Fear of judgment: why other people's opinions aren't your job

You've written a LinkedIn post to launch your freelance business. You rewrite it four times. You picture a former colleague's snarky comment, your old boss's silence, the likes that never come. In the end you delete it. The next day you're asked to take on another project. You'd like to say no, but you think about what your manager will say, and you agree. That night, in the shower, you rehearse tomorrow's meeting and the faces of the people who'll be listening. If this sounds familiar, the problem isn't your idea, your post or your workload. It's the fear of judgment, and it's making your decisions for you far more often than you think.

Living the life other people expect

The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga is one long conversation between a philosopher and a restless young man. At its heart are the ideas of Alfred Adler, the Austrian psychologist who stands alongside Freud and Jung as one of the giants of the field.

At one point the philosopher says something that leaves the young man speechless: there's no need to seek other people's recognition. In fact, you mustn't seek it. Because if you live worrying only about how you'll be judged, you end up doing what others expect of you. You throw away who you really are and live someone else's life.

There's a less comfortable flip side, too: if you're not living to meet other people's expectations, they're not living to meet yours. The colleague who doesn't do what you'd hoped, the client who doesn't respond the way you wanted: there's no point getting angry. They're as free as you are.

Whose task is this?

To get out of this trap, Adler offers a simple tool: the separation of tasks. In any situation, ask yourself whose task it is. And to figure that out, ask one more question: who will ultimately live with the consequences of this choice?

The book starts with a familiar example. If a kid doesn't study, the kid pays the price, not the parents. So studying is the kid's task. Parents can make it clear they're ready to help, but they can't study for them. As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

Now apply it to your own day. Writing a good post, preparing a solid presentation, making a sensible proposal to a client: those are your tasks. What the people reading the post, hearing the presentation or receiving the proposal think of it: that's their task. You can't control it, and worrying about it changes nothing. The book mentions a grandmother who said it best to her teenage grandson, stuck in front of the mirror fixing his hair: "You're the only one who's worried how you look."

The boss who never appreciates you

The young man pushes back with a case he knows all too well: an unreasonable boss who yells at every opportunity and never acknowledges his effort. How are you supposed to not care about that?

The philosopher's answer is blunt. Being liked by the people you work with isn't your job. Your boss's outbursts are his emotions, and dealing with them is his task. You don't have to win him over or bend until you disappear. Your task is something else: doing your own work well, without lying to yourself.

This isn't a license to stop caring. Adler doesn't recommend indifference: if someone asks for your help, you give it gladly. What you shouldn't do is meddle in other people's tasks when nobody asked, or let others meddle in yours. That goes for you, too, when you want to control the slow colleague, the partner who won't change, the client who can't make up their mind.

Fear of judgment and the price of freedom

Then comes the line that gives the book its title: freedom is being disliked by other people. Put that way it sounds like a provocation, and the young man pushes back hard.

The philosopher is quick to clarify. He isn't telling you to go out of your way to be disliked, or to do anything wrong. He's telling you not to be afraid of being disliked. Trying to live without ever displeasing anyone is impossible, and a kind of prison too. If someone disapproves of your choices, it's often a sign you're living by your own principles rather than by other people's expectations.

Being disliked is still unpleasant, and the book doesn't pretend otherwise. It's simply the price of going your own way. And it's usually far lower than the price you pay every day trying to please everyone. And if what stops you is waiting to feel sure enough of yourself, remember that self-confidence comes after you act, not before.

Two columns to fill in today

Pick one decision you keep putting off because you're worried about what people will think. The post you haven't published, the no you haven't said, the rate you haven't raised, the idea you haven't pitched.

1. Take a sheet of paper and split it into two columns: "my task" and "their task."
2. In the first, write what's up to you. Making the post good, finding the right words for the no, explaining the new rate.
3. In the second, write what isn't. What your boss will think, who'll hit like, how the client will react.
4. Today, do only the first column. Leave the second to the people it belongs to.

You won't stop feeling the weight of other people's eyes overnight. But every time you ask yourself "whose task is this?", a little more of that weight goes back where it belongs.