5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Worry About Upsetting People

People tend to get annoyed by other people’s success. Someone always has something critical to say about anyone else’s achievement.

When you finally land your dream job, someone tells you, “I can’t believe you’re still working there.”

You finally drop some weight and your friend says, “You shouldn’t worry about your looks so much.”

It’s hard to achieve success without someone downplaying that success with a snarky comment. The same applies to the business world, schooling, sports, and just about any other aspect of life.

As a result, we spend too much of our time worrying about what other people think.

We do everything we can to avoid upsetting anybody. But no matter what you do, someone will get mad.

Isn’t that the definition of crazy? You repeat the same behavior with the same results hoping for a different outcome.

Imagine what would happen if you invested those efforts back into whatever you’re working on? Instead of spending an hour going over your sales copy making sure it doesn’t offend anyone, you could spend an hour improving the quality of your copy.

You need to worry less about what other people will think and worry more about your own goals.

If you still don’t believe me, here are five more reasons why you shouldn’t worry about upsetting people.

Everything Else is More Important

First, you need to realize that just about everything else is more important than the feelings of one person. Feeling don’t result in anything. They have no impact unless action is taken based on those feelings.

This can be hard for some people to accept. We’re raised to believe that we should be nice to others. While there’s nothing wrong with being nice, it can get in the way of doing what’s best for you.

For example, if you’re trying to grow your business, you should concern yourself with what’s best for your business, your employees, and your customers.

If this means that you need to make a decision that upsets some of the general public, but keeps your customers happy, then you’re still doing the right thing.

Though, these decisions aren’t on the same scale as the decisions made by the President and other leaders. When they make decisions, they know that they’ll instantly upset about half of the public.

It’s the same with artists. An artist realizes that he or she will probably offend someone with their art, but this doesn’t stop them from completing their work.

If that were the case, we wouldn’t have some of the greatest masterpieces. At various times, almost anything of consequence has been met with disapproval by some group or other.

So, when you start thinking that your decisions will have a grand impact on someone’s life, realize that they probably won’t. You may upset one or two people, but it’s nothing compared to other things in life.

Being Mad Doesn’t Make You Right

Just because someone is angry doesn’t mean that they are right. Think about the last time that you got mad. When you’re upset, you don’t always think clearly.

So, when someone leaves a negative comment or a bad review of one of your products, they could be increasing the scale of the problem.

When an emotional response is given, the details are often influenced by the emotions. This leads to impulsive complaints and unfounded issues.

Always take negative input with a grain of salt. You’ve got to look into the problem, instead of assuming that the complaint is legitimate. Research the issue before you draw a conclusion.

A Large Impact Results in More Hate

You also need to understand that a large impact will bring more hate. The more people you impact, the less people understand your motives.

Imagine that you’re marketing a product to a niche group of about 2,000 people. You can focus on their specific needs and interests. But when you use the same marketing to a general group of 20,000 people, a large portion may not get your message.

What does this mean for you? When you’ve got a larger reach, you’re open to more criticism.

This doesn’t mean you avoid reaching a larger audience. You just need to prepare for input from a wider group of people.

People Get Angry for Attention

A lot of the anger that you see online is coming from a need for attention. They have an outlet for their thoughts, so they put them into words and send them across the Internet.

This applies to the majority of the negative responses you see when scrolling through the web. When you look at comments below a product release, a movie premiere, or any other business event, there will also be a handful of hateful or resentful comments.

Attention-seeking anger is just another reason you shouldn’t worry so much about upsetting people.

Sometimes Anger Has Merit

Despite everything that I’ve just said, it’s also important to realize that anger sometimes has merit. So, you can’t ignore criticism or angry people. You should look into the reason for the anger.

This is especially true when dealing with customer complaints. If you’re involved in the business world, you will occasionally have upset clients or customers. Always listen to these issues, investigate the problem, and come up with a resolution.

What you need to avoid during this process is the emotional response that’s built into most people. It’s easy to, in turn, get angry at their anger.

The bottom line is that people spend too much of their time worrying about what other people think. This applies to almost any situation.

You need to open yourself up to complaints, anger, and criticism. Just don’t let them get to you.

Instead of worrying so much about other people, you should focus on yourself. Basically, if you’re doing things right, you’re going to end up upsetting somebody.

So, don’t be afraid to charge ahead with your plans. With over 7-billion people on this planet, you’re bound to make a few people annoyed or upset.

Focus on what matters to you.