How can i be thick skinned

Resist throwing someone under the bus. This is often the hardest to hear. This is the big one. Interpretation has a lot to do with this. If a comment or criticism has truly seared you or thrown you into a multi-day crying jag, the critic must have pushed a button. Tip 6: Consider that the critic might be wrong! A colleague of mine recently criticised another for focusing too much on taking care of patients and not enough on research. The target of the criticism was devastated, until she realized it was just his opinion.

From her point of view and values, he was just plain wrong. Realizing she could reject his criticism was empowering for her. In fact, these people are often very close to you… perhaps family members, or even friends and acquaintances you've had for a long time. First, they're accustomed to viewing and interacting with you in a certain way, as they've been doing it for a long time.

Some people hate change. It makes them feel uncomfortable. So, in this case, it's not so much about failure directly, but rather an unwillingness of others to see you change and then have to deal with those changes.

Second, some people can't stand to see others excel them. It makes them feel insecure that someone they've viewed as an equal or even secretly as an inferior may rise above them. So, here, their opinions may be designed to discourage you from succeeding. Understanding the reasons why others form negative or discouraging opinions about us, our choices, and our behavior allows us to start making distinctions. Since the cause of a thin skin is placing power behind others opinions, knowing when opinions can be harmful to succeeding in realizing your dreams empowers you to start becoming aware and selective.

Determining the motives behind people's opinions and then choosing to accept or ignore them based on that knowledge is the key to developing a thick skin.

So what basis do you use to accept or ignore opinions? How do you determine which are worth listening to and which are worthless?

Evaluating others opinions revolves around your goals in life. A rule of thumb is to ignore opinions from all people who don't share the same goals as you and who haven't gotten the results you desire, in regard to your goals. Ernest Hemingway, considered as one of the best authors of all time and one of my favorite writers , said this in his memoir A Moveable Feast :.

If you want to live your life like that, you need a thick skin to tune out the voices outside of you. Because what happens when you get upset or let other people get the best of you? You might give up what you do—you question yourself.

Or maybe you start changing yourself for the worse — you stop being yourself. Having a thick skin is important — especially if you want to go through life smiling. I kept shut. I was afraid of the confrontation. And that was a huge mistake because that idiot caused a lot of damage to the people in that company.

Maybe it backfires, but at least I did the right thing. Also, if people treat me unfairly, I tell it to them straight.

I just let my moral compass speak for me. The more you stand up for yourself and others, the better you get at it. And always keep calm. Aw poor you, someone stabbed you in the back at work.

But you know what? It may be a result of a mistake or inappropriate behavior on his part, but it may just be that you concocted a creative reason to loathe that person. They probably wish you were different as well. They tend only to care about a very select few individuals.

Failing the first time around is rough — especially when people realize that their dreams are further off than they expected. Those with thick enough skin to suck it up and keep going are likely to have thick enough skin to fail several more times. Once you fail, you have to accept that failure is again a possibility. Those with the thickest skin will fail over and over again, but will continue pushing forward. Each blow hurts just the same, if not more, but they decided that they will win.

Many will convince themselves that they are good enough and that other forces at play are keeping them down — most will point the finger at someone else. Or not being loved by the people they love.