159. Embracing the courage to be disliked

have you here. Back for another episode as we break down the psychology of our twenties, this topic today's episode, and the theories and thoughts we're going to be discussing. They've been massively inspired by a book I just finished reading that has completely changed my life. It is called The Courage to Be Disliked. This book is incredible. I

truly recommend it. It basically teaches us what it means to live in total freedom, to become our best selves and actually live according to our wants, our purpose, our vision for life, instead of being I think, held back by the opinions and the expectations and the judgments of others. It made me take a very long, hard look at myself, and part of that was honestly assessing who am I

actually living for these days. This philosophy, this idea that we can escape kind of Our need to constantly impress others and worry about what they think is one that I believe a lot of us in our twenties really need to hear. We needed to be reminded of and embrace this deep belief that what others think of us is one of the least important things about who we are. That constant concern for other people manifests in a lot of anxiety for us, anxiety that creates self judgment, self sabotage,

self betrayal. And it's those reactions, that anxiety that informs our behavior. It causes us to act in certain ways. We want to conform, We want to be someone we're not. We want to say things that we don't believe, We feel uncomfortable in our skin, and I think this creates a real disconnect that we're seeing more and more between the version of you who is perceived by others and the version of you that is real, the version of

you that you actually like. And I think by having the courage to be disliked, even if it's uncomfortable, we bring those two versions of us back together, the version that other people see and the version of us that is truthful. So today we're going to discuss this. We're going to discuss by having the courage and the power to not be liked by everyone might actually be the secret to greater emotional satisfaction and just a better life.

So we're going to break down where our need to be liked comes from, particularly ideas of social approval, why we worry about silly ideas like reputation, what that results in, particularly conformity, alienation, a loss of self. And I also want to discuss this idea that we have in Australia called tall Poppy syndrome, which really explains why society in general feels the need to tear down the brightest and the most authentic individuals in our society, perhaps as a

projection of our own individual and collective insecurities. We see that so many times the people who really choose to be themselves and choose to just do what they would like in life and really represent their true desires and just have the courage to do that are often the ones that receive the most criticism, and I want to understand kind of why is that the case. We're also going to explore some of the consequences of what happens to us when we solely live for others. That's our family,

our friends, our partners. What happens when we turn away from the pressure to impress other people, when we turn away from the pressure to be someone where not? I think that that is such an important philosophy that we need to adopt during this decade. If you want to perform at your highest level, if you want to be the happiest version of yourself, often one of the biggest things that is holding us back is the opinions of others.

So today, if you're needing a confidence boost, if you've recently been on the receiving end of someone's negative opinions, negative judgments of you, or if you just want to decenter the assumptions and views of others, this episode is for you. So without further ado, let's jump into how we can embrace and live out our power to be disliked.

So there is this really powerful quote from from Marcus Aurelius, this very famous Roman guy, and I think it captures our dislike of being disliked more than anything else I've ever heard. We all love ourselves more than other people, but we care more about their opinion than our own. It is really interesting that the only person who we truly know is ourselves, the only person we are ever going to have a relationship with our whole lives is ourselves.

And yet we let that relationship, we let the love and forgiveness and kindness that we show ourselves be interrupted by the opinions of others who we may never even understand, who quite honestly, it's not our duty to understand. For some of us, that constant concern with being watched or judged is very clinical, and it's very chronic, and we can offer up a few explanations as to why. The first is the most severe. That is a social anxiety disorder.

Social anxiety is more than just being shy. It is a constant state of stress and worry towards obtaining the approval of others, and often that leads to a lot of fear. It leads to a lot of avoidance where we might be the subject of criticism, where we might disappoint someone, where we might have to face unknowns, meet

new people. And that is derived from an even I think deeper fear that we cannot control what other people think about us, and what they think about us at the end of the day really matters to a certain extent. I think it does. Other people's opinions are important, and a lot of that is very, very evolutionary. We talk about this a lot on the show because I think it's one of the very foundational principles of social connection. But humans have evolved as a community based species in

the past. That meant we spent a lot of time in tribes or groups with the same people that we were exposed to on a daily basis, and our attachment to these groups was necessary for our survival. We found safety in numbers, it was easier to find food, to build shelter, to kind of increase our life expectancy. That need to be accepted and part of the group due to its kind of survival benefits, is deeply imprinted in

our DNA. And historically, if one group didn't like us, if we were rejected or outcast, this meant bad things. It meant bad things for us, and so we've adapted to treat that threat of social rejection as a real danger. And that is why these days we experienced that fear around people not liking us, especially people who have some kind of social status or power or whose opinion means more to the group. We intrinsically don't want to be disliked.

It is simple as that it creates great discomfort and it's bred by social comparison. It makes us really question our own value. And it also comes down to this idea of reputation. Reputation honestly great Taylor Swift album. But it's also such a strange concept to me because we don't really know where it comes from. You know, who

starts someone's reputation? Like where does reputation emerge? It's like this collective idea that we have about someone that has no discernible origin, and yet it holds so much weight and influence, even on a micro personal scale, like when you meet someone you at a party who you've already heard about from a friend, and that implicitly means that you already have an opinion of them without even developing it from your own personal experiences, Like you've never met

this person, but an idea of this person precedes them. In the modern day, we worry a lot more about reputation than we previously did, and also in very different ways, because we are very aware that we can be judged at any moment through social media. Obviously, reputation has always kind of somewhat matted because it's very symbolic of likability, of what kind of people think about you, and it

was that reputation that would influence life outcomes. In a previous generation, when reputation was based on things like, you know, purity, holiness, chastity if you're a woman, and wealth and power if you were a man, and it really often determined your standing in the broader social hierarchy. But that reputation was also usually contained to your small community, so it mattered in that small group, but if you stepped beyond that group,

it wasn't as important. Nowadays, we are facing kind of a new reality and new existence where really anyone can have an opinion on anyone else who has a digital footprint, and that makes us a lot more aware and attuned to other people's opinions of us through the fact that we can be not just perceived judged by others on

a very limited amount of information. We live in that age of a constant digital spotlight where those kind of rudimentary, primal fears about the opinions of others and social rejection are expanded and exacerbated daily. I think we're also a whole lot more aware in a way of how quickly we can become hated or criticized because of what people choose to say about us online, what people choose to interpret. And that's so unnatural. It's so unnatural to be observed constantly,

or to feel like you are being observed constantly. Because there is not a single person in this world who is perfect. There is not a single person who has not made mistakes. But because many of us have grown up online, especially those of us in our twenties, those past mistakes are out there for everybody to see, for

everybody to think about, for everybody to observe. And we have this like real collective, weird obsession with trying to impose perfection on everybody, but also tear people down for just like the smallest things. So this is kind of

all very much leading to my main point. My main point being we are overly concerned based on our psychology, based on our culture, based on our context with other people's opinions, and naturally so we want to stay in line, we want to be agreeable, and it's why so many, for so many of us, the smallest negative opinion can send us spiraling. It can cause us to feel like

we could potentially become an outcast. It's really interesting when that person, the person who has this negative opinion, the person we're trying to impress, is someone that we actually barely know. Story for you about this based on when I was back at university, there was this guy I'm gonna call him Damien, and he was kind of like a friend of a friend. He was actually a close friend's roommate. I think we talked maybe once or twice,

and probably for no longer than five minutes. And yet this guy, for whatever reason, he did not like me, and he made that really clear. And you know what, no matter what anybody else said, no matter how many other people I had in my life who loved me and cared for me and said it didn't matter, I could not stop obsessing over this one person. I could not stop thinking about Damien's opinion. Why is that? Well?

I think the best explanation I can offer comes down to perfectionism and how we've been raised, particularly if you're a woman. We've been raised to be likable, to be agreeable, to keep the peace. It also stems from a lot of childhood experiences where you want to be a good person. You want people to validate you, you want people to

praise you, you want people to include you. If you've been bullied or left out, those early memories, that sense of being excluded, of having someone hate you or being

cruel to you, they have lifelong impacts. That leads to a lot of people pleasing tendencies because we instinctually do not want to feel that emotional pain of rejection ever again, and so we fawn, we appease, we say yes when we should say no. We let people walk all over us, because the thing that matters the most is that they like you, that you make them happy rather than yourself.

And so when someone has a certain opinion or expresses criticism, that makes you feel like in some way you've failed, and it triggers a lot of that historical childhood alarm and fear that once again you are going to be

alone or socially rejected. That fear response can come to control us, like I've spoken about, and a secondary consequence for this is that it is increasingly creating a generation of people who are living for others, people like you and I who are living according to what others expect, what other people think is cool, what's trendy, what's acceptable, rather than living according to who they actually want to be.

I want to outline exactly what that means, how it really alters our behavior and the connection that we have to our true selves. I think the first consequence of this need to live for others is conformity. In psychology, a conformity really refers to trying to basically fit in or mirror the attitudes, the beliefs, the behaviors of those

around us. It's called like the chameleon tendency, where depending on who we are with, we blend into our social surroundings by really looking to others to tell us what's normal. Because if we look like them, we act like them. They have no reason to out because to do so would mean that they would be expressing dislike for themselves, because that is who we are emulating. It just really

breeds like a thousand clones of the same person. And every day that you wake up and choose to be someone that you think others will accept and like more, you are turning away from your authenticity. You are suppressing your true self. You are unconsciously locking away a part of you that deserves to be seen and deserves to be heard. This is known as self silencing, and it's the need to really suppress our own thoughts and feelings

in order to appease others. This concept was initially only applied to women, but I think it really links to this. It's a lot more universal, firstly, and it links to a deeper idea of self abandonment. When we self abandon or conform in order to be liked, we withhold parts of ourselves in order for others to avoid discomfort with who we are. But in turn, we transfer that discomfort that other people might have with who we are and

make ourselves uncomfortable. That is a sad truth. But you know what, when you do that, when you self abandon, when you self silence, you are hurting no one but yourself. Not only can that lead to a deeper sense of very very real alienation and never really truly knowing who you are. But the longer that we engage in this kind of internal silencing, the harder the habit is to break.

It also makes you say things you don't believe, where things you're not comfortable in, make yourself small, and that is a size that you should never be not when life is this short. Additionally, if you pretend to kind of be someone else, you are pretending to be someone you're not, and that will only attract people who are attached to a version of you that isn't real, and so the relationships you form from that fake persona are

going to be inherently artificial. I'm going to bring up another experience that I've had, because if you cannot tell, I am definitely someone who is very much trying to embrace the courage to be disliked after for a lot of years having a real deep fear of being disliked. I remember this time in high school where I tried so hard to pretend I was really into like punk music, like Screamer. I don't know, I don't know what it's called,

but it was like punk. Obviously you can tell from how I just described it, I really didn't like it. I really had no idea what I was doing, but I wanted to impress certain people by pretending that we shared the same interests, when what I think I should have recognized was that I really liked Taylor Swift, I liked doing well in school, I liked reading I liked wearing like womans. I was that girl, and if I had embraced that, I would have attracted people who were

more like minded. And maybe that would have meant that I had better friends in high school, more fulfilling relationships than the kind of friendships that I did end up having. I guess the point is is that when you create a facade a persona a fake version of yourself, and you begin to believe it, others around you begin to believe it as well, meaning that you are not ever going to feel at place in the groups where you truly belong. You're just going to be surrounded by people

who don't genuinely like you for you. They like a curated, fake version of yourself. So when you start embracing the courage to be disliked, that is naturally going to mean that you are going to shad a few relationships. People get very attached to the version of you they expect and the version of you that they have created in their minds. I find that so often the reason that we see friendships fall apart or relationships fail is because

people expect you to be one person. They expect you to meet their expectations of what they want from you, and when you decide to no longer do that, to say no, sof this is who I am. I've got my own opinions. I don't constantly want to be making you happy. I want to do what makes me happy. These people suddenly realize that, like, oh, this person isn't going to put up with this anymore. They don't care

about my opinion. It's at that point that you are more clearly able to see what kind of life you would actually love to live, what the true version of you wants, and also who was just in your life because you fit into some preconceived notion of who they wanted you to be. I think that losing those people, perhaps even being disliked by them or hearing that you've changed, is a very small price to pay for the truth

freedom of the self, the true freedom of the actual self. Obviously, there are some areas where a perception and an appreciation of other people's opinions is necessary. You don't want to offend others just for the sake of it, or to be cruel, or to turn into one of the people

who made you initially feel really small. But it's also about realizing that your social circle not only changes but has layers and levels of closeness and prioritizing those that are more central by whilst you know, kind of disregarding those who aren't in those close three circles is really, really, really valuable. So I might explain this a little bit more. I visualize my kind of life and my social life in particular, like four circles, each circle kind of expanding

just beyond the last circle, getting larger and larger. You're in the middle, You're the most important circle. Then comes family, close friends, your partner, friends you see every now and again, maybe coworkers, acquaintances, and then finally just like strangers, and included in that are people who might not like you. The closest three circles, including you, your family, your loved ones,

they are all that matter. The opinions of those people are the only ones that matter because they are mutually supportive. Because these people love you, they're not trying to tear you down. So when we think about you know, once

again the courage to be disliked. If the person whose opinion you are worried about sits beyond those three circles, there is no point listening to them, because if you were to become really ill tomorrow, if something terrible was to happen, they would not be the ones sitting there by your side supporting you. So in your good times

you don't deserve to listen to them either. I know that cutting those people out, disregarding their opinion, ignoring them in some ways is easier said than done, because often, as we've described, the opinions of others have this very subtle way of influencing our behaviors on a very unconscious level. So how do we escape that pressure? You know, obviously this is very by its very evolutionary, very primal to care about what other people think. So what do we

need to tell ourselves? What do we need to do when that self consciousness kind of sneaks in and threatens to keep us at the behest of the opinions of others who don't care about you and be don't matter. Well, we are going to discuss the four ways that you can embrace the courage to be disliked after this shortbreak. There are four things that I want you to remember when it comes to being disliked. Number one, not everyone is going to like you, and that is something that

you can't change. But number two, you are never going to be criticized by someone who is doing better than you. Thirdly, often someone else's dislike all negative judgments are really a projection of their own insecurities. And finally, we can use their criticism they're dislike as fuel for our advantage. As motivation.

There is quite literally nothing more inspiring and motivating than someone telling you that you can't do something, or someone trying to bring you down, or who is not comfortable with your success, who feels the need to criticize you, Because implicitly, when that happens, we now feel like we have something to prove, and that is like, actually such

a motivating force. It's also that in that moment we become a lot better with embracing the courage to be disliked because we realize that other people's opinions or appraisals of you, as I've said before, have a lot more to do with them than us. You can read any comments section on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram and you will see hundreds of people ready to say anything that's going to bring someone down, especially people who are doing their own shit, who are in their own lane who

are confident, who know what their life is about. And you know what the common denominator is in those situations. It's not the person on the receiving end, it's not the content that they make. It is these people, this group of people who are unhappy with themselves and who feel the need to pull others down because it gives

them a mental and emotional boost. So it's really interesting because they've started doing studies on this, particularly around trolling and kind of cyberbulling, and this recent study that was published in the cyber Psychology Journal, it found that people with lower self esteem are more likely to engage in

activities like internet trolling than anybody else. And the people who do that, those traits are also more associated with psychopathy and with receiving pleasure from the distress and takedown of others. And that is such a then problem that has nothing to do with you. The same goes for real life interactions. Obviously we're talking about like a social media space here, but let's think about my old friend Damien,

my old university friend Damien. There is something deeper in that person's psychology that leads them to these kind of pathological chronic takedowns, and the worst thing we can do is actually believe that the opinions of these people matter. When I think about him, I'm like, he had only really met me twice. What was it about them that gave them such kind of a sick obsession fascination with making me feel bad about myself? Because I'm pretty sure that as soon as I moved on, he found someone

else to project that hate to. I know it's a classic quote, but like Michelle Obama Boss Lady, she always says it, when they go low, we go high. So not only does that give you a much needed self esteem boost, who look at that situation and go okay? The reason this person has this opinion probably has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the

fact that they are not happy with themselves. But these individuals have much bigger problems than their opinion about you, And if they have something to say, that probably means you're doing something right. This is where I really want to introduce this concept called tall poppy syndrome that is really common in Australia. So in Australia, tall poppy syndrome is this idea that the best flowers, the tallest flowers, the ones that bloom the first are also the first

to be cut down. And that analogy applies to our lives. The people who shine the brightest, the people who are least afraid to be themselves, who shoot up, who are successful, who are confident, they are always going to be the first ones who are targeted with takedowns. And it's so frustrating, But what we realize is that in those moments, you are the tallest flower in the field. You are the tall poppy. That is why you are receiving the resentment

from others. Once again, you are never going to be judged by someone who is doing better than you because they are probably already secure in themselves. They know what it's like to be in your position. They want you to succeed, and they know their worth without needing to compare or tear you down. And those are the people that you should surround yourself with when you are embracing that courage to be disliked. The difference these people make

in your life is incredible. I've seen it myself. I've really been on this journey of kind of realizing that if I want to grow further, if I want to be a better version of myself. I have to be peakier about the people I choose to spend my time around. And that doesn't necessarily mean meeting people and being like no, you can't be my friend, but more so being like, okay, if I want this in a circle, I want to make sure these people are making me feel good about myself.

And so I've really been surrounding myself with women who want nothing but success for those around them, who collaborate, who lift each other up. And it's something I'm so grateful for because for so long I really prioritized hanging out, socializing, interacting with people who didn't like me, because I had this compulsion to make them like me. That was like

the biggest prize. But now I've started really protecting the relationships that bring me joy, and the relationships with people who not that they won't criticize me, not that they won't call me out, but who are willing to just be in my corner. Alongside that, I think it's also important to be okay with the fact that you're not going to be everybody's cup of tea, and not being everybody's cup of tea also involves gradually removing and reducing

our emotional reliance on the validation of others. So psychologists generally identify two sources of validation, external validation, which comes from the acknowledgment of others, and internal validation, which comes from our own positive attributes, positive self beliefs, strengths, and achievements.

When we rely on external validation, often this has come from us being gradually trained to do that, especially in the kind of educational environments that we have been raised in, where we want the praise, we want the approval of other people. We seek the admiration of those we see is better than us. However, if you constantly look to external approval for your self worth, your self worth is never going to be stable because the opinions of others

are not consistent or reliable. They are fickle because humans are fickle, and it's only going to take one small comment, one small feeling of rejection, one small moment, to completely destroy your self worth because it is bound up in the actions of people and the thoughts of people who

you cannot control, who you have no say in. So I want you to ask yourself, what is it that you like about yourself that has a absolutely no attachment to others, What do you like about yourself that people would maybe be surprised to know, Like it's a little private, secret source of self love. It could be that you feel really intense joy towards like the smallest things, that

you like people watching, or that you're creative. It might be that your dreams are really interesting, that you love very deeply, that you are dedicated to your goals, that you are spiritual, that you have a great music taste, that you have some secret special talent, private things about yourself that you love and reinforce those things above all else. Remind yourself of them as much as you can, and

go on to cultivate them even more. When you are so focused on what you bring to the world, how amazing you are, you become this impenetrable force of self love. I also like to imagine when I really feel the need to please certain people or to make them like me, I imagine this like big golden bubble expanding out from my heart that surrounds me, that protects me, that makes me magnetic, and it kind of goes on to engulf everybody else and make them feel like they can also be authentic

and true in my presence. It's like that these visualization exercises, this golden bubble allows me to escape my anxiety by really focusing on a comforting mental imagery. This tool has been so powerful for me. It makes me so confident. It's like a protective shield against other people's judgments. Where I can acknowledge that maybe someone's looking at my outfit and going like, oh, I don't like that, or someone I've met once has a bad impression of me, or anything,

but that doesn't matter. It just bounces off me. I'm in my golden bubble. I also want to say one final reminder. Each day, each moment, you are presented with the opportunity to be your best self. And you can either choose to live authentically and passionately and in your own power, or you can choose to mask that version of you. You can choose to minimize your goals, your values, your passion, your identity because you're scared of what other

people think. It is your responsibility to choose which version you want to be, not anybody else's, not your family, not your friends, only you. So visualize that version of you, that version of you that doesn't care what people think, that doesn't care if people don't agree with what they're

doing because they believe in it. Who doesn't care if people like what they wear, doesn't care if people think they look trendy, doesn't care if people have some weird negative opinion of them, because they love themselves and what yourself? Become that version, imagine speaking to that version. Act from a place of that version of yourself. Ask yourself, in moments where you are trying to be more likable or trying to make other people like you more, what would

that version of you two? What would that authentic version of you say? How would they act in this situation? I was saying this to a friend the other day. But it's also really impossible to criticize or have anything negative to say about someone who is just so clearly knows who the fuck they are, who is just so clearly embodying their authentic self. We all know those people, We see those people. So you should become that person by embracing the fact that not everybody is going to

like you, and that is totally okay. In fact, it's probably a good sign. It's probably beneficial because, like we said before, it means you're doing something right. It means they've never seen anybody like you before. It means that you are so comfortable in your own power that this person's opinion cannot harm you. The world is so small, life is so short. You are just kind of a grain of sand in the universe, and you're living amongst a million, billion, billion other grains of sand. So it

doesn't need to be that meaningful. Someone else's opinion doesn't need to ruin your day, doesn't need to ruin your life. Because when you hold on to something that has slipped out of someone's mouth, something that someone has said behind your back, something that has come through the grape vine that's not ruining their day, thinking about it more isn't

hurting them, it's hurting you. And so you have to make a choice of like, am I going to continue thinking about this, or am I going to realize that the only people's opinions of matter that matter to me are my own and the people who I love. I think that's a really beautiful place to end it, and I want to thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I know it was quite rambly, I know it was quite philosophical, maybe less psychological, but I really

cannot state it enough. That book was amazing. It's really changed my mind on so many things and really opened my eyes to the fact I think I've spent a lot of my life caring about what other people think, and I don't want to care about it anymore. And I think that when I've started to adopt that philosophy, it's made me a much better person, a much more powerful person, a much happier person, to just be more

secure and who I am. So I hope that I really yeah, I hope that's something that you can find as well. For every single one of you listening. If you enjoyed this episode, as always, please feel free to share it with someone who you think might enjoy it as well, or leave a five star review. It really helps the show to grow and reach new people. If you don't already, you can follow us on Instagram at

that Psychology Podcast. We are currently taking episode suggestions for twenty twenty four, So if there's something going on in your life, going on in your twenties and you want to understand it more, you want to know what's going on, please feel free to send it to me over there, and we will be back next week with another episode.