There are two traps I tend to fall into regarding other people’s opinions of me. The first is the pride trap: I can take people’s affirmations of me and use them to inflate my self-assessment, my worth. I can become prideful and boastful and haughty and self-righteous and be a total jerk to be around. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, I can use others’ input as a performance bar I have to clear. I can let insecurity and the need to please eclipse everything else, and I can subsequently throw my energies at living up to the standard they’ve set for me.
