Áilín Quinlan: Let Them...a revelation just in time to ring in the New Year

Teetering on the edge of the New Year, a revelation.

I generally don’t do self-help books and I certainly try to avoid making them the potential basis for a New Year’s resolution.

But then I read Mel Robbins’ book The Let Them Theory.

Published last December, it got a fair bit of traction over the year; there was a lot of publicity, including news that some people had even tattooed the words Let Them on their bodies.

That’s the kind of thing that immediately puts me off. So although I’d heard a lot about the book, I came late to the Let Them philosophy.

I also came reluctantly, because I lack belief in my power to harness the assistance of a self-help book to stop myself doing some of the things I’ve always done, (such as worrying about things I have no power over) even if these habits are illogical or have been proven to cause harm to me.

But Robbins and her philosophy came very strongly recommended.

In the end, for a number of reasons, I gave her a go.

The theory is basic and at least some of it should be familiar to anybody who reads for pleasure, has ever been given advice by a parent or grandparent, or indeed, has ever had any form of counselling: you can’t control what other people do and you can’t control what they think (including what they think of you).

But you can control your personal response to the actions or comments of others, and you can stop upsetting yourself and tearing yourself apart by worrying what others think of you and by comparing yourself to them.

You can also stop preventing yourself from doing things that might be exciting and good for you, from an unacknowledged fear that you will be judged and found wanting.

Go ahead, says Robbins, let others have negative opinions about you. Let them misjudge you. Let them be rude, impatient or pass-remarkable.

In other words, let go of the things you can’t control and focus your energy on the things you can. The key to inner peace (at least some of the time), according to the Let Them theory, is not to fight to be in control but to learn how to release.

Most of us have already come across this notion in various forms a million times. Stoicism. Buddhism. Lots of isms, in fact. The Desiderata. If by Rudyard Kipling. The Serenity Prayer. Let it Go. Let it Flow.

So it’s certainly not new.

But, then, what is new, under this sun of ours?

Yet many of us, myself included, remain strangely and stubbornly oblivious to the concept.

Instead, we seem to waste enormous amounts of energy and time exacerbating our stress levels and corroding our overall mental health by obsessing about the behaviour of other people, about what they think of us, and about how to control the way they perceive or treat us.

Sometimes we don’t even realise we’ve been triggered into being knee-jerk reactive. Their selfish behaviour! Their sheer lack of advance planning! Their nastiness, their impatience, their traffic aggro, their failure to show others the simplest consideration!

I don’t know how it worked, but maybe Mel Robbins’ practical, chattery, honest approach and her ability to snatch credible, real-life anecdotes from her own experiences to illustrate how she changed her own mindset, cut through the noise and got to me.

Maybe it’s her warmth and down-to-earth approach.

Maybe because some of her stories are personally humbling to herself. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. Plus, there’s some decent research in there too.

Maybe it’s because the Let Them concept is not a 10-step process or even slightly complicated.

Essentially, it’s what it says on the tin.

Let Them means we practise a mindset shift which enables us to stop reacting to the urge to be outraged by things outside our control.

In other words, let others be rude, disorganised or impatient without internalising their behaviour or making it about you.

Let other people have an opinion about you (even if it’s negative). Let them act how they choose to act and stop trying to change them or fix them or improve them.

Stop giving away your power by stressing about them.

But there’s a second bit, that’s just as important.

Let Me. This is about us – what we can do, what we can control in terms of our personal choices, our emotions, our boundaries, our personal responsibilities.

Robbins comes out with some interesting stuff – emotions, for example last only 90 seconds before subsiding. That wave of stress, or that burst of annoyance is just energy moving through you. After that, she says, it’s your choice what happens next.

Something else she teaches; when it comes down to it, being a people pleaser isn’t about pleasing others – the urge to please is rooted in your own inability to feel uncomfortable but normal emotions. It is possible, she says, to be a good person and still put yourself first.

Of course, and this goes without saying, life is never black and white, so in implementing the Let Them philosophy correctly, you must be adult and discerning. Realistic. Responsible. Sensible.

There have been claims that the Let Them philosophy encourages us to abdicate responsibility.

I suppose if you want an excuse to walk away from anything that’s uncomfortable or difficult, well, who can stop you quoting Let Them.

But if you really hear what Robbins is saying and intend to be grown-up about it, you won’t use Let Them as an excuse to abdicate the personal responsibilities and ethics of an adult living in what is a very challenging world.

It’s just a tool which, like all tools, is only relevant to what it’s meant to be used for.

More power to her. So for the New Year at least, I’m in.