How to Start to Think for Yourself and Develop Independent Thinking

One of the greatest dilemmas that you’ll ever face in life is being obsessed with having control over every little detail of your life, and yet finding it hard to not care about what other people think or their opinion of your actions and decisions. The moment you start to give more value to their opinions and base your decisions on what they think is the moment when your true self is pushed into the background and you start to lead a pretentious life. Letting others think for you is destined to give a huge blow to your self-esteem in the long run. Think about it, if you are overly dependent on what other people think of you or the choices that you make, you will only be able to feel good about who you are as long as others approve of you while your self-confidence will bail on you if you fail to get their approval.

Considering how dramatically does it affect your life for the worse, it is fair to state that putting an effort into transforming your personality in a fashion that disables others from having more credence than they deserve would be a commendable idea. You don’t have to worry about being overwhelmed with the excess of information on the internet to accomplish the aforementioned task. We have the task cut short for you. Let us try and be minimalistic in highlighting the top 5 simple strategies which can enable you to take charge of your life and letting go of others’ opinions. Let’s not keep you waiting any longer and dive straight into the information that you came looking for.

 

 

Your Self-Esteem Needs a Boost

As mentioned earlier, the primary reason why you fail to take control of your life and lead it on the basis of what others think and the opinions that they hold is a lack of self-esteem and self-confidence. Naturally, therefore, that’s exactly where you have to begin your journey. It is time that you reminded yourself that your self-esteem can only come from yourself. You can’t rely on other people to serve it on a hot plate for you to devour. As you start to depend more on external approval, you may think that you are driving confidence and esteem out of it but you are actually doing is exactly the opposite of it; you are disabling it from having an opportunity to flourish in the first place.

From here onward, therefore, you must take the challenge of making it a habit to make your own choices and take your own decisions. Start with the minor decision as to not turning your life in a total catastrophe. The ones that you can handle even in an event of the wrong decision. In which case, the least it’ll do for you is build a habit of listening to your own inner voice rather than looking for opinions and ideas from other people. Once you learn to believe in yourself, you will no longer feel the need to get the external approval at all.

 

It’s All In Your Head

Here’s another important thing that you have to continuously feed into your mind in an attempt to take charge of your life and liberating yourself from what other people think. What if we told you that regardless of how evident do you think it is that your social circle and acquaintances are drawing a judgment out of your choices and decisions, more often than not, they’re not and it’s nowhere but in your head. For example, if you want to quit your job and launch your own startup, you may fail to find the confidence to go about it because there’s a voice in your head that’s telling you how people would consider this choice foolish, ill-informed, non-pragmatic, or simply not thought through.

On the contrary, however, once you take the leap of faith and step into implementing your idea, you will find out that you are getting more support than you would have thought. In other words, the negativity is mostly just in your head. It is when you submit to it that you lose control of your life and let others think for yourself while in reality, they are the least concerned.

 

 

Be Your Own Teacher

There is no argument over the fact that a single experience can teach you more in life than a whole bunch of people. All through your life, people would tell you to learn from others’ mistakes. While it is a wise choice, it is not always practical. There are times when you have to go with your gut and experience for yourself in order to get the learning out of it. Part of the reason why you want other people to think for you and base your decisions on their analysis of the situation is that you are overly scared of the potentially unfavorable outcome and you are just trying to be clever since depending on them gives you an opportunity to put the blame on someone other than yourself. But think about it for a minute. So things didn’t go as planned and you blamed it on them. Does that affect you in any way at all? Isn’t it still going to be just you who’d have to face the consequences? If so, then isn’t it a better option to make your own decision? That way even if it turns out to be the wrong decision, you will be able to get the learning out of it rather than clinging to the blame game that doesn’t benefit you in any way.

 

Comparison Is A Curse

Why do you think you rely on other peoples’ opinion for making your own decisions? It is because somewhere deep in your head, you have an image of them being better than you. It could be in terms of anything, perhaps you think they are wiser than you, they might be more intelligent, smarter, experienced, skilled, etc. For instance, if you are having trouble with managing your finances, it is given that you would look for the opinion of someone who you deem as impeccable when it comes to financial management. Someone who is struggling with his own finances wouldn’t even pop into your mind under such circumstances.

In order to remove your reliance from their take on the situation, all you have to do is shift your focus from who they are to how they got where they are. What we fail to realize is that an experienced, skilled, wiser, smarter, individual was just as naïve as you a few years ago. It was his capability to make his own decision and learn from his mistakes that go him where he is today. The same is the path for you if you are done with letting others think for you and have control over your life that they don’t deserve.

 

Stop Compromising On Boundaries

Last but certainly not least, it is important to highlight that we are in no way advocating the idea of isolating yourself and being too arrogant to take someone’s opinion. It is always a great idea to have a myriad of perspectives at your disposal. What we are suggesting is that once you have their ideas, thoughts, and opinions, the final decision of choosing one to implement must be your own. You shouldn’t feel pressurized or think of it as a liability to act on what they suggested. Go through with it only if you genuinely agree with them.

What’s more, is that it is important to have boundaries. There are matters in which it may help you to take their opinions while there are a few other matters which you can define to be entirely personal. It is okay to not let anyone have a say in such matters. No, you are not being rude, harsh, or arrogant. You are just trying to respect your boundaries. Keeping the control of such matters entirely in your hand is your right. You are only going to mistreat yourself if you let them think for you and force you into making your decisions based on their opinions in such matters as well.

 

Final Note

As mentioned earlier, it is okay to take opinions and create a pool of perspectives. If anything, it can help facilitate your decision and improve your chances of making the right one. But when you start to depend so much on the external approval and what other people think that your true self is entirely silenced and you start to feel like you are living somebody else’s life that you don’t have any control over, it’s a hint that you have to put an effort into taking the charge of your life back from them. With the tips mentioned above, we sincerely hope that you would be able to remove your over-dependence from other people and have control over your life that you always craved for.