21 Signs You’re Letting Other People Influence Your Self Image

While everyone occasionally second-guesses themselves or struggles with where we fit into the world, cultivating a healthy self-image lets us stand on our own two feet and claim territory for ourselves.

How you see yourself influences everything from your behavior to your thought patterns. Realizing your inherent value outside of the opinions of others is important for a strong sense of self-reliance and worth.

But what if you’ve allowed others to determine that for you? Placing our power of self-perception in the hands of someone else disconnects us from our own values, goals and strengths. It blocks our ability to see ourselves clearly, makes us self-critical, and stalls any kind of personal growth.

A healthy self-image can be complex and includes body awareness, beliefs about who we are, and comparing what others think versus what we think about ourselves. But are you comparing, contrasting, and forming your own conclusions about you? Or are you letting other people have too much influence over your self-image?

Consider some of the following signs: 

1: You constantly seek validation.

You constantly seek validation from others and view positive feedback with suspicion. Do you look okay? Did you do a good job? You need to hear a lot of it to convince yourself that you are merely acceptable. 

2: You avoid taking risks.

Because you don’t trust yourself, you are averse to risk, change or challenges. You struggle with making your own choices, but stick with “safe” decisions… even if they aren’t. 

3: You can’t take criticism.

Criticism, even constructive feedback, or rejection, even mild censure, immediately makes you feel terrible about yourself. You are unable to separate yourself from your actions or your feelings. You’re terrible at self-evaluation.

4: You fight.

You launch explosive and unprovoked anger attacks on people if you feel they are about to expose a weakness or criticize you. This is a proactive reaction to an overwhelming fear. 

5: You flee.

Or maybe you run as far and as fast as possible away to avoid the incoming critique. Whether the critique was impending or not, it was real in your own mind and you dwell on it for a long time. 

6: You can’t stick to goals. 

If you are passed up for a promotion or a project is rejected, you change your goals. Maybe you change your job. You allow others to dictate your potential and feel you don’t deserve that raise or praise at work. 

7: You live in a state of constant comparison. 

Your sister-in-law has better hair. A coworker drives a nicer car. Your neighbor gets all the lucky breaks. These comparisons make you feel inferior. If you are always wishing you had what someone else has instead of appreciating what you have, it’s negatively affecting your self-image. 

8: You feel like an imposter.

Imposter syndrome has you by the throat. Do you always minimize your accomplishments or chalk up your success to luck instead of owning your skills and abilities? When someone compliments you, are you immediately on the defensive instead of saying, “Thank you”?

9: Your opinions are not your own.

Have you found yourself agreeing with others in order to please or impress them instead of sharing your real feelings and thoughts? 

10. You can maintain your assertiveness.

If you are assertive, you immediately feel pushy and guilty. A whiff of pushback makes you backpedal, outright deny or take your words back, or start explaining yourself until you run out of words.

11: You conform to the point of being wallpaper.

You are an easy touch when it comes to peer pressure and will do what’s popular or what others do rather than being uniquely yourself. 

12: Social media doom-scrolling can wield actual doom. 

If you rely heavily on social media likes and follows for your self-worth, it could be a sign you’re leaning too hard on the opinions and actions of others. 

13: You’re a people-pleaser. 

Relationships always feel insecure because you’re worried the other person will stop liking you. Possibly for the most trivial thing. You become a people-pleaser in an effort to hide what you think are flaws.

14: You hold grudges.

This self-sabotaging insecurity makes you vulnerable to manipulation, abuse or toxic relationships, and could lead you to “pleasing” behaviors at a dangerous cost. It also leads to you holding grudges and feeling like a victim.

15: You can’t say "no."  

Because you have a hard time saying “no,” you are bad at setting—let alone defending—healthy personal boundaries. You might find yourself constantly over-committed.

16: You’re passive-aggressive.  

And when you do inevitably become overcommitted, you complain about all the things you “have” to do. Since you can’t see your “to do” list as actual choices, you are certainly at their mercy. 

17: You surround yourself with negative people.

You are more comfortable around negative people who sound like the negative self-talk in your head. Positive people seem fake or insincere. 

18: You beat yourself up.  

You’re hard on yourself and blame yourself for problems, glitches, or frustrating situations even if you couldn’t possibly be responsible for them.

19:  You become an overachiever. 

Since you tie your value as a person to something tangible like external achievement, small failures make you feel worthless and even perfection doesn’t satisfy. 

20.  You apologize. 

All the time. For anything. Instead of standing up for yourself, you try to make yourself smaller. You don’t rock the boat. You take guilt trips without thinking twice. And sometimes this leads to (more) passive-aggressive behavior. 

21: You are a poor communicator.

You struggle to communicate because you are constantly second-guessing your own wants and needs. No one quite knows you, let alone your preferences or what makes you happy.

So, what now?

Insecurity sucks. We all have it. Some of the above signs are likely familiar to everyone but if most of them are resonating with you, you might be letting other people influence your self-image. Low self-esteem traps us into circular patterns that keep us from growing into our full potential, mostly because we won’t acknowledge we have any potential in the first place.

There are many ways to grow your self-respect, not the least of which is knowing yourself – a personality test can help here – and sitting down with a terrific friend or therapist. Monitoring your self-talk and changing negative statements into positive ones, practicing being kind to yourself, learning mindful meditation, learning how to be more constructively assertive, taking healthy risks to develop self-awareness skills, and making gratitude lists are other paths forward. Nurturing a positive self-image is a vital key to living a happy and fulfilling life.