How To Manage People's Perception Of YouSample

Here are two strategies for managing our third selves. They sound simple, but they aren’t easy.

Strategy #1: Develop a flexible personality. 

People who are aware of this third-self concept can shift and change into various versions of themselves, depending on what others need in any given moment. 

When we’re sensitive to people’s needs, the person they need us to be becomes apparent. We can relate to them, celebrate with them, mourn with them – we’re able to enter life with them.

We adjust to the third person they want us to be. But the main point to remember is that it’s for their good, not ours. The Bible tells us to honor one another above ourselves. 

Strategy #2: Treat compassion as a discipline.

Flexibility lays the groundwork for compassion. When we focus more on other people, we can’t help but identify with their pains and joys. 

If you’re not normally a compassionate person, or you want to become more so, it’s helpful to treat this trait as a task to accomplish. Over time, practiced compassion helps us better understand people’s needs.

Jesus was extremely discerning and compassionate. He saw into the heart of the demoniac, who just wanted to be free. He saw through the eyes of a promiscuous woman searching for spiritual truth. He saw with the eyes of the sick, the poor, and even the blind.

When we see from other people’s points of view, we find it easier to allow for their occasional bad moods. We’re able to overlook an offense from time to time. And we find it easier to love them.

As we become more compassionate, our third person starts melding with its first and second versions (our internal and projected personas), because this empathy and very visible care for others can’t help but move into our hearts.