How To Not Give A Fuck: 31 Steps To Refresh Your Mindset To Live A Happier Life
Do you find yourself constantly thinking about what people think of you? Do small things often get on your nerves?
Then this post is for you. Don’t go anywhere as we have so much in store for you. We will offer you pointers on how to not give a fuck about what people think and live a happier, healthier life.
FYI don’t get the title wrong. Not giving a fuck doesn’t mean that you can break the law or get away with careless behavior.
It also doesn’t mean being oblivious to the world’s happenings. Not giving a fuck means not letting things that don’t concern you get to yo
u. It means knowing when and when not to give a fuck. Get it!
Let’s jump into the steps of how not to give a fuck.
Table of Contents
◉Learn these 31 steps on how to not give a fuck and live a more fulfilling life ◉
1. Stop Overthinking
Stay in the present and not think about future possibilities because they are just that; possibilities and not realities.
People who don’t give too many fucks always live in the present because the present has so much to offer, which makes all the difference.
Living in the present requires not delving into past events, focusing on the things that you can actually control, not thinking about what may or may not happen in the future and not drifting between past and future events because it only causes anxiety.
You should only give a fuck about the present because that’s what you can control. Change takes place in the present.
2. Confront Your Fears
Did you know that not giving a few less fucks needs you to give a fuck first?
Let’s illustrate this point with an example: you have a crush on someone, but you’re scared of getting turned down when you ask them out on a date.
The fear of embarrassment is quite valid, but when you think about it, not doing anything will put you in a constant state of nervousness and unsureness.
If you find yourself always worrying about the consequences of your actions, it’s time to start practicing how to not give a fuck. And the only way to get worrying thoughts out of your head is to stay in the present moment.
Once you get used to doing whatever was giving you butterflies in your stomach, you will no longer give a fuck about it.
3. Know That No One Is Perfect
Once you understand that we are all imperfect, you’ll stop putting people on pedestals, and the less you’ll give a fuck.
Everyone worries about a lot of stuff too. For example, you go for a job interview. In the office lounge, you meet several candidates all smartly dressed and confident AF! But the truth is, they are also pretty occupied with how to not give a fuck. So, don’t be so hard on yourself.
We are all human, and caring is part of being human. Otherwise, if we weren’t concerned 100%, that would make our machines.
When we put people on pedestals, we give them the power to impact our decisions, thus end up not living life for our benefit but based on what others think or want.
The first step to not giving a fuck is realizing that those individuals who we think judge you also feel the same judgment from others. Furthermore, everyone has an opinion to which they are entitled to, but sometimes that doesn’t mean they are right.
If you find yourself constantly adjusting your life to suit others’ views and expectations, it is high time you take a step back. If you feel your life is wholesome then it is; it’s only your conscience telling you that everyone else is criticizing you.
4. Learn That’s It’s Okay to Say No
While it’s always good to help out, it is not always healthy to be available to anyone who requires your help.
Do you remember Jim Carrey’s 2008 film, Yes Man? Carl (Carrey) got caught up with saying yes to everything and everyone until his choices eventually bit him in the ass.
The moral of the movie is to say ‘yes’ within reason. Say yes to important things and those that make all the difference in your life. Otherwise, if you say yes to everything, you’ll waste yourself. And worse, people could start taking advantage of you.
Not giving a fuck means saying no sometimes. Besides, logical people won’t take it personally when you say no because they understand that you can’t be available to help all the time.
Many people often think, “If I say no, I’ll hurt the feelings of those dear to me or I’ll ruin my reputation.” The truth is people are too engrossed in their own things to care about whether you say yes or no.
So, not giving a fuck means saying ‘no’, but to only what doesn’t interest you. If you’re genuinely unavailable to attend your colleague’s baby shower, then say no without being compelled.
Don’t let your colleague ask you first if you’ll do the shopping for the occasion because she knows that you’ll definitely say yes.
Sometimes saying no helps to take control of your life and become free from unrealistic anticipations others have set for you.
5. Turn Your Anger Into Your Greatest Personal Power
Rather than suppressing your anger, not giving a fuck requires that you turn your anger into your greatest weapon tool. You’ll find that taking charge of your anger and turning it into a productive force will be a game-changer in your life.
We know that personal development gurus preach to you that to be happy, you’ll need to lock away negative vibes and only focus on positive thoughts. But we say fuck it!
Instead of avoiding feelings of anger, use that energy to make constructive solutions to your issues and important positive changes to your life.
6. Stop Seeking Permission
When you want to implement a decision concerning your life, don’t ask the average person whether it’s right or wrong. Trust yourself to make the best decisions about your life.
Turning to family or friends for justification about your choices can actually be detrimental than helpful. By seeking approval from others, we are publicizing that we don’t know what is right for ourselves.
If you want to stop giving a fuck, stop asking for people’s insights and start living your life by your own rules.
7. Invest in Things that Enrich your Well-being
When you decide to start living your own life, you’ll ultimately want to do things that make you happy, not others.
We all constantly feel the pressure to please others by saying ‘yes’ to what they want for us. The more you invest in things that make you happy, the better you will feel.
Do not feel bad for turning down an invitation to spend more time with your pet or go for a nature walk if that’s what you want.
Let go of the notion that happiness stems from outside attachments. We create our own happiness and not outside factors.
Unfortunately, society dictates to us that to be happy, we have to get that big promotion, we have to marry that handsome, rich fella, and we have to have that awesome body.
Society preaches to us all these happiness requirements, but the truth is happiness comes from within. All these outside attachments to happiness offer temporary relief. When you grow attached to them, you will always be unhappy without them.
8. Ask Yourself Why You Do What You Do
When you make a choice, realize that there are a set of factors that govern your choices that may be encouraging you or holding you back.
Your decisions may be based on someone you want to impress, for example, a parent or a mentor. You may be in a job you hate because your father is a doctor, and you want to follow in his footsteps.
It is time to break out of this unhealthy cycle and do something that pleases you. You only live once, right? YOLO! So make decisions that will make your future self proud, not because you want to please your mom or best friend.
9. Give a Fuck For Things That Are Worth It
It’s not like people who don’t give a fuck don’t care about anything. They know the things to give a fuck about and those that don’t deserve fucks.
The same should apply to you. Select the things to give fucks about and choose not to. For example, you could decide not to give a fuck about office political talk, or negative whispers and instead give a fuck about environmental change.
If you truly value something, you’ll give a fuck about it and focus on it rather than on things you don’t value.
10. Stop Always Striving for a Positive Experience
Stop being busy worrying that the next person is better than you because they have what you don’t have.
When we see positive experiences happening to others, we often feel self-conscious. Your best friend got married and not you? Your office competitor got promoted and not you? Your parents gifted your younger sister a Ferrari on her 25th birthday, and they didn’t do the same for you? Who gives a fuck!
If you always rely on positive experiences to be happy, you’ll forever be sad and depressed. Mark Manson, the author of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck” says that the acceptance of one’s negative experience is in itself a positive experience.
So desiring a positive experience can be negative. It will drag you further down the negativity hole and leave you with nothing.
11. Start Living a Life You Can be Proud of
When you start living a life that you are proud of, the less self-conscious you’ll feel.
Start with good daily habits such as working out, reading a book, listening to music, dancing, and basically anything that keeps you happy and satisfied.
When you start doing things because you want to, not because you have to, you won’t give a fuck what anyone thinks.
At the end of the day, you are proud of what you do and who you are. Once you start living this way, no one can take away that feeling of self-satisfaction that has been permanently imprinted within you.
12. Make a Deliberate Effort Not to Give a Fuck
Mark Manson depicts that there is a lot of power in not giving fucks. The concept sounds difficult in itself, but sometimes you just got to say, ‘What the fuck!’
If you haven’t watched this classic film, we give you homework to watch Tom Cruise’s early comedy film, Risky Business (1983).
Joel Goodson, a.k.a. Tom Cruise, plays the role of a high-achieving well-behaved son of wealthy parents. He was always concerned with impressing his folks and making it to the best college as a business student.
The advice given to him by one of his best friends about not giving a fuck landed him in hot soup but guaranteed him the time of his life and got him to the university of his dreams.
13. Remember There Are a Few Things to Give a Fuck About
This one’s a no-brainer, and it’s obvious what things truly matter in life that is, the people you love. Even your career doesn’t matter that much because as soon as you die, your bosses will be out to replace you even before the casket hits the ground.
Another Mark Manson tip: Only give a fuck about the people who love and value you, and you’ll live an easier life.
14. Understand that Your Fucks are Limited
Don’t waste your fucks by sweating the small stuff, such as stressing over the traffic jam, wasting your time on Instagram or Facebook for hours on end, or gossiping about your annoying boss.
Also, don’t allow yourself to get fixated on past issues or mistakes you can’t change.
15. Get Comfortable With Being Different
Most people imagine not giving a fuck as being indifferent or cold or unaffected by life’s situations. The assumption is misguided because indifferent people are actually insecure and often act that way to hide the fact that they give too many fucks.
Not giving a fuck means not being afraid to let your feelings show, not being scared of failure or embarrassment and basically saying, ‘fuck it’ to everything unimportant in life.
16. Ask Yourself if it Will Matter a Year from Now
If your answer is no, then don’t give a fuck about it. If yes, then it matters, and you should do something about it.
17. Practice Meditation
If you find that you are easily triggered by very little stress, your mind is overactive and has been tuned to react to everything.
Meditation will help detach your mind from triggers and think before reacting. This way, you’ll feel your emotions without being overtaken by them. In the long run, your reactions become easy even when you’re not meditating.
18. Be Mindful
Do you know That most of the time you give a fuck, you’re either worried, sad, agitated, or frustrated about stuff you have no control of?
Practicing mindfulness helps you channel your attention to the present moment and builds your self-esteem.
You then become more conscious and aware, and your mind is less likely to make up these heartbreaking ‘why’ questions or scary future scenarios.
19. Desensitize Yourself
What’s that thing that scares you most? Fear of heights? Singing in public? Or giving a public speech?
According to Mark Manson, you can’t stop giving a fuck until you desensitize yourself to the things you fear doing.
If singing in public makes you want to buff your guts out, go out for karaoke nights and sing until you get bored that you don’t give a fuck anymore.
20. Build your Confidence
The more confident you are, the less likely you are to give a fuck about what people think, say, or do.
Here is a list of activities to build your confidence; singing, acting classes, public speaking, martial arts, mastering a new skill, or wearing clothes that make you feel good.
21. You’ll Soon Be Dead
This may sound harsh, but we’ll all die someday. So live your life while giving a fuck about the things that are worth giving a fuck about.
Knowing that we are on the path leading to death is ultimately sad, but it will teach you to hold dear the things that truly matter and overcome the fear of failure or embarrassment because we will all die soon.
22. Recognize that ‘High’ Approval Doesn’t Last
That ‘high’ feeling you often seek from others’ approval only lasts a few hours. For someone who is always giving a fuck, when that ‘high’ experience wears off, they’ll go back to overthinking or worrying.
If you depend on people’s approval to feel good, you’ll always be chasing it, and you will always give too many fucks to what everyone thinks about you. Learn to stop seeking approval. Learn to be happy with your job, promotion or no promotion.
A person who gives no fucks realizes that seeking people’s opinions only offers temporary happiness.
23. Set Goals that You are Proud of
Set the right goals for YOU. Don’t fall into the trap of setting goals that suit other people and their opinion of what you should do with your life. By doing so, you give others the authority to direct your life.
Start by setting moderate-term goals rather than long-term goals (think in the next six months) that reflect your aspirations and interests.
24. Catch Yourself Giving a Fuck
Despite having a well-structured outline on how not to give fucks, being human, you are still prone to give a fuck what other people think about you.
The answer is to catch yourself giving too many fucks. If you’re at the office, you may catch yourself worrying if your supervisor is pissed at you. If you are at a party, you catch yourself thinking about whether everyone else thinks you are cool to hang out with.
Rather than denying that you care, accept the feeling and assure yourself that it’s going to be alright. Despite giving a fuck, the best thing is to let it go.
Though challenging, the more you catch yourself giving too many fucks, the easier it will be to accept and let go. Then you can go back to living your life with limited fucks.
The best thing about this method is that the more you practice it, the more you’ll stop seeking approval from others and your brain will retrain to give zero fucks.
25. Beware of Seeking People’s Approval In Major Decisions
Sure enough, you shouldn’t seek people’s approval in small things, but it applies to larger life choices as well.
Take a moment to ask yourself the following questions: Why are you working your current job? Why do you live in the town that you do? Why do you lead the lifestyle that you do?
If the answer to your questions is because your choices would make someone else happy, then you are giving way too many fucks.
Structuring your life’s large decisions on others’ expectations is a recipe for disaster and will cripple your worth.
Build a lifestyle that you are proud of by having hobbies that make you happy. That’s how you give zero fucks.
26. Know Yourself
Understanding yourself is important in giving zero fucks. How can you know what to give a fuck about and what not to if you don’t understand yourself?
Don’t pretend to be something you are not in the name of not giving a fuck. People will see right through you if you do this, and there’s nothing as embarrassing as pretending to give zero fucks when you do.
Knowing yourself helps you get in touch with your feelings and thoughts and truly accept that it’s okay to care. So don’t deny yourself.
27. Weigh The Consequences of Your Actions
It’s so nice learning how not to give a fuck, but it doesn’t mean that you destroy everyone while doing it.
Giving zero fucks will definitely not make everyone happy because people might not agree with your choices. So, as you say, “fuck it”, ensure that you won’t experience regrets later or that your decisions won’t come back to bite you in the ass.