Psychological Reasons About Why We Take Things Personally

It’s hard to take the positive side of yourself seriously when all you hear are condescending words of people around you and at the same time not understand why we take things personally.

We grow up learning to validate other people’s opinions more than our own. We learn to listen to people’s, some who don’t even matter, vile words over the calling of our own heart. The heart that knows us better than anyone else.

It’s stupid to believe others’ words have no value. They do. Being as advanced as we are, our brain is suited socially to advance taking into consideration the words of those around us. Often how to hurt or affected we are by our interactions depends on the closeness and intensity of the said relationship.

Psychologically speaking, completely detaching ourselves from the words and opinions of others can end up having the same damage as taking to heart every single thing said to us. Too much of anything is harmful.

But what causes the stimulation in us to take things personally?

Are You Proud Enough?

Pride is our favorite sin. The moment you are proud of yourself or the work you have done, you end up being borderline disgusting. In my experience, I’ve seen people call a sense of pride in yourself wrongdoing. But technically speaking, doesn’t pride become a sin when you consider yourself better than everyone around you?

All of us, including me, have grown in a society where it’s wrong to be proud when a simple sense of pride is nothing but having belief in yourself, in your work, and your ideals. If we can’t even do that, all we’re doing is ruining ourselves by increasing our own sense of insecurity.

Taking things personally on every occasion just means you value other people’s opinions over your own judgment.

Simply acknowledging yourself and your hard work will only impact you positively.

A healthy sense of pride allows you to take your stand and not be obliterated by others.

Are You Assertive Enough?

Most of us are taught from childhood to always take care of others and to be kind to them. Although there is nothing wrong with that analogy, we sometimes tend to over care. We put our hopes and needs aside to tend to the needs of others.

What happens when you always let others have their way in an attempt to be nice whilst putting your own needs and wants aside?

A sense of superiority and inferiority is formed subconsciously leading to you believing that they are always right while you are always wrong.

Eventually, this feeling leads to you taking anything said by others personally because along the way you stopped valuing yourself unknowingly.

There is only one solution to this. You have to learn to be more assertive. To be able to set boundaries and to learn to say no. It’s okay to put yourself first sometimes.

Toxicity of Social Perfectionism

Are You A Perfectionist?

Social perfectionism refers to the tendency of an individual to believe that others expect perfection from him/her.

If you spend all of your time trying to get everything perfect chances are you will take everything personally since anything said against you will inevitably be an attack towards your ‘flawed‘ perfectionism.

You are constantly driven to be perfect in other people’s eyes and to care what others have to say about you. In such a scenario you are doomed to take things personally.

It’s okay to care about what others have to say about you. Even though the self-care industry says otherwise.

We are the most advanced creatures yet capable of working together and that smooth cooperation occurs from the ability to know and care how other people feel about things, about us.

Everyone is entitled to have an opinion, it’s about how you let it affect you.

Also Read: How negative self-talk affects us

Are You Toxic To Yourself?

One thing I was taught from early on was that only when you’re hard on yourself can you achieve great heights. I did believe it to be true. To a point where I destroyed myself with my own negative self-talk.

Using negative self talk to succeed will soon lead to a path to anxiety and depression. A path you would find yourself stuck in.

When you are harsh and cruel to yourself, your performance to bound to decrease. You end up encountering more failure than success.

Apart from the above-mentioned issues, a life-long habit of negative self-talk will also lead to taking things personally and low self-esteem.

When someone criticizes you or gives you hard to accept feedback, a strong habit of negative self-talk can corrupt your thinking leading you to consider that mistake as a reflection of your character rather than an isolated incident.

True freedom from taking things personally can only be attained if a mistake made is not generalized as a flaw in character.

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