Are You "Judgy" or Accepting?
Are You "Judgy"?
How do you judge yourself? What do your judgments say? Are you mean and dismissive or are you objective and accepting? Your level of self-acceptance vs. your level of self-judgment has a direct impact on your happiness, fulfillment, and success. So how do we accept more and judge less?
Being in the Moment
The way we think about ourselves greatly affects our experience on this earth. If we judge ourselves harshly and talk down to ourselves, we erode our self worth and feel "less than". This often leads to destructive behaviors such as people-pleasing and hyper-achieving in order to feel like we are enough, or to complete disconnection and blaming others because we feel overwhelmed and victimized.
Too much time spent pleasing others or disconnecting completely can lead to other more destructive escape behaviors such as over drinking, gambling, workaholic tendencies, overeating, binging on social media and TV, etc.
And too much of those ruin your life.
The alternative to self-judgment is self-acceptance. But in my network of highly accomplished, ambitious people, acceptance is often thought of as a dirty word. Or at least a lazy one.
Self-acceptance isn't accepting who you are today without ever trying to improve anything ever again. Self-acceptance is acknowledging who and where you are in this moment, and not judging yourself negatively for it.
Self-judgment is thinking you aren't enough. Self-acceptance is knowing that you are enough today, and that you can be even more [skilled, experienced, healthy, etc.] in the future with some positive action towards your goals.
Self-judgment is calling yourself stupid, an idiot, or ridiculous when things don't work out or you make a mistake. Self-acceptance is recognizing you made a mistake - period. And that every human on this earth - all 8 billion of them - make mistakes because NO ONE is perfect.
Recognition and acceptance of a mistake allows you to do something about it. Staying in self judgment just makes you angry and sad and keeps you in that low emotional vibe not making any improvements to yourself or the situation.
Self-judgment distorts the truth. Self-acceptance looks at you and your situation for what it is, without emotion or bias.
And when you take out all of that negative emotion and bias, you can face your challenges so much easier and move forward.
It is an irony of sorts - we tend to judge ourselves harshly thinking it will "whip us into shape" and make us better next time. Yet that judgment keeps us stuck and unable to move forward in productive ways.
We tend to think acceptance is giving up, when in fact, accepting ourselves and a situation for what it is allows us to face facts and then do something with those facts.
Self-acceptance makes you more productive. Self-judgment makes you less productive. Seems counterintuitive, but it is true.
Another interesting fact - the more you judge yourself, the more you judge others. Which is likely straining your relationships, making your colleagues even more annoying to you, and causing you and those around you excess stress.
So how do you move out of judgment? Intention and awareness. You must become aware of your own judging thoughts and intentionally redirect them. This can be hard to do in the moment at first so you will likely catch your thoughts after-the-fact.
The key is to redirect those thoughts to a positive or neutral thought. "I'm an idiot" turns into "I made a mistake". "I look fat" turns into "I am who I am and my body doesn't define me". "I'm not good enough" turns into "I'm not where I want to be yet". "I'm a failure" turns into "I have room to improve".
Once you catch your negative judgment, reinforce the self-accepting statement. Over and over and over again.
I can't stress this enough; this practice takes time. I'm currently taking a course that teaches how to better catch these judgments, so know that aren't alone if you can't do this on your own. I am always here for support and accountability, so reach out if this is something you want to explore further. (Schedule a free call here)
But over weeks and months of being diligent about it, it will change your life. And I'm not exaggerating. Your career, your relationships, your health, your energy - all of it - will improve.
When we stay out of negative, biased judgment and into acceptance, we see the world for what it is. An imperfect world filled with imperfect people all trying to do the best they can on any given day with their many imperfect circumstances. That's it.
You can either take it all personally, judge yourself, judge others, and waste countless hours and days being negative, or you can accept it and move on.
Moving on may be letting it go. Moving on may be taking productive action to make a change because things aren't acceptable to you as-is. Moving on may be giving yourself permission to put it off to the side and revisit it later. Moving on may actually be staying exactly where you are and processing the feelings you are feeling.
Whatever it is you decide to do, embracing self-acceptance will be productive and help you get to where you want to go. It will fuel your career success. It will improve the quality of your relationships. It will help you reach your health goals. And it will greatly reduce your stress and frustration.
Self-acceptance feeds your self love, and vice versa. These are the foundations to a fulfilling life and career. Without them, you are a victim of your circumstances, one snarky judgment away from a crappy day at any given moment.
You are too smart and too strong to be the only thing standing in your way of a happy life.
Let go of your judgment and just BE.
Accept YOU, exactly as you are.
Cheers to your self-acceptance,
Sharon
Take an action of Self-Love
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Core values exercise
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