The power of self-help book The Let Them Theory is about freeing yourself from others' opinions and finding peace within. Photo / 123RF
Finally accepting that I can’t control what other people think and do has allowed me to process my own feelings and live more authentically
“So sorry, I can’t make it tonight. Hope to see you all another time soon,” I write and send to the school mum WhatsApp group before I can start overthinking it.
Before, I’d have felt the need to send a detailed explanation as to why I couldn’t make it. I would have spent ages worrying about everyone thinking I was flaky and unreliable and feeling guilty for bailing at the last minute.
But that’s all changed since I read The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins. The self-help author, podcast host and former lawyer’s latest book is based on two little words which help manage how you interact with people and day to day life. It’s such a simple mantra but it seems to have a transformative effect.
Robbins, a New York Times bestselling author who has been endorsed by everyone from Oprah to author Jay Shetty, is a self-help guru in the US. The 56-year-old motivational speaker, who was diagnosed with ADHD at 47 and has more than 22 million followers across her social media platforms, wrote her latest book with her daughter, Sawyer, and is bringing the accompanying tour to London in June.
The Let Them Theory, which was published in December and reportedly sold more than 1.2 million copies in the first month, looks at how we can free ourselves from judgment, drama and the opinions of others. It addresses simple fears – failure, change, disappointment – and turns them on their head.
As someone who was raised in the 80s and 90s, at a time when girls were conditioned to be people pleasers who put others first, it helped me realise I have no control over what people say, do or think. And I don’t have to try and please them.
The concept is painstakingly simple but taps into something deeply psychological and liberating. “Let them” sums up the tension between control and acceptance.
As psychologist Dr Louise Goddard-Crawley explains: “So many of us expend an exhausting amount of energy trying to influence other people’s behaviour, worrying about how they perceive us, or hoping they’ll act in a way that suits us. But the truth is, people will do what they do. The sooner we accept that, the more peaceful and in control of ourselves we feel.”
That is the real power of Let Them Theory. “It’s not about disengagement or passivity – it’s about freeing up emotional bandwidth for the things that actually matter, and things that you actually have some control over.”
Such as how we respond and react to things and spend our time.
Before reading the book, I would often make the journalist faux pas of reading the “below the line” comments on articles I had written, which would leave me feeling deflated at best and upset at worst. I would lie awake wondering what my friends and family might think. I have, over the years, had comments on everything from my appearance to my parenting to my grammar. Sometimes, I could spend hours stewing on it but now I don’t even bother to read them because “let them”.
Before, as someone who works from home and spends too much time on social media, I would have checked Instagram repeatedly to see who had and had not liked my posts. In the absence of real life colleagues, I would have sought external validation online. I would have wasted energy overthinking why people who look at every story I post, especially friends and other journalists, never “like” any of my posts. As someone who is a prolific ‘liker’ and engager, I have always found this to be bewildering and confusing.
I have realised, however, that it’s actually really liberating to realise that you have zero control of other people’s opinions of you. It frees you up to, in the words of Robbins, to “be your authentic self”.
There is also a very helpful chapter in the book about the ebb and flow of adult friendships, something which I very much relate to. Robbins says that adult friendships are based primarily on three things – proximity (being in the same place, workplace, neighbourhood or social circle as someone), timing (being at a similar stage of life) and energy (the level of connection and affinity you feel with someone).
I have in the past been someone who has invested a great deal of time into my friendships but applying the Let Them Theory and realising that friendships can largely depend on such things as proximity and timing, things which are essentially beyond my control, has helped me reassess my expectations. Accepting and realising that some friendships have naturally faded and that it’s fine to just let that happen has been a game changer.
It’s also laid open the gauntlet that some people, like the ones I let go of during a particularly difficult time in my life when my autistic son was put on a reduced timetable at school and I became something of a hermit, may come back into my life. Let Them has helped taken the onus and pressure off myself to make that happen.
I’ve also tried to remind myself about the Let Me part of the book where you let yourself get irritated by something or someone (like one of my children refusing to tidy their room) but then let it go and move on.
The Let Me rule has given me permission to take ownership of my feelings. The other day someone honked at me for overtaking the car in front and I felt a fleeting surge of road rage. I didn’t wave at them to apologise. I allowed myself to feel irritated and allowed them to let out their frustration and then I moved quickly on.
As Robbins says, “By letting other people live their lives, you finally get to live yours.”
Amen to that, and to pressing the mute button on WhatsApp groups and cancelling when you really don’t feel like it.
The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins is on sale now