10 Things People With Thick Skin Won't Waste Time Regretting

In order to have thick skin, you either need to be very intelligent or incredibly stupid.

Incredibly intelligent individuals understand why opinions, criticisms, anger and hatred directed their way aren’t anything to fret over.

They understand why they must stand their ground and move in the direction they themselves see fit. The most intelligent individuals build up a thick skin, not by accident, but by choice.

Stupid people, on the other hand, simply don’t understand how stupid they are. So they have complete faith in their abilities -- abilities they don’t actually have.

Stupid people have some of the thickest skin the world has ever seen. They don’t care what other people say because, well, they just don’t care.

The lesson? If you want to have no regrets in life, and live the way you wish to live, either be incredibly smart or incredibly stupid.

That’s the only way to have thick skin and the only way to avoid these regrets:

They always speak their minds and stand up for what they believe in.

When you have thick skin, other people's opinions, although they may matter to you, don’t directly influence your final decisions.

You believe what you believe in, and unless someone changes your mind using a rational argument, you’re going to continue believing in what you believe in. Moreover, you’re not afraid to stand up for those beliefs.

While many people spend their lives regretting never having the gumption to stand their ground and hold what they believe to be honest and true up for everyone to see and judge, people with thick skin don't.

They understand you must stand for something in life because even standing for everything is the same as standing for nothing at all.

They're not afraid to take risks.

Failure can be a scary thing -- when you don’t understand its purpose. Most people are under the illusion that what doesn't makes us feel good -- failure, for example -- must be bad.

Says who? When you fail, you don’t really lose anything. You've already spent time and energy on whatever it is you were trying to achieve. That’s time and energy you would never get back anyway.

You’re not upset because you failed; you’re upset because you didn’t succeed -- it’s not the same thing. When you have thick skin, you understand failure is nothing more than a delay.

Such individuals take failure as a sign they need to improve or rethink their strategy -- not as a sign they should give up.

They don't shy away from criticism.

People don’t like criticism because it attacks their egos. Criticism is the voice telling their egos they aren’t good enough, that the work they produced is subpar.

When we believe our work to be magnificent -- even though it isn’t -- criticism hurts us. Those with thicker skin accept criticism with an open mind.

They already understand most people's opinions don’t matter, yet they listen in case there's actually some solid feedback threaded throughout.

When you shy away from criticism your entire life, you never get a chance to understand how the world sees you and the work you produce.

If you don’t understand this, you’ll regret your lack of understanding. Why? Because you won't know how to create the life you’ve always dreamed of.

They don't avoid things because they fear rejection.

There isn’t a successful person in the history of the human race who hasn’t been rejected at least a handful of times in his or her life.

When you avoid the possibility of rejection, you're simultaneously avoiding the possibility of success.

You have to risk being rejected if you ever wish to be accepted. It may take thicker skin to put yourself out there, but in reality, you've got nothing to lose.

They always give their all.

There is no bigger regret in life than looking back at it all and thinking: “If I'd only tried a little bit harder; if I'd only said 'no' all those times I knew I should have said 'no,' and 'yes' when I knew I should have said 'yes.'”

If you have thick skin, you’re likely never going to find yourself in this state of regret. But in order for you to have such thick skin, you would've had to build it up over years; it’s all just scar tissue.

You got hit, kicked and abused for years on end, but you looked at yourself and realized you’re still breathing. You’re still alive.

And, most importantly, you’re pissed off at life for thinking it could get away with beating you down indefinitely. Those scars become armor, and the stones bounce off like flecks of sand.

They don't doubt themselves.

You cannot have thick skin unless you believe in yourself. This is where stupidity can often be of benefit. Many are too dumb to realize how difficult and impossible the situation they’re in actually is.

So, because they don’t understand, they have confidence when having confidence in yourself should be impossible. The only way to do the impossible is by believing you can.

Dumb people don’t know better -- so it’s not so much they have thick skin, but rather, those throwing the stones can’t manage to hit them.

For those of us who understand how the odds are stacked against us, blind faith, and thick skin become the only way to succeed.

They won't waste their time and talents.

You don’t develop a thick skin by accident. It doesn’t just grow the way most scar tissue does. The only way for you to grow a thicker skin is to need it.

If you need thick skin in order to get what you want, as long as you want it badly enough, you can develop it.

But you need to want things and want them badly. You need to dream big and, more importantly, you need to get your hands dirty.

People with thick skin never regret wasting their time and talents because it’s the time they spent and the talents they possess that got them there in the first place.

They refuse to quit before sh*t gets done.

Do you know when most people give up and call it quits? Just when they’re about to cross the finish line.

And for the people who do try, who do dedicate their time and energy to pursuing life goals, to give up just when they're about to reach the end of their journey is shameful.

Some do it because they can’t find the motivation to carry on, not even those last couple of meters.

Others give up because they don’t realize how close they are.

But those with thick skin don’t regret giving up too soon because they’ve most likely already given up too soon before -- and they refuse to do it again.

When you have a thick skin, you're stubborn and obsessive. You’d give up, but you just can’t.

They never treat failure as a finish line.

In all honesty, having thick skin is its own measure of success. But more than that, having thick skin requires maintenance. You need to keep taking those hits; you need to keep putting yourself out there for the world to see and judge.

You need to maintain the thickness by reminding yourself the world can’t get to you because you are unbreakable.

Once you stop trying, stop pursuing your dreams, stop stirring up the waters, you'll get too comfortable, and your skin will become thin.

If you’re always focusing on maintaining this thickness, constantly focused on achieving the life of your dreams, you can’t possibly be a complete failure.

Thick skin and a wise soul are unbeatable.

They're never not themselves.

People judge you the second they meet you or the work you produce; it’s how human beings were designed.

Many take this judgment and work to adapt and avoid it. We try to avoid the criticism, to avoid the negative comments and angry stares. We do our best to hide ourselves and become the individuals we’re not.

Remember, everyone in the world wants you to be someone else because it’s easier to focus on changing you then it is for those people to try and change themselves.

No matter who you are, who you become, or what others turn you into, you still won’t be accepted by everyone.

You need thick skin to hold you in place; otherwise, people will tear you apart. They’ll change you and make you into someone you can’t recognize as yourself.

Never be someone you aren't because if you don’t hold on to the vision of the person you want to be, the world will make you lose yourself.

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