Tip #2: Nobody cares about you as much as you think that they care about you.

The second big shift was realising that everyone else cares too much about themselves to think about me as much as I think that they do. And if I find myself getting caught up in overthinking, what will people think? What will people think if I say this? What will people think if I post this? I always remind myself that nobody cares which might sound a little bit depressing, but it's actually so freeing.

Nobody cares what I say. Nobody cares what I do. So I can do what feels right for me rather than what I think people want me to do or say and if you're really worried about what other people are going to think, pause and ask yourself, who are these people who are so bored and unhappy with their own lives that they have the time and energy to judge me for this thing?

And why am I letting their opinion matter to me? Why do I care about their opinion? I have always been super self-critical. I think this just comes as being part of an overachiever. We tend to be pretty harsh critics.

Another thing that I've realised is I'm probably always going to be my own harshest critic anyway. Other people aren't looking at my every move in nearly as much detail as I am. They're not being as critical of me as I am being critical of me. 

 

Tip #3: Showing up online isn't about you. 

It's about the people that you are helping. And yes, there might be people out there who look at the content I share and they're like, Oh, who does she think she is for doing that? But what I've realised is that there are even more people out there who listen to my podcast, who read my posts on Instagram, who watch my videos, and who are learning something from it. 

It's having that tangible impact on their lives and that matters to me so much more than the opinion of somebody I don't even really care about.

Now people are going to judge you regardless so let them judge you for who you actually are and have a little bit of impact to do some good in the process show up and help the people that you can help. I once had someone call me a skid mark on Facebook and I had another person put a poop emoji on a photo of me and send it to my email.

And I actually feel really sorry for trolls like this because they have nothing better to do with their time than to send these things. 

So if you're worried about people judging you and saying mean things online, remember that it's not about the people who are going to troll you for the sake of trolling you, but it's actually about the people who you can help and why would you let the people who are going to call you a skid mark, stop you from showing up and helping the people who you can have a real impact.

So if you're worried that something like this will happen when you start showing up online, I do want to say it doesn't happen that often. I have very rarely had any actual trolls and I don't get that many mean comments. It's pretty rare but remember that when you start showing up online, it's actually going to, if somebody says something mean, it says more about them than it does about you. 

 

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