March 26, 2011

"DO NOT BE OVERLY CONCERNED WITH WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK!"

This has been a lifelong battle of mine! I am constantly worried about what other people think about me. Again, if you have been reading my posts, you will soon find that this also stems from my low self-esteem. I have read so many books on the matter, and you would think that it would soon sink into that deep, thick skull of mine, but I still struggle with becoming too concerned with what others think of me. According to Joyce Meyer in her book called "Approval Addiction," I need to STOP being so concerned with what other people think. She says that we must deliver ourselves from such a thinking mentality.

My problem is that I have a huge fear of rejection. I am not sure where this stems from, but I have always been afraid that people would not like me. In many circumstances, I am sure that I probably frightened people off from being my friend, because I probably appeared to be quite needy. It has always bothered me if people seem to not like me. I will go out of my way to find out why they don't like me including sending them email after email asking them why they do not like me. As you can probably see, this has never worked out quite well for me.

There is a saying that goes something like this: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. So, I think it is safe to say that if what I was doing in the past never worked; I think we need to find a new way of doing things. For instance, I need to stop being overly concerned about what people think of me. They probably don't think as badly about me as what I do in my own mind. I need to take Joyce Meyer's advice, and I need deliver myself from this negative behavior. It doesn't matter what other people think of me. It only matters what God thinks of me!