How to judge people less?

I hate to admit this.

I’m really not proud of it…

But I used to judge people a lot.

I’d judge people on their appearances, their way of speaking, their perceived intelligence…

It was so automatic I sometimes didn’t even realise I was doing it.

Part of me also felt quite guilty about it.

But luckily I kept most of it to myself so I wasn’t really harming anyone.

However, given that kindness is one of my values, I would often feel out of integrity.

And I didn’t like how it made me feel.

Recently, one of my clients told me that he struggled with the same.

As soon as he said this, I realised that my own tendency to judge had actually diminished.

I obviously welcomed this new change but had no idea what had caused it.

Then a few weeks ago I came across this quote from Brene Brown:

“We tend to judge in the areas where we are the most susceptible to shame”.

This kind of blew my mind because I realised that the whole time I had been judging people based on my own insecurities.

I was insecure about my appearance, I was insecure about how well I spoke, I was insecure about my intelligence…

So I would judge people on these.

On a deeper level, it was a type of defense mechanism protecting me from getting rejected.

Being judgmental made me feel way less vulnerable, less likely to get hurt.

If I judged someone first, it would hurt less if they ended up judging me or rejecting me.

In the last few years however, I’ve been working a lot on self-love, self acceptance and my relationships to failure and shame.

So it’s no wonder that my propensity to judge has dropped, given that many of my insecurities have also dropped.

The higher my self confidence, the less I tend to judge people.

So next time you find yourself being judgemental, ask yourself: “What’s the insecurity?”

It might give you an insight on the things you need to work on.

What about you? Do you ever find yourself being judgemental?


#jugemental #confidence #personaldevelopment #motivation #whatinspiresme