FOOPO: The Fear Of Other People’s Opinion’s. For a long time I thought I was the only person who suffered from FOOPO but, actually, you know, most of us do. And it’s a very terrible affliction when it stops us doing good stuff. So here are some ideas that helped me get over my FOOPO, and maybe they will help you too!

1. Remember this quote

FOOPO is actually a bit pointless because most people don’t notice or care what we are doing.

2.Decide whose opinions matter

And if someone does notice us, and offers up an un-nice opinion, does their opinion even matter?

3. Only WE know what WE know

And if someone does notice, and offers up an un-nice opinion, and it’s someone whose opinion matters to us, do they know everything that we know?

When we decide to DO SOMETHING we’ve given it thought, we’ve researched, we’ve questioned, we’ve listened, we’ve come to this view because of our experience. The “Opinion’s’ experience is not as deep and well rounded as ours. So sometimes the ‘opinion” is well-intended but actually unhelpful because the person giving it doesn’t understand.

4. Are they just having a bad day?!

And if someone does notice, and offers up an un-nice opinion, and it’s someone whose opinion matters to us, and they know lots, maybe they are just having a bad day?

5. Sometimes other people’s opinions, though hard to swallow, are actually useful

And if someone does notice, and they offer up an un-nice opinion, and it’s someone whose opinion matters to us, and they seem to know a lot about the situation, and they are having a good day. Then their un-nice opinion might actually be useful.

Ugh.

But it’s better to know that something we’re doing is not quite right, so we can make it right, than to bang our head against a brick wall. Yes?

Fancy a weekly email of sweet stuff?

I have a few rules for myself. Guidelines for the way I work (and live!) that keep me in order!

I need to keep myself in order! Without order my head feels cluttered and overwhelmed and I can’t think/work/do properly. But I also can’t be bothered with too much order. For example I like the look of tidy but I really don’t like tidying up, so I’m quite relaxed about a bit of untidy. As long as I can find things, I’m fine with a bit of mess. I have my own rule for tidy-enough.

When it comes to my email inbox I also have a good-enough rule. I tried Inbox Zero but it was too consuming. I tried Inbox-whatever but having a gazillion emails lurking in there gave me the heebie jeebies. So I have a rule of Inbox 50. I never let my inbox get bigger than 50 emails.

I picked 50 because that’s how many I see on the first page of my gmail inbox. Simple as that. I could have changed the gmail settings to show more, or less, but I’m not that particular. Inbox 50 works for me. I accidentally discovered I am happy with 50 pending emails.

Every night I work through my inbox and get rid of as many emails as possible until I’m back down to the magic 50. I’ve never found it difficult, so it’s a rule that suits me.

And I think that’s the secret to finding order: creating good-enough rules that suit oneself. However randomly you discover them.

“Hey Julia!

I gots a dilemma about motivation lol.

When I do the motivation formula it highlights that I really don’t expect to achieve my goal. At day 45 I’m at only 12%.

However, my value is 10 as the goal is for the business to be able to cover the expenses, covering the expenses means I won’t be so stressed, not being stressed means I can stop being snarky and have a nice life with my family!

So do I go ahead an lower the goal knowing that my value of it might drop if the business doesn’t become sustainable?

I’m trying to reconcile that some progress towards sustainability is better than none but my logical brain is having none of it!”

K x

🌟Oh lovely K, we can fix this!🌟

First of all, if you’re not K and you haven’t watched the Day 45 Boost video, the Motivation Formula (that K is talking about) is a quick way of working out how intrinsically motivated you are about a goal. Roughly, it measures how much ‘natural’ motivation your goal gives you.

The formula is:

Motivation= ‘your self-belief that you can reach your goal’ multiplied by ‘how important that goal is to you’.

You can try this yourself. Give yourself a score out of 10 for self-belief (how much you believe you can reach your goal); and give yourself a score out of 10 for value (how important reaching this goal is to you).

Let’s say your self-belief is 8 and your value is 8, your motivation score will be 64/100 which means you have a lot of natural motivation to reach your goal. And that makes sense. When you ‘think you can do it’ and ‘achieving it is very important to you‘, of course you’ll feel motivated.

But you, lovely K, say you have a high “value” but a low “self-belief” score. So, maybe, your “value” is 10 but your self-belief is down round 3. Your natural motivation on that basis is a low 30/100 and you’re wondering if you should lower your goal to increase your “self-belief” score. But you don’t want to lower your goal because it’s important to you.

Hmm. What to do?!

I don’t think you need to lower your goal. I think with a little bit of work on your self belief, and an extra injection of motivation. You’ll be ok. So try this:

1.Self Belief

Right! Let’s start with self-belief. I know it’s a big ask to suddenly start believing in yourself, but….

A. You have every reason to be optimistic:

On Day 45 you’d reached just 12% of your goal and I’m guessing you think your efforts aren’t working. But don’t be gloomy! That’s the thing about the 100 Day Goal: effort and results don’t form a nice straight line. It’s not unusual to put a lot of effort in during the first 50 days and not see the results until Day 80. Gah! I know it’s frustrating, but it takes time for your efforts to start yielding. It’s not a reflection of your abilities, it’s how things work. Provided you’ve been doing your Microactions you have every reason to be believe your efforts will fruit soon!

B. You need to talk to yourself:

It’s important that you put good confident vibes out into the universe. I know that sounds woo woo, but confidence attracts results. When it comes to selling (and I’m guessing you have a sales goal) your confidence subconsciously impacts your potential customers. Just trust me with this. It does. So you need to talk yourself into feeling a bit more confident. And how can you do this? Well one way is to use Affirmations. There’s lots I could say about affirmations but in a nutshell you just need to know that the act of speaking a positive statement about yourself out loud causes your subconscious brain to believe it’s true which in turn causes you (subconsciously) to act like it is true. In other words, if you say you are confident, you will act confidently!

It’s a quirky brain thing. But affirmations actually are a scientifically smart way to improve your self belief.

So, K, start saying affirmations like “I am confident with my 100 Day Goal plan and the way things are going” or “I am confident in my business and love selling my product” (or whatever affirmation you choose!) and this will help you appear more confident which in turn will increase your sales. Really!

Tip! You need to say your affirmation out loud at least 5 times a day. But only in private. It feels weird but give it a go!

2. Prop yourself up with other motivators

The other thing you can do is to increase your motivation in other ways. It’s always fine (and good!) to prop up your natural motivation (your ‘self belief‘ X ‘value’) with other motivational techniques. Our natural motivation rollercoasters during the 100 Day Goal. None of us have eternal motivation (shame!). So to boost your motivation:

*Read through your smile file (or start one, it’s a collection of nice things that customers have said about your business)

*Go for a walk. The chemicals produced in your brain through exercise will make you feel motivated for everything and anything

*Read an inspiring story (autobiographies are good)

* Watch people winning a race (watching runners cross a finish line sends messages to our subconscious brain making US feel successful, the feeling of success creates a rush of dopamine which then motivates us. Our weird and amazing brain!)

And keep going K. Don’t lower your goal (unless you really want to). You’ve got this!

x🌟x