How to deal with other peoples comments & opinions

Opinions and comments from others will always be there in one way or another. We can’t avoid them whether they are coming from our families, friends or strangers. I have always been a person who felt I needed approval from others before making decisions and did something. This could be anything from choosing a meal on a restaurant to what other people thought I should study or other big life decisions. As a result, I ended up being in situations I wasn’t supposed to be in and didn’t made me happy. I did what I thought was expected from me. I never really trusted myself and my ability to make good decisions for myself. I also had a big fear of failure. Failure was a bad thing that should never happen but what I have realised now is that failure is neccessary if you wan’t to achieve things in life. Thats how you learn and get better.

I had a lot of excitement when I was planing on going overseas to Australia and live, study and work for a longer time since that had been on my mind for many years, to live in a different country and experience a different culture. Even if most of what I felt was excitement and happiness, there were also a lot of fear around it, which is totally normal to feel when it comes to such big life decisions. The thing is that I wasn’t sure if that fear where coming from myself and how I actually felt or if it was other peoples fears that affected me. I think it was a little bit of both but mostly from other people. I got both positive and more negative or worried comments about it and my mind was in a fight with all these comments since that had always been how I made my decisions. When people where saying different things, how could I decide then? Should I go or not? What was the best thing to do?

Another time when I was receiving a variety of opinions from others was when I decided to do vanlife in my tiny little car. Yes, I had seen all this beautiful and amazing posts on social media of people doing this, parking in from of a beach or mountain, having their morning coffee in the sunrise and living their best lifes like problems and struggles didn’t even exist on this planet, which is true! At least the first part but no, problems and struggles in life doesn’t disappear because of that, sorry. Haha! And every day of vanlife is absolutely not amazing. That becomes a lifestyle like everything else with its own struggles, just different ones. Anyway, I got a variety of opinions about this as well, where some thought it was a cool and awesome idea to try and said ”go for it!”. When others had a bit more reserved and worried opinion about it which included scary and difficult things that could happen. What if this happens? What are you going to do about this? It will affect your mental health if you do this for too long, etc. When I was talking to the more positive people about it, I got really excited and felt a hundred procent sure I was going to do it. However, when I then talked to the people on the other side of it, I got worried, started overthinking and honestly got disappointed since I felt it wasn’t going to happen. All this only because of what someone else thought about it, I hadn’t even made a decision yet so it was either a yes or no.

I realise this comes back to my need for approval and being in control over situations. I need to know straight away if things will end good or bad, which you never know before you try.

What’s important for ourselves in these situations, especially if you need more confidence when it comes to making good decisions and trusting yourself, is to really reflect on these opinions from others and ask yourself:

- Does it make sense to you?

- Do this person have experience in this?

- On what grounds are this person speaking from?

- Is it my fears or the other persons fears?

Remind yourself that what they are saying is coming from their own knowledge and out of care and kindness for you. However, sometimes they are not very helpful to us. Sometimes people doesn’t speak from their own experiences either but from other peoples experiences. Of course we should listen to someone who has done the same things we are thinking of doing, we can get a lot of tips and tricks and good advices that can be helpful for us. What we shouldn’t do is to fully trust everything they say. It can be true for them but not for you. We are all interested in different things in life and experience things in different ways. What suits one person may not suit you and thats why we can’t fully go on what other says.

I was told my mental health would be affected negatively by doing van life long term. I was nervous about it but felt if I don’t try it now, when would I? I had the best opportunity in that moment, so I did it anyway, moved out from my accommodation and lived full time in my car, since I was still too curious about it to not try it out. I did it for 11 months and loved it almost every second! I would definitely have continued doing it if I was staying in Australia for longer and I know it wasn’t the last time.

We all experience things differently and we have to try it ourselves before we know. Someone else may hate one thing and you may love it. Listen to other people, feel in what advice you take from them but listen the most to yourself. Every time.

My mum have always said to me: ”You never know, if you never ask.”

I can say the same thing with: ”You never know, if you never try.”