The Stoic way to stop caring what other people think is to sort opinions instead of fearing them. What someone thinks of you happens in their head and is outside your control. What you make of it happens in yours. So you weigh the opinion on its merits, change course if it is right, and let the rest pass. You keep caring about people. You stop giving them the job of deciding whether you are doing well.
Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca all wrote about this, and they treated it as a skill you practise, not a personality you are born with. Below are their actual words, with sources, and a short daily practice at the end.
Why other people's opinions get such a grip
Marcus noticed how strange this is:
I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.4 (trans. George Long)
Epictetus explained where the nerves come from with the example of a public speaker who has prepared well and still feels sick before going on:
Why is it that the orator, though he knows that he has written a good speech, and has got by heart what he has written, and brings a pleasant voice to his task, still feels anxiety in spite of all? The reason is that merely to declaim his speech does not content him. What does he want then? To be praised by his audience. Now he has been trained to be able to declaim, but he has not been trained in regard to praise and blame.
Epictetus, Discourses 2.16 (trans. P. E. Matheson)
That last line is the useful one. Most of us have trained hard at the task and not at all at handling praise and blame. Caring what people think is mostly an untrained response, which means it can be trained.
Ask whose approval you are actually chasing
"People" is vague, and vague fears are the biggest. The Stoics told you to put names and faces on the audience and then look at what those people value.
Constantly observe who those are whose approbation thou wishest to have, and what ruling principles they possess. For then thou wilt neither blame those who offend involuntarily, nor wilt thou want their approbation, if thou lookest to the sources of their opinions and appetites.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.62 (trans. George Long)
Epictetus put it more bluntly to a student who wanted to be admired:
Who are those people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these about whom you are in the habit of saying that they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?
Epictetus, Discourses 1.21.4 (trans. W. A. Oldfather)
Seneca quotes Epicurus making the same point, which shows how widely the idea was shared across rival schools:
I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know, they do not approve, and what they approve, I do not know.
Epicurus, quoted by Seneca, Letters 29.10 (trans. Richard M. Gummere)
Try it. When you feel the pull to please, ask who exactly you are picturing. Then ask whether you would take that person's advice on this particular question. Often you would not, and the pull weakens as soon as you see that.
What they think is theirs. What you do is yours.
This is the dichotomy of control applied to reputation. Epictetus states it as plainly as anything in the Enchiridion:
But pay no heed to what any one says of you; for this is something beyond your own control.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 50 (trans. P. E. Matheson)
Marcus gives you the division of labour. Their contempt is their business. Your conduct is yours:
Suppose any man shall despise me. Let him look to that himself. But I will look to this, that I be not discovered doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13 (trans. George Long)
Judge every word and deed which are according to nature to be fit for thee; and be not diverted by the blame which follows from any people, nor by their words, but if a thing is good to be done or said, do not consider it unworthy of thee.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.3 (trans. George Long)
Notice the standard Marcus sets. The test is whether the thing is good to do or say. If it is, the reaction does not get a vote.
Criticism: check it, use it, then let it go
Not caring what people think can slide into never listening to anyone. The Stoics did not recommend that. Marcus kept two rules ready, and the second one is about changing your mind:
the other, to change thy opinion, if there is any one at hand who sets thee right and moves thee from any opinion. But this change of opinion must proceed only from a certain persuasion, as of what is just or of common advantage, and the like, not because it appears pleasant or brings reputation.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.12 (trans. George Long)
So the test for a criticism is whether it is true and useful. If it is, change. If you are changing only to be liked, that is the habit you are trying to drop.
For the sting itself, Epictetus points at where the hurt is made:
Remember that foul words or blows in themselves are no outrage, but your judgement that they are so. So when any one makes you angry, know that it is your own thought that has angered you.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 20 (trans. P. E. Matheson)
And when someone has been talking about you behind your back, he offers a reply that takes the air out of it:
If some one tells you that so and so speaks ill of you, do not defend yourself against what he says, but answer, 'He did not know my other faults, or he would not have mentioned these alone.'
Epictetus, Enchiridion 33 (trans. P. E. Matheson)
There is a related chapter on the pull to perform for others in The Dangers of Approval Seeking.
The audience is smaller and shorter-lived than it feels
When an opinion feels enormous, the Stoics shrink it with time. Marcus put it in a single line:
Near is thy forgetfulness of all things; and near the forgetfulness of thee by all.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.21 (trans. George Long)
And what is it in any way to thee if these men of after time utter this or that sound, or have this or that opinion about thee?
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.44 (trans. George Long)
He also reminds you that praise adds nothing to work that is good:
Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and terminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself. Neither worse then nor better is a thing made by being praised.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.20 (trans. George Long)
Seneca tells the story of someone asked why he took such care over work that very few people would ever see. His answer is a good line to keep for days when nobody notices:
I am content with few, content with one, content with none at all.
Seneca, Letters 7.11 (trans. Richard M. Gummere)
Take your attention back
Caring what people think costs attention as well as peace. You replay a conversation, guess at what someone meant, rehearse a reply they will never hear. Marcus counted that as lost time:
Do not waste the remainder of thy life in thoughts about others, when thou dost not refer thy thoughts to some object of common utility. For thou losest the opportunity of doing something else when thou hast such thoughts as these, What is such a person doing, and why, and what is he saying, and what is he thinking of, and what is he contriving
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.4 (trans. George Long)
How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.18 (trans. George Long)
A daily practice
Four steps, built from the passages above. Pick one situation this week where other people's opinions usually get to you, and run them on that.
- Before: name the audience. Write down who you are worried about and whether you would take their advice on this question (Meditations 7.62).
- During: when the sting arrives, say to yourself, "That is their opinion. How I judge it is up to me." Then wait before you reply. Epictetus says that if you gain time and delay, you will find it easier to control yourself (Enchiridion 20).
- After: sort what was said. If it was true and useful, act on it (Meditations 4.12). If it was false, it was about someone who is not quite you. If it was true but unkind, borrow Epictetus's line about your other faults.
- Evening: review what you did, not how it landed. Did you do or say anything deserving of contempt (Meditations 11.13)? That is the only score you keep.
Epictetus describes where this leads. Among the signs of someone making progress, he lists that "if any one compliments him he laughs in himself at his compliment; and if one blames him, he makes no defence" (Enchiridion 48). Nobody gets there in a week. Each time you run the four steps, you get a little closer.
Sources
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.4, 4.12, 4.18, 4.20, 5.3, 7.21, 7.62, 8.44, 11.13, 12.4, trans. George Long (1862).
- Epictetus, Enchiridion 20, 33, 48, 50, trans. P. E. Matheson (1916).
- Epictetus, Discourses 2.16, trans. P. E. Matheson (1916); 1.21.4, trans. W. A. Oldfather (Loeb, 1925).
- Seneca, Letters 7.11 and 29.10 (quoting Epicurus), trans. Richard M. Gummere (Loeb, 1917).
If you want structured practice, the 7-Day Stoic Challenge is free. Nine audio lessons and a 42-page workbook.