How not to take things personally

11 Tips on How not to Take Things Personally

Do you often wonder how not to take things personally?

There is no need to take anything personally!

It’s just a waste of mental and emotional energy.

You might say it is easier said than done, but truth is that you can do something about it.

Life Becomes Happier when You Do not Take things Personally

Your life would become happier and you would enjoy more inner peace when you do not take things personally and too seriously.

Do you sometimes feel you have been offended? Often, you might have a wrong interpretation of someone’s words or behavior due to lack of sufficient information or missing facts.

Sometimes, the offence is not real, and the so-called offender never intended to offend you at all. Does this justify feeling offended? You only cause yourself unnecessary suffering.

So what if someone expressed some criticism?

Does this justify thinking over and again about what he or she said? Will this help you in any way? The other person might not even be aware that you have been offended.

On other occasions, even if the other person did try to offend you intentionally, why accept, think, or dwell on what he or she said? It is absolutely useless and unnecessary to participate in the game of hurt feelings.

When you feel hurt, insulted and angry, it is very unwise and unhealthy to brood over it, or sweep these feelings under the carpet.

It is also unwise to allow negative self-talk to take place in your mind, as this might aggravate matters.

You need to pay attention to your thoughts and to your feelings if they start veering toward dwelling on any wrongs you believe others did to you.

It is better, wiser and healthier to learn not to take things personally.

Learning how to stop taking things personally requires some effort and time on your part. You can learn to change your attitude and learn to react differently.

This becomes possible with a certain degree of emotional detachment.

Taking things too personally and too seriously, makes life difficult, and often brings unhappiness and suffering.

When you take things too personally, you make yourself more vulnerable to hurt feelings, anger, frustration and unhappiness. Taking things too personally is like placing a heavy load on your back.

How not to Take Things Personally

Would you like to know how not to take things personally, and stop taking things too seriously? Read on!

The remedy is to adopt an attitude of emotional detachment. I have written a few articles about this topic.

Tips on How not to Take Things Personally

How to stop taking things personally – simple tips:

How not to take things personally? I am not saying it’s easy, but it’s definitely possible. I know it’s possible, but this requires earnest desire to change this habit and perseverance.

When you learn to use emotional detachment in a positive way, you will be able, in a natural and effortless way, not to take things too personally. You will also not take minor and unimportant incidents too seriously. This will make you feel free and happy.

Emotional detachment is a skill that you can learn, like any other skill and can improve how you feel in many situations. You need a certain degree of emotional detachment, if you wish to feel free and to improve the quality of your life. Its lack, leads to attachment, to fear of letting go, and to avoiding changes.

Quotes about not Taking Things Personally

Here are a few ‘stop taking things personally quotes’:

“Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
– Buddha

“I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside.”
– Wayne Dyer

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
– Lewis B. Smedes

“We often add to our pain and suffering by being overly sensitive, over-reacting to minor things and sometimes taking things too personally.”
– Dalai Lama

About the Author

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Do you take things personally? (And who doesn’t?) Here’s how to stop

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This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Let’s say I’m driving really slowly because I’m trying to find a specific address. So the person in the car behind me starts honking and flashing their headlights at me.

How do I respond?

I take it personally.

I know I shouldn’t. But it just happens.

Or, let’s say someone cancels a work-related appointment with me at the last minute.

How do I respond?

Again, I take it personally, even though it’s professional. I feel I must not be important enough to them.

I give keynote speeches for a living, and I really like drawing my audience into my story. But the very moment that I see someone not paying attention and look at their phone, I take it personally.

Of course, I’m not the only person who takes these kinds of things personally.

Imagine you invite a friend to the movies and she replies: “Oh sorry, I have to work.” But then you see her on social media having dinner with friends that very night.

Or imagine you worked hard on a project, you’re really proud of the end result, but the only feedback you get is criticism. So you come home and want to share this terrible experience. But while you’re telling your story, your partner walks away to switch on the TV.

Most of us would take these situations personally — we’d feel hurt, neglected, offended or betrayed by the other person.

At these moments, we believe: “It’s the other person’s fault; they’re responsible for what I feel; they’re the one to blame.”

The part of us that’s speaking is our ego. Our ego thinks others should take us into consideration. Our ego doesn’t want to be criticized. Our ego wants to be acknowledged and told we’re always right.

When our egos take over, it’s exhausting.

Instead, it would probably be easier for us if we could stop taking things so personally. That way, no one has power over us; we’re free. We’d experience more harmony and connection between us and others, and our energy could go towards positive things, instead of endlessly battling against the things that drive us crazy.

Well, how do we do that?

Here are some strategies that I’ve come up with.

Strategy #1: Realize that it’s not about you

When I take things personally, I’m always convinced that their actions are about me. When I see someone looking at his phone when I’m speaking, I feel offended and think, “Hey I’ve put so much effort and time in this presentation. I want respect.”

But in fact, it isn’t about me. What if I try to look at it from the other person’s perspective and ask myself: “Why is he or she looking at his or her phone?”

Maybe she’s just received an important message, one she’s been waiting for. Perhaps the topic of my presentation is not really his cup of tea, or, on the contrary, she finds it so interesting that she wants to take notes on her phone.

By shifting my focus from “me” to “we”, I won’t take it so personally. If I try to see the intention of the other person, I make space for understanding rather than irritation.

When you put your son to bed and he doesn’t want you to and he throws himself on the floor and screams, “I hate you,” do you take that personally?

Probably not, because you know it’s not about you; it’s about what he wants and needs. He’s angry because he just wants to stay up a bit longer; that’s all.

Whenever you start to take things personally, look at the other person’s intention. Of course, this seems simple … in theory. In real life, it turns out to be a heck of a job. When you see two colleagues talk to each other, look at you and start laughing, do you think: “Oh, they must have noticed my new shoes and I want them too?”

No. You think, “They’re laughing at me” or “They’re gossiping about me.”

It takes a lot of effort to say to yourself, “Hang on, I have no clue. They might be laughing about something that has nothing to do with me.”

Seeing the positive intentions of the other person requires discipline and training. I became a kind of referee to train my brain not to take things personally.

When the “It’s not about me” strategy doesn’t work, it usually means it is about me.

Then, it’s time to use:

Strategy #2: Give yourself some empathy, or speak up

Let’s say a driver is tailgating me. Even if I think it’s because he is in a hurry, I need to ask myself: “Was I driving too slowly?”

And when I do, I may realize that I was at fault — and I’m uncomfortable because I don’t like that part of myself which made a mistake.

That’s when you need to give yourself some empathy and say something like: “Oh, this hurts; I’m longing so hard to be perfect” or “I’m longing to be right, and I feel sad when I don’t feel that way.”

Sometimes, it might make sense for you to speak up. If someone walks away while you’re talking to them, tell them: “I’m in the middle of my story, and you just left me to switch on the TV. It feels as if you don’t care about what I’m saying.”

By opening up, being vulnerable, and stating how you feel without blaming the other person (this last part’s important), you increase the chance that they’ll understand you and take your needs into account.

In the next hours, days and weeks, I hope you’ll find some things to take personally — and I think you will! — so you can test out these two strategies.

This piece was adapted from a TEDxMechelen Talk. Watch it here:

About the author

Frederik Imbo is the founder of Imboorling, where he’s now had more than 15 years of experience in stimulating and guiding people. With the aim of increasing people’s communication skills, he gives presentations, workshops and personal coaching sessions. Imbo graduated as an actor from the Royal Conservatory of Ghent.

How To Not Take Things Personally

Taking things personally is a habit that can harm and even end our relationships if we allow it to continue. Why do we take things personally, and what does that even mean? When we take things personally, it means that we are misinterpreting someone’s thoughts and actions and believe them to be targeted towards us. People who engage in this type of behavior often suffer from low self-esteem and have trouble loving themselves, which is why they easily believe other people are actively trying to put them down.

To stop this behavior, we must tackle both the habit itself and the underlying cause: low self-esteem. Here is what you need to do to address both of them:

Step 1. Realize That the World Is Not Out to Get You

I can almost guarantee you that you have met very few people, if any, who have decided to use their time to make you feel terrible. It’s highly unlikely your boss gave your co-worker that promotion because he thinks your flawed. Your friend probably did not hang out with your other friend last weekend because they both hate the way you dress or the way you laugh. Out of all the reasons why people choose to do things that they do, it is unlikely that they make their choices based on what they think of you.

Realize that people have plenty of reasons behind their actions that have nothing to do with you. Then and only then will you be able to move forward. If someone is trying to make you feel bad, they will make it known, and it will be loud and clear.

Realize that people have plenty of reasons behind their actions that have nothing to do with you. Then and only then will you be able to move forward. If someone is trying to make you feel bad, they will make it known, and it will be loud and clear.

Step 2. Lower Your Expectations for the World

We are often let down because we hold people to high expectations. Reflect on the last time that you took something personally. Why did it happen? If you think hard enough, you’ll probably conclude that you felt attacked because someone didn’t do something to meet your expectations. Here’s the thing: people do not think about meeting your expectations throughout their day. They have their own lives to worry about.

If someone has forgotten to acknowledge you when they’ve come into the room, they probably haven’t done it because they think you’re a terrible person. Lower your expectations for the people around you, and you’ll see that these moments in which you feel personally attacked may only be occurring in your head.

Step 3. Challenge Yourself When You Feel Threatened or Hurt

Think about yourself as two different people. One side of you is taking things personally, and another side of you is a referee who is waiting on the sidelines to call you out when you misinterpret someone’s actions. The next time you start to feel threatened or hurt by someone else, call the referee to the front of your mind. Ask yourself, did they do anything to hurt me intentionally? If not, ask yourself why you feel so affected by their actions. What was it that they did to make you feel the way you do?

Then, start looking at their actions through the lens of someone on the outside. Consider the possibility that the person’s actions have nothing to do with you. Continuing from the examples used in the previous step, maybe your boss chose to promote another person in your office because they are the best person for the job. Maybe your friends decided to hang out together because they wanted to work on their relationship. Once you start to evaluate other people’s actions through this perspective, you can often see the flawed thinking that takes place when you take things personally.

Step 4. Uncover The Insecurities That Keep Surfacing During These Encounters

While the insecurities you feel may seem all-encompassing, there are usually specific areas in which you are taking things personally the most. For example, let’s imagine that you feel fine when you are with your friends and your family, but you tend to take things personally when you are dating. Listen to the voice inside of you the next time you are beating yourself up over your significant other’s actions. Listen to the stories that you tell yourself and pay close attention to the sections that involve you. These are things that you truly believe about yourself, and these are the areas that you will need to target when you begin work to build your self-esteem.

Step 5. Start Working On Your Confidence And Self-Esteem

It’s vital that you take this step seriously if you wish to stop taking things personally. Without confidence and high self-esteem, it’s easy to succumb to the negative thinking that makes you feel inferior to those around you. Now that we’ve addressed the importance of this step let’s look into how you can build your confidence and raise your self-esteem.

How to stop taking things personally: 11 essential tips

If you feel like the world is against you all the time and you can’t get ahead, it might be time to look inward and make some changes about the way you allow people to rule your life.

The hard part about changing your outlook is that it involves taking responsibility for your own interpretations of how others treat you or speak to you.

And that is a difficult pill to swallow because what you will come to find is that the way you have been feeling about people and experiences is that the buck stops with you.

Here is how to stop taking things personally and get on with your life in a productive way.

1) Make sure your beliefs are aligned.

The first thing you need to do if you want to stop taking things personally is to make sure you have a good hold on your beliefs.

In other words, if you are offended because somebody didn’t say hello to you when they pass you in the hallway at work, make sure that is something you offer people.

Otherwise, why would you be offended?

According to psychologist Tartakovsky in Psych Central, when you want to “teach people how to treat you, you do not begin with them, you begin with yourself…The way you believe about and treat yourself sets the standard for others on how you demand to be treated.”

And further to that, you may come to recognize that saying hello in public might not be a part of their beliefs, and you need to be okay with that.

Their lack of communication probably has nothing to do with you and everything to do with how they interact with the world.

It’s normal to wish that others were different, just like it’s normal to wish you, yourself, were different (eg. thinner, richer, wiser).

But when you become angry that they’re different and even worse, you take it personally, problems begin to surface.

A much more productive habit is to accept people for who they are, and who they are not.

According to Rick Hanson Ph.D. in Psychology Today, accepting people “does not itself mean agreeing with them, approving them, waiving your own rights, or downplaying their impact upon you.”

Instead, it’s important to remember that you can still take appropriate actions but when you accept the reality of the other person, you may not like it, but “you are at peace with it.”

And when you shift to acceptance, “you can help things get better”.

2) Ask yourself how other people impact you.

If you feel like the victim in your own life, you need to stop and think about how you let other people impact your outlook on life.

For example, if someone makes a snide remark about you, logic would dictate that it’s a reflection of their own self-worth.

But in many cases, we think illogically about these things and feel like we are being attacked.

In fact, research by a Wake Forest University psychology professor found that what you say about others says a lot about you.

“Your perceptions of others reveal so much about your own personality”, says Dustin Wood, assistant professor of psychology at Wake Forest and lead author of the study.

“A huge suite of negative personality traits are associated with viewing others negatively”.

So if you take these results to heart, there is literally no point in taking things personally.

What people say about you clearly says more about themselves than anything to do with you.

Spiritual guru Osho says that it’s crucial to start looking inside yourself, rather than being disturbed about anything anybody says about you.

“Nobody can say anything about you. Whatsoever people say is about themselves. But you become very shaky because you are still clinging to a false center. That false center depends on others, so you are always looking at what people are saying about you. And you are always following other people, you are always trying to satisfy them. You are always trying to be respectable, you are always trying to decorate your ego. This is suicidal. Rather than being disturbed by what others say, you should start looking inside yourself…”

3) The world isn’t out to get you – take a step back from your limiting thoughts

From time to time, our minds race and our thoughts get the better of us, but when it comes to the thoughts of other people, we need to stop trying to guess what they are thinking – this can make life really hard.

When we put words in the mouths of others we take away any other chance for a different outcome.

This is where mindfulness comes in.

Judging others and putting words in their mouths might be a natural instinct, but we can take a step back from our mind and automated thought processes and ask ourselves what is objective reality.

When we feel like the world is against us, it’s our mind that creates that reality. The most likely scenario is that the world is neutral towards you.

But our thoughts and beliefs about the world form such an integral part of who we are that it’s not easy to just take a step back from the mind.

Spiritual guru Eckhart Tolle says that this has a lot to do with our ego, which likes to emphasize the “otherness” of others.

“One way to think about ego is as a protective heavy shell, such as the kind some animals have, like a big beetle. This protective shell works like armor to cut you off from other people and the outside world. What I mean by shell is a sense of separation: Here’s me and there’s the rest of the universe and other people. The ego likes to emphasize the “otherness” of others.”

The big problem with the ego is that the ego loves to strengthen itself through negativity and complaining.

When you listen to the ego and its negativity, it starts to control you and how you behave.

According to Eckhart Tolle, when this happens, “you don’t have thoughts; the thoughts have you.”

These limiting thoughts can feed on themselves as well. Our brains have a built-in confirmation bias. This means that it focuses on information that is consistent with our own beliefs and values.

This is useful to prevent the brain from being overloaded with too much information. Therefore, if you believe that people are out to get you, your brain will likely hold onto and search for information that confirms that people are out to get you.

So, what’s the key to not letting the ego controlling you?

Eckhart Tolle says it’s all about observing the mind and becoming aware of what kind of negative thoughts you habitually think.

Eckhart Tolle says that awareness is the first step to becoming free of the ego:

“Awareness is the beginning of becoming free of the ego because then you realize that your thoughts—and the negative emotions they produce—are dysfunctional and unnecessary.”

Of course, the question is: How do we become an observer of the mind to achieve this?

Below we’ve found a passage from Osho that explains exactly how to go about it.

“Become an observer of the currents of thought that flow through your consciousness. Just like someone sitting by the side of a river watching the river flow by, sit by the side of your mind and watch. Or just as someone sits in the forest and watches a line of birds flying by, just sit and watch. Or the way someone watches the rainy sky and the moving clouds, you just watch the clouds of thoughts moving in the sky of your mind. The flying birds of thoughts, the flowing river of thoughts in the same way, silently standing on the bank, you simply sit and watch. It is the same as if you are sitting on the bank, watching the thoughts flowing by. Don’t do anything, don’t interfere, don’t stop them in any way. Don’t repress in any way. If there is a thought coming don’t stop it, if it is not coming don’t try to force it to come. You are simply to be an observer….

“And if you become aware that you are not your thoughts, the life of these thoughts will begin to grow weaker, they will begin to become more and more lifeless. The power of your thoughts lies in the fact that you think they are yours. When you are arguing with someone you say, “My thought is”. No thought is yours. All thoughts are different from you, separate from you. You just be a witness to them.”

When you take a step back from your mind, you’ll realize very quickly that you don’t have to believe your thoughts. Your brain is simply a thought-making machine.

This will give you enormous liberation from the constraint of self-limiting thoughts. If you can’t help but think that the world is out to get you, remember that it’s just your brain.

It’s not you and you don’t have to believe those thoughts.

(To dive deep into meditation techniques to calm down and live more in the present moment, check out my most popular eBook: The No-Nonsense Guide to Using Buddhism and Eastern Philosophy for a Better Life)

4) Work on your confidence.

If you want to stop taking things personally, you need to work on your confidence.

Everything that happens to you is not actually happening to you – it might seem that way, but it’s your interpretation of the events that make things seem worse than they are.

If your confidence was more intact, you would overlook much of what people say or do and know that their actions and words say more about them than you anyway.

When our confidence is low, we take everything personally and feel like the world is ending.

Do things to make yourself feel good and as you become more confident in yourself, you’ll see that others around you are not as confident as they appear and half of what they say that makes you feel bad is brought about by the same lack of confidence you feel.

It’s all well and good to tell you to be confident, but how do you actually go about it?

I believe that one of the keys to building self-esteem is to learn more about yourself.

Getting to know who you are, your strengths and weaknesses, and what makes you tick allows you to put your life in a place of control.

And when you’re strong with who you are, you’ll be far less likely to take anything personally.

One technique that we’ve become particularly bullish about at Hack Spirit is VITALS. We first talked about it in our ultimate guide on how to love yourself.

You’ll need a pen and notepad to do this exercise.

Here’s what the letters stand for and how to find it in yourself:

V = Values

What are your values? This can include “helping others” or “health” or “being creative”. Think about it and write down 10 important values that describe you.

I=Interests

To figure out your interests, ask yourself these questions: What do you pay attention to? What are you most concerned about? What gets your mind really curious?

T= Temperament

Answer these questions to figure out your temperament: Do you restore your energy by being alone or with other people? Do you prefer to plan or be spontaneous? Do you make decisions based on facts or feelings? Do you prefer big ideas or details?

A= Around-the-Clock Activities

When do you like to do things? Are you a morning or evening person? What time of day does your energy peak?

L = Life Mission and Meaningful Goals

What is your purpose in life? What have been the most meaningful events of your life? What’s your main motivation for getting up in the morning?

S= Strengths

What are your strongest abilities? Skills? Talents? What are your greatest character strengths?

5) Stay away from people who make you feel bad about yourself.

If you are trying to stop taking things personally, it’s best to keep your distance from people who make you feel bad about yourself.

Whether or not they are actively trying to bring you down, if you don’t feel your best around them, it’s best to keep your distance.

There is a lot of work to be done about how you interpret these people, but in the meantime, you can decide to just move on and not allow them the opportunity to impact your life in a negative way.

And in the end, spending time with toxic people doesn’t add anything to your life.

You’ll live a much more successful and fulfilling life if you choose to hang out with people who are positive and uplifting.

According to a Harvard study that went for 80 years, they found that our closest relationships may have a significant overall impact on our happiness in our life.

It’s fairly simple to work out who you should spend time with.

Ask yourself these 2 questions:

1) Do they make you feel better after you spend time with them?

2) Do you feel more optimistic and positive about life after you spend time with them?

If you can answer yes to these questions, then that’s a good indicator that you should spend more time with them.

The bottom line is this:

If you spend time with people who are toxic and negative, then you might develop that attitude as well.

People who have a chronic negative mindset tend to take things personally because they believe that everything that happens to them is a personal attack on themselves.

6) Fill up your calendar.

If you really want to stop taking things personally and get on with your life, be too busy to care about what others think of you.

Go out and do you and enjoy every minute of your life. That’s what really happy people do and they don’t care how others perceive them.

Get out and get busy living instead of worrying about what people think you are doing.

One of the best ways to get busy is to have a purpose in your life. Set some goals.

At Hack Spirit, we often get asked about goal-setting, and we’ve found that people get consistent results from using the acronym SMART to set their goals,

You’ve probably heard of this acronym before. It’s popular because it works.

Here’s what it means.

Specific: Your goals must be clear and well-defined.

Measurable: Label precise amounts and dates. For example, if you want to reduce expenses, what amount do you want to reduce them to?

Attainable: Your goals have to be achievable. If they’re too difficult, you’ll lose motivation.

Relevant: Your goals should be aligned with where you want to get to and what you want to do.

Time-bound: Set yourself a deadline for your goals. Deadlines force you to get things done, and not procrastinate.

Another tip we give is to write down your goals. Don’t just rely on your brain to remember your goals.

Physically write down each goal, no matter how small it is. Putting a line through your goal will give you the motivation to keep going.

The next step is to make an action plan so you achieve your goals.

You’re not going to achieve your big goals in a day. You need to write out individual steps to get there. Cross them off as you complete them to give you more motivation.

[If you’re looking for a structured, easy-to-follow framework to help you find your purpose in life and achieve your goals, check our eBook on how to be your own life coach here].

7) Decide what the relationship is worth in the grand scheme of things.

When you feel offended by something someone said to you, stop and think about what the relationship means to you.

If this person is not important to you and your well being, you can let it go and stop seeing value in it that isn’t there.

It might take some practice, but you can overcome the sense of obligation to whatever it is that this person said to you.

For some reason, you put a lot of stock in their opinion, but you can let it go if you decide that what they think of you is not as important as you once thought.

8) Put yourself in their shoes.

If someone says something that offends you, rather than react to their words, you can try to see things from their perspective.

If they’ve offended you, you can think about where they might be coming from or what might have happened to cause them to act in such a way.

Rather than blaming them for how you are feeling, try thinking about how they are feeling. This doesn’t always help to remove your anger or offense, but it will help you see the situation from a different perspective.

Empathy can go a long way when you are feeling attacked or threatened by someone else.

Barbara Markway Ph.D. offers some great advice in Psychology Today. She advises repeating the mantra “just like me”. Here’s why:

“When I feel critical of someone, I try to remind myself that the other person loves their family just like I do, and wants to be happy and free of suffering, just like I do. Most important, that person makes mistakes, just like I do.”

9) Don’t assume anything about the other person.

We often jump to conclusions about people who offend us or make us feel bad about ourselves, but it’s important that you don’t make any assumptions about another person.

What people say and do almost never have anything to do with the way you are acting or the things you are saying and they have everything to do with how those people are feeling about themselves at the time of the conversation.

People who feel like crap will treat other people like crap.

People who have experienced loss will want you to experience loss. They’ll say and do things to make you feel what they feel.

And when we make assumptions and judgments about others, we’re often wrong.

According to a study in the Journal of Personality and Psychology, we’re pretty bad at understanding other people’s minds.

Researchers from the University of Chicago and Northeastern University in the US and Ben Gurion University in Israel conducted 25 different experiments with strangers, friends, and couples to assess the accuracy of insights into other’s thoughts, feelings, mental states, and attitudes.

Here is their conclusion as psychologist Tal Eyal told Quartz:

”We assume that another person thinks or feels about things as we do, when in fact they often do not. So we often use our own perspective to understand other people, but our perspective is often very different from the other person’s perspective.”

So when you make a judgment that someone is attacking you personally, you’re most likely wrong.

Eyal says that the only way to find out what’s going on inside someone’s mind and their motivations for acting is to ask them, rather than guess.

10) Take your reactions to another location.

When someone says something or does something that makes you feel angry, it’s important that you don’t react right away.

Give yourself some time to figure out your own feelings and position on the situation before you react.

This can save you a lot of heartache and disappointment if your reactions just spur on the other person some more.

Giving yourself time to walk away with your thoughts may prevent you from saying or doing something you’ll regret.

Remember, they might have said something that ticked you off, but you were the one who got ticked off.

They can’t actually make you feel or react a certain way. That’s a hard lesson we all need to learn from time to time.

When you feel angry, take a step back, breathe in and try to release the tension. Acting out in anger will rarely achieve anything.

Here’s how Thich Nhat Hanh recommends practicing “awareness of the body”:

“Breathing in, I’m aware of my body. When you practice mindful breathing, the quality of your in-breath and out-breath will be improved. There is more peace and harmony in your breathing, and if you continue to practice like that, the peace and the harmony will penetrate into the body, and the body will profit.”

“So next time you’re stopped at a red light, you might like to sit back and practice the fourth exercise: “Breathing in, I’m aware of my body. Breathing out, I release the tension in my body.” Peace is possible at that moment, and it can be practiced many times a day—in the workplace, while you are driving, while you are cooking, while you are doing the dishes, while you are watering the vegetable garden. It is always possible to practice releasing the tension in yourself.”

11) Respond on your own time.

When you are ready, and you’ve done your due diligence on how you want to react, take your case to the person you made you feel angry.

In these cases, it’s not so much about you taking things personally as it is about acknowledging how the relationship means to you.

If they are an important person to you, you’ll want them to know they hurt you in some way and you’ll want to make sure you are better able to manage expectations between the two of you in the future.

Say what needs to be said for yourself and you can feel good about not reacting in the moment.

Putting yourself first

Hey, Lachlan from Hack Spirit here.

What’s your number one goal at the moment?

Is it to buy that car you’ve been saving up for?

To finally start that side-hustle that’ll hopefully help you quit your 9-5 one day?

Or to take the leap and finally ask your partner to move in?

Whatever it is, you’re not going to get there, unless you’ve got a plan.

And even then…plans fail.

But I didn’t write this to you to be the voice of doom and gloom…

No, I’m writing this because I want to help you achieve the goals you’ve set.

I’ve recently been taking part in a workshop called Life Journal created by teacher and career coach Jeanette Brown.

Covering all the basics and more on what’s needed to reach your goals, Jeannette tackles everything from creating habits and new behavior patterns to putting your plans into action.

She doesn’t mess around – this workshop will require effort on your part but that’s the beauty of it – Jeanette has carefully designed it to put YOU in the driving seat of your life.

So…think back to that important goal I asked about at the start of this message.

How much do you want it?

Are you willing to put the effort in to get there?

If so, check out the workshop here.

If you do take part, I’d love to hear how your Life Journey goes!

All the best,
Lachlan

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How Not To Take Things Personally: Frederik Imbo (Transcript)

Here is the full text of actor Frederik Imbo’s talk: How not to take things personally? at TEDxMechelen conference.

TRANSCRIPT:

Good evening. Good evening. How are you? Are you good? Great.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to this match. This match will take exactly 18 minutes. Okay, and you’re all part of the same team: Mechelen.

Okay. Hey guys, I would like to see fair play on the field, respect and positivity. Is that okay for everyone? Cool. Good luck.

One year ago, I decided I wanted to become a football referee, not because of the money, though. I only get paid €20 per match. So I won’t really get rich by it. Will I? No.

I decided to become a referee for two other reasons: one, to stay in good shape; two, because I wanted to learn how not to take things personally.

I can see some people nodding; you’re probably thinking being a referee is the perfect environment to learn how not to take things personally. Isn’t it?

Because the spectators hardly ever shout encouraging or positive things. No.

Oh, what do they shout? Come on. Yeah, yeah, good. As a referee, I’m the scapegoat. Apparently I’m always wrong. It’s always my fault. And I wanted to learn how not to take all this personally.

Because I really struggle with this. For example, when I drive slowly, because I’m trying to find a specific location and somebody is just driving behind me, I feel hunted, especially when they start honking and flashing their headlights. I take it personally. I know I shouldn’t. But it just happens.

Do you see what I mean? Yeah.

Or when somebody cancels an appointment last minute I get the feeling that I’m not important enough. Again, I take it personally. Even professionally.

I’m a public speaker like tonight. This is what I do. I give keynote speeches and I really like it as long as I can draw my audience into my story. Because the very moment I see somebody is not paying attention, for example, when somebody is looking at his smartphone, it just happens. I take it personally.

Relax! You are safe tonight. Don’t worry. Feel free to take your smartphones and you can even start talking to your neighbor; I will not take it personally.

Why not? Because now… here and now I’m very conscious that this can happen and more importantly I have a strategy to deal with it.

So tonight, I would like to share this strategy with you. Are you interested? Cool.

Because I guess I am NOT the only person in this room who sometimes takes things personally, right?

Imagine… imagine you invite a friend to go to the movies and she replies: “Oh sorry, I have to work.” But you see a picture on social media of her having dinner with some friends that very night.

Or imagine you really have worked very hard on a project. You’re really proud of the end result. But the only thing you get is criticism.

So you come home and would like to wind down and share this terrible experience. But while you’re telling your story the other one walks away to switch on the TV.

Now who would take one of these situations personally? Show me hands; come on. Lots of you. Why?

WHY DO WE TAKE THINGS PERSONALLY? Somebody says or does something and bam! We feel hurt, neglected, offended, betrayed by the other one. That’s what we believe, though. It’s the other person’s fault; he’s responsible for what we feel. He’s the one to blame.

Now hang on. Hang on.

Who says that? Which part of us is speaking? It’s our ego. Our ego thinks that others should take us into consideration. Our ego doesn’t want to be criticized; hell no. Our ego wants to be acknowledged. I’m right.

Is this what you want? Do you want to be right? Ahh, that’s exhausting. When my ego takes over, I’m fighting all day. I’m in a constant struggle with the rest of the world. And it drains my energy.

Wouldn’t it be so much easier to not take things personally? Because then no one has power over you; you’re free. You experience much more harmony and connection between you and other people. Of course, because your energy can go towards nice things, instead of endlessly battling against the things that drive you crazy.

So the question is: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be happy? I know what some of you are thinking. I will make sure I will be happy by being right.

Well, how do you do it?

HOW TO BECOME HAPPY BY NOT TAKING THINGS PERSONALLY?

You are standing at the kickoff of the match of your life, the match by which you will learn how to stop taking things personally. So as a referee, I brought my coin for the toss and every coin has two sides: heads or tails. And they stand for two strategies…. two strategies to no longer taking things personally.

Sir, sir, good evening. You’re the captain of this huge team. You can choose: heads or tails?

Okay. You’re lucky; it’s heads. Are you ready for the first strategy? Okay, here comes.

FIRST STRATEGY: IT’S NOT ABOUT ME.

What do you mean, it’s not about me? This sounds weird; doesn’t it. Because when I take things personally, I’m convinced it is about me.

When I see someone is looking at his phone, I feel offended. I think hey I’ve put so much effort and time in this presentation. I want respect. I think me, myself, and I… sounds familiar, no? Yeah.

But in fact, it isn’t about me. What if I try to look at it from the other person’s perspective, asking myself why, why is he or she looking at his or her smartphone? Maybe he has just received an important message, one he has been waiting for.

Or the topic of my presentation is not really his cup of tea? Could be. Or on the contrary he finds it very interesting and he wants to take notes on his smartphone? Very smart to do that by the way.

I simply need to shift my focus from me to we and I won’t take it personally. If I try to see the intention of the other one, I make space for understanding instead of irritation.

Does this ring a bell with you?

When you put your son to bed but he doesn’t want you, he throws himself on the floor, kicking and screaming: I hate you? Do you take that personally? No, no, you don’t because you know this is not about me; it’s about what he wants, what he needs. He’s angry because he just wants to stay up a bit longer; that’s all.

So the first strategy to not take it personally is: it’s not about me. Look at the other person’s intention. When a driver is tailgating and flashing his lights, he probably does it because he’s in a hurry; it’s not about me. You see it’s as simple as that, in theory.

Because in real life it turns out to be a hell of a job. Do you have any idea, ladies and gentlemen, how many thoughts our brain produces a day? 50,000!