How Minding Your Own Business Helps You Grow

How Minding Your Own Business Helps You Grow - The Art of Living Consciously

One of the first concepts I teach students in my retreats and workshops is the importance of minding your own business.

At first, “mind your own business” might sound harsh, but in this case, it is actually a gentle reminder to stay in your own lane, so to speak.

 

What Minding Your Own Business Means

Minding your own business, at its heart, is focusing on what you can control and letting go of what you can’t. It is taking responsibility for your own thoughts and actions, and letting other people take responsibility for their own thoughts and actions.

So often we try to control other people, control the world around us, and basically control everything and everyone but ourselves.

Ironically, the only thing we CAN control is ourselves. And even then, it’s imperfect control.

Here are a few examples of NOT minding our own business:

  • Judging
  • Criticizing
  • Reacting to circumstances and others instead of being conscious
  • Seeing others as separate from us (separation vs oneness is also a core tenet of conscious living.)
  • Trying to solve other people’s problems for them
  • Attempting to “fix” others
  • Refusing to accept others as they are
  • Not taking responsibility for your own thoughts and actions
  • Blaming others for your thoughts and feelings
  • Believing every thought that pops into our heads

And these are just a few ways that we don’t mind our own business or try to take on someone else’s business.

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    How to Mind Your Own Business

    The most basic way to start minding your own business is to ask yourself “Is this something I can actually control?”

    Remember:

    • Your thoughts and actions = your business
    • Other people’s thoughts and actions = their business (NOT your business)
    • External circumstances (weather, external events, etc.) = NOT your business

     

    Step 1: Stay Out of Other People’s Business

    Accept others as they are.

    “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone…” John 8:7

    This does not mean that you accept or enable other people’s destructive behavior without doing or saying anything. It doesn’t mean that you neglect to set boundaries for yourself or that you don’t ask your alcoholic brother to attend AA meetings or discipline your teenaged child when they break the rules.

    It does mean that you accept who people are.

    When we refuse to accept others as they are, we say “I don’t want to know you, I want you to be who I want you to be.”

    We can accept that some people are high strung, they talk loudly, are sometimes late, they like things we think are boring, believe things we don’t believe in, or do things we don’t agree with. We can accept that as reality and love them anyway.

    Listen without judging, criticizing, or trying to “fix” others

    No one is broken. When someone talks to you about a problem, keep in mind that there’s nothing to fix. Your role is to listen.

    In my workshops, I ask participants to listen when someone speaks, and instead of judging, think “How does this apply to me? How can I learn from this?”

    After all, human experience is universal. We’re all in this together, and judgment only prevents us from connecting.

    When someone talks to you, listen and try to understand instead of thinking, “This person is broken, and I can fix them.”

     

    Step 2: Minding YOUR Business

    Take responsibility for YOU

    Taking responsibility for you means knowing that no one makes you do or feel anything. It’s not letting someone else have authority over you. You always have a choice.

    Minding your own business is choosing not to be the victim and completely taking ownership of your decisions.

    For example, you don’t HAVE to go to work. You don’t HAVE to pay taxes. You choose to do those things because you want the result, like getting a paycheck, or because you don’t want to deal with the consequences of not doing them, like getting audited. Taking responsibility is saying “I went to work because I want to get a promotion” instead of complaining “My boss made me come to work on Sunday.”

    Of course, I’m not suggesting that you act outside of your integrity, treat other people poorly, or be narcissistic. After all, we live in a society where there are certain agreements we make with each other to help things run smoothly.

    In the end, you are free to break those social expectations and behave however you want because you have free will. You’re just not free from the consequences of those decisions.

    Don’t believe every thought in your head

    When we mind our own business, we save a lot of energy because we are focused on what we want instead of what we don’t want.

    I like to think of it like sorting the mail.

    Think about how much energy it takes to go through every piece of junk mail, all the special offers, all the fine print, and all the sales flyers. It would take all day! Instead, most of us just take a quick glance at the mail each day to see what actually needs our attention, and we recycle or throw out the rest.

    Thoughts are like that. Thoughts can bounce around in our heads all day, and they won’t necessarily be helpful. Part of minding our business is figuring out which thoughts are true, useful, and important instead of being distracted by every thought that goes through our minds.

    This is also the case with feelings. Some feelings are fleeting and don’t require attention while others can be useful. Remember, while feelings are often helpful, they are not always trustworthy. They might not be based on reality or not be legitimate for the current situation.

    Ask yourself whether your thoughts and feelings are true, useful, and important, or whether they’re just noise.

    Practice self-awareness

    Minding your own business is observing what’s going on inside of you. It’s being self-observant.

    It may be helpful to think of ourselves as two “selves”; the part of us that thinks, and the part of us that can observe the part that thinks.

    We can observe ourselves, our activity, and our state of mind. Minding your own business means being the self-observer.

    When you think a thought, you can automatically believe that thought, or the observer can watch your thought and say “That’s junk mail. No need to open that thought.” You don’t need to believe every thought you think. Most thoughts don’t need to be believed.

    For example, you might have the thought “This person in front of me is walking too slowly. They shouldn’t do that.” Your observer self might notice this and think “I’m making a judgment. Is that really true? Are they walking too slowly, or are they just walking at whatever pace they’re walking? I’m not the decider of how fast people should walk.” You might even notice the absurdity of your thoughts.

    Observe and accept the fact that you’re thinking those thoughts. Then you can move on, knowing that thought was junk mail and you don’t have to open it.

     

    Minding Your Own Business is a Practice

    For most of us, minding our own business does not come naturally. This is a practice, like everything else in conscious living.

    Practice observing yourself and noticing when you’re not minding your own business, and practice bringing your attention back to your own lane. As you do this more and more, you will find it easier and more automatic.

    As you do this more, you will take more ownership of your own life, thoughts, and decisions, and grow in acceptance of the humanity in all of us.

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    13 Comments

    1. Debbie Scott on March 25, 2020 at 8:20 pm

      I have been so guilty of not minding my own business. It seems that this was written for me and me alone. I feel so good though . My and I stress MY LIFE is going to be everything I make it in a positive manner. My ego refused to observe with my ears, I will no longer be blind! Thank you and bless you in spirit.

    2. Janete on April 16, 2020 at 6:42 pm

      I would love to be part of a retreat like that! I do have to learn to be less involved with other people’s problems and and Learn to not forget about me! At the end I get so frustrated and instead of creating people that cares about me I created people that is annoyed of me! I need to be empowered of my own life, thoughts and actions and put myself first, and spending more energy on me instead of trying fix and judge everyone around me!! Be less perfeccionista e accept things the way they are. Is not that hard, it is more simple than I think! God help me to do this so needed shift in MY LIFE!!!😌

      • Linda Schwartz on September 16, 2020 at 1:54 pm

        I just read what you wrote about minding your own business. I feel exactly that way. I copied what you wrote. I’m sure you don’t mind. God Bless You for sharing.

        • Louise Finlayson on September 23, 2020 at 4:21 pm

          Dear Linda, I’m so glad you found it helpful. I’m happy for you to share the article as long as you credit me as the author.

      • Tanya G on April 7, 2021 at 11:28 pm

        Wow it’s like you took the words right out of my mouth. I just got “yelled” at on Facebook when I thought I was giving somebody good advice… I then thought that I could have avoided the whole confrontation if I just didn’t say anything and simply minded my own business. Then I Googled “minding my own business” and came across this article 🙂

    3. Emmanuel Rosado on April 17, 2020 at 7:01 am

      My spirit has been freed. Amen.

    4. Eze Chidimma on September 15, 2020 at 1:33 pm

      I am really inspired by this. i never saw this angle of minding your business untill i read this. if theres a book you can reccomend to master this, i will appreciate

      • Louise Finlayson on September 23, 2020 at 4:22 pm

        Dear Eze, I’m so glad that you feel inspired by my article. I don’t know of a book that approaches Minding Your Own Business in the way that I outlined. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or stay tuned for on-line classes that I offer.

        • Carole Prestedge on March 13, 2021 at 9:54 am

          this article speaks directly to me. For the past few years my annual intention has been just to “butt out” and I admit I find it very hard to do and it creates so much pain for me! I would welcome a workshop or webinar or something on this topic.

          • Louise Finlayson on March 18, 2021 at 1:23 pm

            Thank you for your suggestion, Carole. I have noticed that minding one’s own business can be particularly challenging for people. Keep your eyes peeled for a workshop on this topic.

    5. Patrick gaya on March 15, 2021 at 12:04 pm

      Thank you so much I needed to read this and I will try and apply it in my life May God help me 🙏

      • Louise Finlayson on March 18, 2021 at 1:23 pm

        Thanks so much. I’m happy to hear that you found it helpful.

        • Ugomma on July 22, 2021 at 3:01 am

          Thank you so much. Infact reading this has given me a good sight about life. Love it.

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