Letting Other People Be Wrong about You
Self-integrity: Learn to live by your values and beliefs
Hi, worklifers!
How does this idea sound to you? “What would my life be like if I were willing to let other people be wrong about me?” Throughout my time coaching myself and many diversity and minority leaders, this has been—and continues to be—one of the most important skills within the worklifeunstuck program.
I am also understanding of the fact that letting other people be wrong about you is easier said than done. I, like many, have struggled with this because of the contradictions that exist at the workplace and because of the effort it takes to let go of preexisting beliefs. Understanding both these challenges has made it easier for me to get myself unstuck when I notice that I’m taking actions that are not aligned with my values. It has also made it easier for me to let go of old and borrowed beliefs. Once I had an awareness of the problem, the challenge became putting in the effort daily to move towards self-integrity.
Our self-integrity is like a compass. It can help us get back on track when we feel misaligned, and we can use it to take the right action when we find ourselves at odds or stuck. One of the most powerful inspirations we can take from that truer self is to let other people be wrong about us. This idea of letting others be wrong about us is so damn powerful, and once understood and embraced, it can be an incredible coaching tool to bring us back to living and leading with integrity.
Let us dig into identifying when we are at odds with our values and learn to get unstuck by embracing the idea of letting other people be wrong about us.
Leaning into understanding contradictions and knowing when we are at odds with our self-integrity
I want to start with a personal example: I was a petite girl growing up. I have always been small in stature while housing big feelings inside me. One consistent piece of critical feedback I received as a child was to not cry and shed tears when I felt hurt. Instead, I was encouraged to use my words to express how I felt. At some point during my childhood, I was conditioned to believe that crying was a sign of weakness. Anger did not carry this fragile quality. No one likes an angry child either, but our instinct is to leave them alone. We make space for the anger to settle by allowing the child to cool down. Crying, on the other hand, makes people uncomfortable. They try to pacify you and talk you out of it so that they can ease the awkwardness they feel around you. I never quite understood this contradiction between the way we treat anger versus sadness. Over the years, I adapted to it by excusing myself to cry alone rather than in front of others.
I am still considered petite as an adult, so physically, things haven't changed a whole lot for me. I’m still a small-statured person with big feelings inside me. I’m still just as passionate, and I’ve grown into someone results-driven who likes to express her feelings. Not surprisingly, at work I have observed the same contradictions that I encountered as a child. I got promoted several times for my demonstrated leadership, the impact I was able to create with the clarity and energy I could generate, and my ability to rally people to come together to drive results. At the same time, at various points across my career, —specifically when given performance feedback—I have been asked to be less emotional, less aggressive, pushy, or intense. The contradiction comes because on one hand, I was rewarded and promoted for doing an awesome job by leaning into my natural, emotional style. On the other hand, I have also been asked to tone it down a notch or two to gain popularity. I found myself in a classic catch-22. I felt it was almost impossible to be my (authentic) self while also trying to come across as less aggressive and pushy to others. It was like being asked not to lower the bar for myself, but rather to do it for others.
In this catch-22 situation, your choice boils down to taking actions and hoping others will change their perceptions about you. You put all your energy into figuring out how to do this. In that process, you start to become someone who is not as direct or straightforward. One of the actions you might take is to speak up less. On the days when you speak up, you feel you are showing up as your authentic self, your unfiltered ideas. On other days, you feel you are holding back on making decisions or expressing yourself because you worry what others will think. On those days, you choose to keep your emotions to yourself. In this process of experimenting, which is quite natural, sometimes you feel like you are being yourself, and sometimes you notice that you are, as Marth Beck says, a “lighter” version of yourself (note the word “lighter” or “diluted”, and not soft). Funnily enough, you end up realizing there are some people who prefer this “lighter” version, but there are others who don't. You are left not quite sure if these actions you are taking are creating the results you want in your quest to make others change their perceptions about you. And when this back and forth happens, it is quite often a result of misalignment with your self-integrity. You start to notice you are at odds with your values and beliefs and begin to feel inauthentic. All the pain you go through for changing other people's opinions is now pain being directed back to you. You end up beating yourself up and feeling stuck.
How to go about letting other people be wrong about you
The very first thing to do is ask yourself, "Why do I care what others think about me?”
I have emphasized the "I" because it is profound to bring the question back to yourself, instead of generalizing it. When I asked myself this question, I realized that, at the end of the day, I don’t really care what the world thinks of me. This idea of other people’s reactions was not the dichotomy I thought it was. It’s important to remember this when you find yourself asking, “What would others say?” We make it so generic and start building a belief system around this. But it is not as general as it sounds.
My next step was to dig deeper and ask, “So who are these people whose opinion matters?” For me, it came down to a few dimensions grounded in some beliefs. This turned out to be a very small list. People whose opinions mattered were often those with whom I had established a deep and trusting relationship. These were also often those people who gave me feedback without any ulterior motive. I think of these people as locksmiths: I can go to them if I lose my keys. I would trust them to open my house (my mind) and help me look inside to find my values. I realized I could make my decisions based on that, rather than making them for others. This skill has empowered me to always act from my own beliefs instead of other people’s.
This brings us back to beliefs. The next question you need to ask yourself is, "What are my values and beliefs about me?
Remember, bring the question back to you. What do you believe about yourself? What are your values, and how do you live and act by them? We often take on borrowed beliefs from our work, or those that were handed to us in our childhood. They may no longer be our beliefs or align with our values. These are called limiting beliefs.
It is often hard for us to parse these beliefs out because they are sometimes held by tribes at work and in our lives (our families, our colleagues, and our leadership circles). Coming back to the example above, where you were given the feedback to be less pushy, you must be mindful of how you want to internalize that feedback. Do you believe you are a pushy person? What is your opinion of yourself? You may reflect and conclude that you are someone who drives clarity and is not afraid to disappoint people. Now, that may be perceived as being pushy by others, but maybe you don't quite believe that about yourself. This is what it means to come back to your beliefs, and it is a very important exercise to do.
Let us take this example a step further and reflect some more. Perhaps you also believe that disappointing others does not make you less empathetic. You believe you care for them, as you are not afraid to give them the right feedback to help them grow and provide clarity to help them make better decisions. When you act from this belief, you do not change your actions. Instead, you double down on ensuring you are authentic and genuine and doing it from a place of love and care, because you truly believe you are empathetic. You will ask yourself, "How does an empathetic leader approach disappointing people?" Your actions are driven by that core belief: “I can disappoint others while still being kind and empathetic.” As a result, they naturally bring out the best in you. This is the kind of deep work that allows us to act from our beliefs with the courage to allow others to be wrong about us.
On the flip side, let’s say you agree and believe you are pushy, but would like to change that behavior, because this is not someone you aspire to be. If that is the case, then the feedback you get from others will allow you to strengthen the traits you are looking to pursue and create more of in your life. The key is to pause and reflect before you internalize it: Is this feedback in alignment with your beliefs about yourself? Does it align with your values of who you are or who you are aspiring to become? Feedback is a gift, and no feedback should be ignored. However, when acting on the feedback, it is very important to align it to your beliefs and values and act from a place of self-integrity. When you do that, the results will be more powerful for you, and in that process, you will allow for the vulnerability that comes from letting others be wrong about you.
The last question to ask yourself in this process is, "What is the cost for me to not act from my values and beliefs"?
Bronnie Ware's book on regrets of the dying really solidifies this concept. The number one wish that people in the book have been wish they’d had the courage to live a life true to themselves, and not the life others expected of them. When people realize that their lives are almost over and look back clearly on them, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people have not honored even half of their dreams and have to die knowing that it was due to choices they made, or didn’t make. One such choice is when we are unwilling to let other people be wrong about us, to pursue our dreams or make decisions for ourselves, from a place of self-integrity.
The way I see the cost of this choice is in the form of stuck thoughts, like the ones listed below. I know I am out of integrity, and it will cost me my mental and physical well-being, because I see the following patterns emerge:
Am I taking things personally? People’s reactions to you are about their filters, their perspectives, wounds, and experiences. Whether they think you’re amazing or believe you’re the worst, again, it’s more about them than about you. I’m not saying we should be narcissists and ignore all feedback. I am saying that so much hurt, disappointment and sadness in our lives comes from taking things personally when it’s far more productive and healthier to let go of others’ opinions of us—good or bad—and operate with our own hearts, intuition, and wisdom as our guides. If you are ruminating over interactions or reacting excessively, these are good signs that you may be taking things personally—most likely because of acting outside your self-integrity.
Am I feeling like a victim? Another toxic behavior that costs us our well-being is complaining out of a sense of victimization. Believing you’re a victim, that you have no power to exert and no influence over the direction of your life, is a toxic stance that keeps you stuck. When you stop whining, take your agency back, and act based on your beliefs, you will find that you always have a choice. With the power of your thoughts, you can choose to think differently about any situation. That may mean letting go of certain opportunities or making decisions that don't serve others or yourself, but it will bring you your agency back and serve you well in the future.
Am I needing excessive validation? This is another sign of being out of integrity. Overly attaching to how things must look and be, or to achieving certain milestones and accomplishments, rather than going with life in a more flexible, easy manner, can wear you out and bring down those around you. There is a bigger picture to your life, and it’s not about what you achieve or fail at today. It’s about the journey, the process, the path: what you’re learning and applying, how you’re helping others, and the growing process you allow yourself to engage in. If you can remind yourself that the validation you are seeking is only for the short term, let go, and act from a place of self-integrity, then you are choosing yourself versus the expectations of others.
Practice letting other people be wrong about you and use your self-integrity as a compass to help you get unstuck when you find yourself stuck with wanting validation from others.
Maithili Vijay Dandige