Stop Worrying About What Others Think About You In Meetings

It takes a team to get most tasks done. But stop paying so much attention to what teammates think of you. You will get more done if you simply be honest with yourself.

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Worrying about what others in a team think of you isn’t helpful, says Michael Gervais, Los Angeles-based high-performance psychologist and founder of consulting firm Finding Mastery. He calls it FOPO, the fear of other people’s opinions.

“It may be the single greatest constrictor of human potential,” Gervais wrote in “The First Rule of Mastery.” “When we experience FOPO we lose faith in ourselves and our performance suffers.”

Be Honest With Yourself And Get More Done

Gervais says that fear is ingrained in people going back to prehistoric times.

“The excessive rumination about the potential of rejection and seeking of approval was probably first established when our ancestors realized if you got kicked out of the tribe it was a near death sentence,” Gervais told IBD. “The survival tactic of safety is belonging.”

Instead of focusing on results, most people simply aim to please others rather than be rejected, Gervais says. Worse, people will play a role so others like them.

“That’s emotionally, psychologically and sometimes intellectually dishonest,” he said. “Then people will tend to play it safe and play it small. That robs us of creativity. We become somebody we are not.”

Be Honest With Yourself About Your Potential

Instead, be honest with yourself. Top performers are fundamentally committed to striving for their real potential, Gervais says.

“That’s so rare,” he said. “They get to the truth of what’s holding them back and what they’re capable of. They’re fundamentally committed to their potential. We’re so attracted to them because we know the courage it takes to be vulnerable and take risks.”

It’s not easy to be honest with yourself, says Bill Novelli, professor emeritus at Georgetown University’s business school and author of “Good Business.”

“Honesty is hard work,” Novelli said. “It isn’t easy to find and tell yourself the truth.”

But it’s vital, at work or in your private life.

“Everything is based on relationships, including marriages, and trusted relationships are built on honesty,” Novelli said.

Be honest with yourself or you’ll be in a role where you don’t fit, Novelli says. “Fake it ’til you make it is a bad strategy,” he said.

He points to Sen. Olympia Snowe, who decided in 2012 to leave the Senate because it had become so divided. It became nearly impossible to get anything productive done.

“You can’t keep pushing the rock up the hill,” he said. “You have to be honest with yourself.”

Enlist Others To Help You Be Honest With Yourself

Find people who can be a sounding board to keep you on track.

“It’s really hard to look yourself in the mirror and judge yourself,” Novelli said.

Novelli also suggests asking yourself some key questions. First, would my board or boss hire me today if I interviewed for my job? Second, what do I still need to learn and do to reach my next level of success? And lastly, have I really demonstrated the ability to lead?

Listen to those taking the opposite side of you, too, Novelli says. He had a trusted staff member when he was chief executive at retirement organization AARP. That person argued against almost every key decision Novelli proposed.

“Your instinct is to say I’ve already made that decision,” he said. “You can come to your own conclusion, but you have to have the honesty to listen to devil’s advocates.”

Gervais worked with Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella and his leadership team. Nadella has clearly stated the key to his company’s success is for everyone to have a growth mindset. He points out the company’s people have to know themselves and each other to make that growth happen under times of high stress.

“That’s having the courage to be honest with yourself and with your teammates,” Gervais said.

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