Everyone knows better than you. Everyone has something to say about your work. Everything you do gets questioned by people who won’t be held accountable for the outcome.
This is entitlement culture. Having an opinion becomes more important than having responsibility. People feel entitled to weigh in on work they don’t understand, decisions they won’t own, and problems they will not solve.
You spend more time defending your choices than making them. More time explaining your expertise than using it. The pushback isn’t about making things better; it’s about people asserting their importance by inserting themselves into work that isn’t theirs.
When this becomes the norm, refuse to play the game.
Next time someone questions your approach, ask them to own the outcome. If they want changes, ask them to implement them and if they “know better,” let them prove it with their time, not yours.
Document your decisions. Ship your work. Let results speak for themselves.
The people who matter will notice the difference between someone who ships and someone who talks, while the ones who don’t matter will keep talking to themselves.
When everyone’s entitled to an opinion, nobody’s accountable for results. Be the exception.
[Photo by Cosmin Serban on Unsplash]