Issues with taking things personally are something many of us have likely experienced, but did we properly register it, and did we do anything to help us avoid taking things personally? This article will talk about the effect that taking things personally can have on our quality of life, outline some of the signs that we’re taking things too personally, and round off with strategies to tackle the issue. I hope you find this article educational and eye-opening.
The Problem With Taking Things Personally
There are going to be some comments and actions that are actually offensive (Field, 2023), but how hurtful they are comes down to how we respond to such situations. But a lot of what comes out of other people’s mouths, or their keyboards, is a reflection of themselves, rather than some kind of truth about us.
When we take things like this personally, we allow those people to live inside our heads rent-free (Ratson, 2024). This means they get to go on living their lives doing whatever it is they do while we’re wasting energy on their comments and getting stressed and anxious.
Sometimes, however, our lives can prime us to interpret what others say as an attack (McAdam, 2024), causing us to become defensive when that was never the intent of the other person. This can lead to us taking things personally, like our very character is being attacked.
There’s also an argument for how our sense of self-importance can play a role in taking things personally, with a link to how much worry, anger, and suffering that will cause us (Ratson, 2024). This could happen to us for several reasons, one of those being the spotlight effect, where our low self-worth and anxiety might cause us to take things more personally than we otherwise would. So, is it possible we’re taking things too personally (Field, 2023)?
When we can only experience the world from our own perspective, it’s hard to see ourselves as just the main character in our lives while being an NPC in other people’s lives.
We humans are social animals, so we want to be valued by our peers. So it’s also natural to want to be respected, and this is why criticism can sting and cause emotional pain (Field, 2023).
What Causes Us To Take Things Personally?
If you’ve lived with negative self-talk, like I have, where you’re constantly telling yourself you’re not good enough, it doesn’t take much effort for us to take things personally when other people say stuff to us, even when there’s no logical reason to. They just fit the negative view we have of ourselves and confirm the inner critic we have, even though it’s only a subjective confirmation.
Other factors might influence how we might take things personally, such as childhood trauma. This is often where our negative self-talk and inner critic tend to develop in the first place. Poor self-esteem and our negative self-talk and inner critic are also connected.
There are also connections between how we take things personally and having an anxiety disorder because this primes us to fall foul to the spotlight effect. Thus, we’re also more likely to struggle with negative self-talk and potentially have an inner critic. All of which causes us to experience a high level of worrying. This is something that often comes up with social anxiety, as there’s a chronic fear of being judged or embarrassing oneself.
Another common factor is perfectionism (Hendriksen, 2020). Perfectionism often has roots in our childhood, especially childhood trauma. It can also be reflected in our procrastination tendencies and impostor syndrome, which has links to a fear of being judged or embarrassing oneself.
Our stress levels or tiredness are another common factor in when we take things personally, which kind of reminds me of the Snickers bar advert. Last but not least is our level of emotional sensitivity (Field, 2023), and yes, that’s going to be an issue for people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) like me.
Signs You May Take Things Personally
Rummination
A sign we may have taken something too personally is if we keep replaying someone’s critique in our head (Gillis, 2023).
Boundaries
We don’t have boundaries, or if we do, we don’t do anything to maintain or enforce them.
External validation
When we depend on the validation and approval of others for our sense of happiness (Field, 2023), we’re also just as likely to take things personally.
Ulterior motive
We find ourselves believing that there are ulterior motives behind what people say and do (Gillis, 2023).
“No”
We struggle to say “no”, especially to the things we want to say “no” to.
Mistakes
When we automatically feel responsible for everything that goes awry (Amodeo, 2018). A common indicator of this might be how frequently we apologise (Field, 2023).
Anger
If we’re quick to anger, that can be a sign of taking things personally.
Assumptions
Frequently making assumptions about other people’s behaviours or words towards us (Trauma Research UK, 2024). This is what we refer to as ‘mind reading’ (McAdam, 2024), which is a cognitive bias. However, this is more of a projection than anything else.
How To Stop Taking Things Personally
One of the best things we can do to protect our wellbeing is to learn how to stop taking things personally, as that will build and maintain our emotional resilience and help foster a healthy social support network (McAdam, 2024).
Assumptions
As the saying goes, when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. Therefore, we should try to do our best not to make assumptions and focus on objective facts instead. If we need to focus on anything, that is.
Clarification
There can also be other factors in play when it comes to taking things personally. For example, a person we’re talking to may be feeling extremely stressed, making it seem like they’re angry with us or see us in some sort of negative way. Whatever the context, it can be useful to seek clarification rather than leaving the situation to ruminate in our heads (Talago, 2024).
Confidence
Work on improving our confidence and self-esteem (Boswell, 2025). One way we might want to do that is to learn to say “no”. Start small with requests from people in our social support network and work up to people like our work colleagues.
Benefit of the doubt
One way to try to manage what might cause us to take things personally is to give people the benefit of the doubt. It’s always possible we’ve made an assumption, projected our internal fears, or simply misunderstood the other person.
Source
Always consider the source (Talago, 2024). Is the person who’s making us feel like we’re being attacked actually qualified to judge us? Do we value the relationship with that person? Does this person speak and act this way with others? Thinking about the relationship, or lack thereof, with the source is a good indicator of whether we should dismiss it or not.
I wish I hadn’t internalised all the harmful comments from my bullies growing up, because their opinions mean fuck all to me. I just didn’t see that when I was a child. There could also be cultural differences that are causing similar barriers (Boswell, 2025).
Consider this: Is water all the same? Would you drink seawater or ditch water, or would you rather drink tap or bottled water (Hendriksen, 2020)?
Power
Avoid giving your power away by letting others control and dictate how you feel (Maguire, 2022). When we let people upset us, we’re giving away that control. In some situations, what has upset us might be valid, such as someone calling us out on our own toxic behaviours. But when it’s not a situation like that, do things that help you retain your power, such as ignoring them, thinking about something else, or engaging in a breathing exercise.
Relationships
Take time to work on your relationships and build supportive relationships so that you have a social support network that’ll help you understand that healthy relationships won’t come with these kinds of feelings (McAdam, 2024).
Strengths
When in doubt, focus on your strengths and other positive qualities as a way to reduce how much you may take things personally.
Validation
Remember, you don’t need other people’s approval (Boswell, 2025). Focus on cultivating internal validation, as it’ll bring you a far better quality of life.
Emotional resilience
Practice building better emotional resilience (Field, 2023). For example, making more time for self-reflection, such as journaling, can help build emotional resilience. Remember, it can be really useful to recognise our emotions and how they influence our thoughts and behaviours, because then we can develop healthy coping mechanisms for them.
Internal factors
Try to remember that our own biases, insecurities, and experiences can and will colour our perceptions of others and situations (Hendriksen, 2020).
Kindness
Treat ourselves with the same level of kindness (or better) than we’d treat a loved one from our social support network. If struggling to do this, try reframing it and think about how we’d respond to a friend who told us about a situation where they took things personally.
Inner critic
If we’re struggling with our inner critic, then take steps to better manage that inner critic. One strategy might be to challenge those thoughts with thought challenges like ‘putting your thoughts on trial‘.
Set boundaries
Our wellbeing is important, and one way to help maintain our wellbeing is to have boundaries. Thus, it pays to spend time on working out what our boundaries are and how to maintain them once we’ve created our boundaries.
Pruning
Don’t be afraid to limit or remove people from our lives if they’re a massive source of harm to our wellbeing (Maguire, 2022). It doesn’t matter if they’re our blood; as a family, that isn’t blood can often have stronger bonds. We don’t have to put up with anyone’s toxic behaviours.
Mindfulness
Do as people who practise mindfulness do, and focus on the present rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, a future that may never happen. A 10-minute meditation can also be really effective.
Ditch grudges
Try to let go of grudges, as holding onto negative emotions can be a barrier to moving forward. Letting go doesn’t have to mean forgiving, as not everyone is worthy of forgiveness. But we are worthy of living without negative emotions festering inside us and ruining our quality of life.
Seek support
If we’re struggling with stopping ourselves from taking things personally, then we should reach out to our social support network. If that doesn’t work, we should consider getting professional support.
Achievements
It takes time and practice to change negative thought patterns and cover our tendencies to take things personally. We’ll need to be patient with ourselves and celebrate our small victories. Progress should be noted and seen as an achievement.
Summary
When we take things personally, it can be very harmful to us, and it can cause a downward spiral if left unchecked. It can also be a sign of a larger problem that we might want to work on as well. But, by implementing the strategies outlined in this article and others, we can gradually reduce the impact of personalising situations and improve our overall quality of life.
As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, please share your experiences with taking things personally in the comments section below. Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, you can sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, click the red bell icon in the bottom right corner to get push notifications for new articles.
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References
Amodeo, J. (2018, January). What it means to not take things personally. Psych Central. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/blog/what-it-means-to-not-take-things-personally.
Boswell, C. (2025, February). How to stop taking things personally. WikiHow. Retrieved from https://www.wikihow.com/Stop-Taking-Things-Personally.
Field, B. (2023, December). How to not take things personally. Verywell Mind. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-not-take-things-personally-6541892.
Gillis, K. (2023, September). How to Not Take Things Personally: Tips From a Therapist. Choosing Therapy. Retrieved from https://www.choosingtherapy.com/how-to-not-take-things-personally.
Hendriksen, E. (2020, November). Walk the line between overreacting and underreacting. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-to-be-yourself/202011/6-ways-to-not-take-things-personally.
Maguire, C. (2022, September). Eight ways to Stop Taking Things So Personally. Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD). Retrieved from https://chadd.org/attention-article/eight-ways-to-stop-taking-things-so-personally.
McAdam, E. (2024, October). How to Stop Taking Things Personally. Therapy in a Nutshell. Retrieved from https://therapyinanutshell.com/how-to-stop-taking-things-personally.
Ratson, M. (2024, March). How can we prevent the ego from holding us back? Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-wisdom-of-anger/202403/the-challenge-of-the-ego-and-taking-things-personally.
Talago, L. (2024, December). 8 strategies for learning how to not take things personally. Rula. Retrieved from https://www.rula.com/blog/how-to-not-take-things-personally.
Trauma Research UK. (2024, August). Do you often take things personally. Trauma Research UK. Retrieved from https://traumaresearchuk.org/blog/do-you-often-take-things-personally.
It is true, our past experiences and too our inner critic are influential to our reactions. A key takeaway here is to keep fostering emotional resilience.
Indeed. Thanks for commenting
Thank you for this guide, friend. I’m now trying my best not to take things personally. The problem is I am a sensitive person who is scared to be vulnerable. And sometimes I focus too much on negative things other said about me instead of compliments. I remembered rash criticism more than compliments. I’m slowly shutting down the inner critique in my head and start listening to my soul, my higher self.
You’re certainly not the only one who can find themselves focusing more on negative comments and feedback, ignoring all the positive ones you’ve received in the process. It’s called filtering out the positives, which is a common cognitive bias we can all experience. But steps can be take to help us refocus on those positives
I have been struggling in my current apprenticeship and dealing with anxiety and stress and low confidence. This article has been helpful for me. Thank you for sharing this.
I’m glad this article has proven useful for you