“Your perception of me is a reflection of you; my reaction to you is an awareness of me.”—Bobbi Chegwyn aka Coach Bobbi
For people who struggle with accepting other people’s opinions of them, this is one of the most motivating quotes.
It encourages critical thinking, self-love, and a deeper understanding of how human relations work.
So, let’s try to explain it to those who may wonder if these words are even true. Start with yourself.
From your early years, different schools you’ve been to, all the people you’ve met in life, every possible circumstance that was a part of your life, all the characteristics you were born with like your character and your physical appearance – it’s all shaped you into who you are today.
Your mind and your interpretation of the world are affected by everything that makes you who you are.
One person’s reality is hardly ever what everybody else sees on the outside, it’s their impression of what their world looks like.
Why does that matter? Well… People’s perceptions can be messy.
All your beliefs, attitudes, and views are a part of how you approach new things in life and evaluate new people and new circumstances.
When you meet someone, you don’t see them for who they are.
Everything they do or say first goes through this prism of your own experiences and the final input you get in your mind is already tainted by who you are.
This means that, if you form an opinion of that certain someone, your opinion will be: one part input you actually received from them, and the other part input of your own mind.
Seeing something in a person can trigger certain parts of you – the experiences, emotions, and everything that’s a part of your history.
Our brains store so much information and it’s a very complex machine, so the way you see someone could be affected even by how your day went before meeting them and what kind of mood you were in when you first spoke to them.
Now, let’s flip this around.
People who have a negative opinion of you that’s based on nothing you actually did or said is only proof of what kind of negativity they are carrying inside.
We all spend so much time worrying about how other people will react to us and trying to adapt our own values, lifestyles, and personalities in order to feel accepted by others.
These words by Coach Bobbi tell a great truth about how things actually function.
It’s hard to affect how others think of you unless you intentionally try to speak to certain parts of their mind.
Live your life proud and free to explore, appreciate, and show your authentic self.
Knowing that you can’t do much to help improve other people’s opinion of you is freeing.
To motivate yourself to stop caring about other people’s opinions, read these other popular quotes about knowing your own worth.
Popular Quotes: Living Your Own Truth
1. “The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.”—Virginia Woolf
2. “I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.”—Michel de Montaigne
3. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”— Dr. Seuss
4. “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”―Suzy Kassem
5. “You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.”—Richard P. Feynman
6. “Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”—Lao Tzu
7. “If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.”—John Lennon
8. “Never dull your shine for somebody else.”—Tyra Banks
9. “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”—Oscar Wilde
10. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”—Steve Jobs
11. “Some people say, ‘Never let them see you cry.’ I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.”—Tina Fey
12. “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”—Albert Einstein
13. “Some people say you are going the wrong way, when it’s simply a way of your own.”—Angelina Jolie
14. “Believe in yourself and there will come a day when others will have no choice but to believe with you.”—Cynthia Kersey
Beautiful Quotes: Stand Tall And Live Life Like You Deserve It
1. “You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.”—Olin Miller
2. “There is nothing more attractive than confidence. Once she sees her own beauty, everyone else will.”—Habeeb Akande
3. “I don’t care what you think about me. I don’t think about you at all.”—Coco Chanel
4. “Don’t worry about who doesn’t like you, who has more, or who’s doing what.”—Erma Bombeck
5. “There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.”—Marianne Williamson
6. “Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson
7. “People who repeatedly attack your confidence and self-esteem are quite aware of your potential, even if you are not.”—Wayne Gerard Trotman
8. “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”—Charlotte Brontë
9. “I want to be around people that do things. I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or talk about what people do. I want to be around people that dream and support and do things.”—Amy Poehler
10. “No name-calling truly bites deep unless, in some dark part of us, we believe it. If we are confident enough then it is just noise.”—Laurell K. Hamilton
11. “When it comes down to it, I let them think what they want. If they care enough to bother with what I do, then I’m already better than them.”—Marilyn Monroe
12. “Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.”—Tina Fey
13. “He thinks himself rather an exceptional young man, thoroughly sophisticated, well adjusted to his environment, and somewhat more significant than anyone else he knows.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald
14. “When I was growing up I always wanted to be someone. Now I realize I should have been more specific.”—Lily Tomlin
15. “One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”—Sigmund Freud
16. “So many people along the way, whatever it is you aspire to do, will tell you it can’t be done. But all it takes is imagination. You dream. You plan. You reach.”―Michael Phelps
17. “Well, laddie, if you’ve let an old buzzard like me hurt your confidence, you couldn’t have had much in the first place.”—Tamora Pierce
18. “There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”—Aristotle
19. “Most people just want to see you fall, that’s more reason to stand tall.”—Emma Michellere
Wisdom Quotes: There’s So Much Hidden Value In Life
1. “The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”―Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
2. “If you’re reading this… Congratulations, you’re alive. If that’s not something to smile about, then I don’t know what is.”―Chad Sugg (Monsters Under Your Head)
3. “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”―Aristotle
4. “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.”—Eleanor Roosevelt
5. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”—George Bernard Shaw
6. “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”—Mahatma Gandhi
7. “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”—Confucius
8. “You can never plan the future by the past.”—Edmund Burke
9. “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”—Friedrich Nietzsche
10. “There are three constants in life… change, choice, and principles.”—Stephen Covey
11. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?'”—Martin Luther King, Jr.
12. “Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.”—Dalai Lama
13. “Lost time is never found again.”—Benjamin Franklin
14. “He that respects himself is safe from others.”—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
15. “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”—Robert Frost
16. “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”—John F. Kennedy
17. “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”—Albert Einstein
18. “It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.”—Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
19. “Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive.”—Elbert Hubbard
20. “The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.”—Tony Robbins
21. “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Inspirational Quotes: Finding Purpose Can Be Simple
1. “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”—Maya Angelou
2. “Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.”—John F. Kennedy
3. “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”—Nelson Mandela
4. “Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.”—C. S. Lewis
5. “Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one’s aim.”—John D. Rockefeller
6. “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”—Mark Twain
7. “People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”—Eleanor Roosevelt
8. “Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.”—Paulo Coelho
9. “Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.”—Thomas Jefferson
10. “Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.”—Helen Keller
11. “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”—Aristotle
12. “There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.”—Franklin D. Roosevelt
13. “Each person must live their life as a model for others.”—Rosa Parks
14. “My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose–somehow we win out.”—Ronald Reagan
15. “Life is not about how fast you run or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.”—Vivian Komori
16. “When a thing is done, it’s done. Don’t look back. Look forward to your next objective.”—George C. Marshall
17. “Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.”—Henry Van Dyke
18. “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”—Abraham Lincoln
We hope all these inspirational lines will truly make a difference for anyone who reads this article. Everyone deserves to love themselves and take pride in their choices.
Always keep in mind that “your perception of me is a reflection of you,” both when other people judge you harshly and when you form opinions of others.
