How do you stop worrying too much about what other people think and do?

Make a list for yourself of your accomplishments, education, and experiences that you have learned from. List where you get your information including people whose opinion you respect. Then think about where other people get their information and opinions. You will probably realize that your opinion is just as valid and backed by just as much reliable information and experience as anyone else in your age group. Writing stuff like that out has always increased my confidence, and will probably help you too.

Your symptoms just sound like someone who hasn’t found himself or herself yet. Once you are confident with who you are and what you believe, you won’t be constantly second-guessing yourself.

As you get older you realize that people were never really ever thinking about you! They were thinking about themselves and what other people were thinking about them!! Weird but true! Next time you worry about what someone is thinking about you just remember that more than likely you haven’t even crossed their mind!

First off, you should realise that you don’t need to concern yourself with what other people think, not beyond basic courtesy anyway. Other people have no special rights to expect more from you than you can expect from them.
A lot of us are just about as insecure as you are, it’s just that most people can hide it. Your opinion of them is probably just about as important to them.

Just don’t be a jerk, and don’t worry about the rest.
It’s impossible to please everyone, there are so many people with mutually contradicting tastes. A consequence of that situation is that if you insist on pleasing other people, you’ll have to choose which of them to please. And if you’re going to decide for yourself how to behave anyway, you might as well go all the way.

With that said, I think defying your self-consciousness is a skill that takes practise.
I recommend the internet as a place to start practising, particularly anonymous places (e.g. Omegle). Anonymity is liberating. And it’s also known to desensitise people, so it should be relatively easy to desensitise yourself to your anxiousness that way.
Speak your mind. Write long-winded rants. Say everything you wouldn’t dare to say in real life. Blurt out random nonsense. Say stupid things. Confess embarrassing secrets. Go troll some places if you have to. It all doesn’t mean squat. It’s just the internet.

It may not entirely solve the problem yet, but it would be a good start.

You don’t.

Oh, all right, people with more fortitude and self control than I have might be able to, but if you’re me, you don’t.

So I feel all those horrible feelings and in the end, I realize it’s hopeless. There is no way on earth that I can meet other people’s expectations. So what I try to do is to not pay much attention to those thoughts. I let them slide through me, and I don’t pay them much attention.

Except when I do. But hey, it’s a work in progress. One other thing that helps me is writing. When I write, I think about others and not myself. Sometimes I’ll even feel good about myself when I answer questions.

I don’t care at all what other people think about me or what I do.

So I am a little at a loss to offer help to you.

I am wondering what your inner dialogue is like. If you have a lot of negative self-talk. If you do, a good way to get a handle on it (and improve your self-esteen which might also be an issue) is to use the book Self-Parenting.

Try that.

I quit caring a long time ago. I’m a 6’1”, 260# man who goes around with an unshaven face and hadn’t had a haircut since who knows when. I used to go to minor league hockey games, where there was just a line of bleachers on one side of the ice, reading career romance novels during warm-ups and period breaks. “Does Cupid Do Take-Out?” was a title. Think what you want, I really stopped caring about that kind of stuff. I also have season tickets for baseball, and last year I was seen there reading some book before the game starts and at inning breaks with Bachelorette Party in the title…. that may have been the title. Also, The Accidental Bride. Think what you want, I just quit caring some time ago.

@12Oaks – In my opinion, you are awesome. Not that it matters.

When faced with compromising situations, my mantra is when out in public, I remind myself I will probably never see them again and if I ever did we will share a good laugh. I see people do silly stupid stuff all the time and really can’t recall any of them. You might afford them a very brief WTH was he/she doing moment that is very quickly forgotten. You would be surprised how little people really pay attention to what is going on or even really care.

@itsnotanoption

It is an option. All worry is optional. You’re not required to do it, and if you honestly answer the question, “What has it ever gotten me?” then you’ll have precious little to show as a return for all your worry.

So the first thing to do is realize that it is optional. It’s just an option you don’t seem to want now, yet can’t avoid.

Apparently, what you need is a “worry-avoidance” strategy. Try this.

Make up a list (I’m giving this advice more often now, for some reason) of things that you’d like to do but are worried about people’s reaction to. Evaluate your worry in terms of “most worried” to “least worried”. Then do one of the things that you’re “least worried” about.

Record people’s reactions (since it’s what you seem to be worried about) and then evaluate the effect of their reactions on you. If their worries have a significant reaction on you (and especially if it’s a bad reaction), then your worries may be justified, and not a thing to be jettisoned out of hand. But if their reactions are meaningless noise, and have no reaction, then you’ll start learning to tune them out.

For example, if you’re worried that “People would say or do bad things to me if I walked outside the house naked,” then you’d probably be right. You could be arrested or worse; that’s a “negative reaction” that could hurt you in several ways. But if you’re worried, for example, about “What would people say if I cut my hair real short or dyed it bright green?” then you may find (after you cut it short and dye it green) that the reactions you fear are… just noise. (You may even find that you get a lot of compliments, and that might matter more to you, and help to drown out the other voices.)

Try making the list, and picking one of those actions to challenge your assumptions about how serious “worry about people’s reactions” is. Pick one of the ones that won’t get you hurt or arrested.

Listen to Eminem. That’s the REAL man who just doesn’t give a f***.

But hey, do whatever you want, just don’t care. And if you screw up, people know you can change. I mean c’mon. The important people should know you can change and the rest can place a toothpick under the nail of their barefooted big toe, and kick a wall as hard as they can. Know what I mean? :DDD

I remind myself that I am just not that important! And I think about what I think when I see somebody do something. I don’t think much or I smile at them.

Focus on making yourself into the best you, you can be. That will be a full time job.

Practise the art of saying No or find a way to say it if your too mindful of what others are thinking, try “I will get back to you-but no promises or I will think about it-but unlikely,or just walk away, if you find yourself resenting the person or thing then dont do it (if in doubt throw it out or give it a clout-(the thing not person ) take a big breath…Good luck:)