Swetha Mukherjee · Follow
--
Are you guilty of self-judgment?
Do you always blame yourself for every negative event that happens in your life? And do you have a blatant inner critic who makes his presence felt every time you try to do something?
Too much of anything is bad. And when your inner critic has a tendency to judge you constantly, your life becomes a living hell.
It is time to stop feeling like this and tell that critic of yours to take a hike!
By enduring his constant presence, you are depriving yourself of the pleasure of living a happy life. Learn to accept who you are and try to be more understanding of yourself.
When you tend to have a negative opinion of yourself, you will always see yourself as a worthless human being. You remain weighed down by stress, anxiety, depression, and the quality of life suffers.
If you want to respect yourself as a person then you need to rise above self-judgement.
In this post, we’ll talk about why you should avoid self-judgment, its root causes, and some tips on how to stop it so you want to live a happy life.
One should avoid self-judgment on account of the sheer negativity that it breeds.
Go through the following negative effects of self-judgment:
Depression When you blame yourself for everything in life, you feel hopeless. You label yourself as being unworthy and this causes you to spiral into depression.
Low self-esteem: Self-judgement makes you feel like “YOU” are not enough. You are always full of self-doubt which paves the way for low self-esteem.
Increase in stress and anxiety: Constant self-scrutiny gives rise to your stress and anxiety levels. This has damaging effects on a person’s daily.
Perfectionist mindset: Self-judgement cultivates a perfectionist mindset which keeps you stressed. When you spend your time judging yourself, you develop an irrational need to be perfect all the time. You suffer from the fear of rejection and failure and try to be flawless each time you do something.
Avoidance behavior: Have you ever given up a fruitful job offer without even trying because you “thought” that you were not good enough for that job?
If yes, then you, my friend, are suffering from avoidance behavior which is one of the negative impacts of self-criticism.
Self-criticism compels you to focus more on your presumed weakness than your positive qualities. When this happens, you feel inadequate as a person and start avoiding situations, opportunities, people, etc.
Relationships get affected: Let’s be honest. No one wants to be around someone who is insecure about himself. People begin to shun him because of his unpleasant attitude.
Additionally, self-judgment keeps you from being more open about your individual needs. You become weaker and suppress your genuine emotions and your relationships suffer.
Self-judgment has various causes, including:
- Comparison with others: When you keep comparing your life with others, you tend to cause too much pressure on yourself. This pressure leads you to be self-critical all the time.
- Childhood experiences: You will find many parents who always criticize themselves. They waste no time in calling themselves a failure each time they make a mistake. As a result, their children grow up to be self-critical adults because they get this attitude from their parents. Moreover, when parents are too controlling of their children and criticize them constantly, their children suffer from a lack of self-confidence. This lack of self-confidence causes the children to become critical of themselves and others in later life.
- Depression and other mental health issues: Depression and other issues like anxiety, stress, etc., also contribute to self-judgment.
- Internalized messages: Do you have a friend or a relative who is always putting you down? When we regularly hear negative things about ourselves, we start believing in what they say. We start judging ourselves and are convinced that we are not good enough.
- Unreasonable expectations: When you set your standards unrealistically high, you are likely to judge yourself ruthlessly if you fail to meet them.
- When you believe that self-judgment is a form of self-motivation: Many people believe that to be successful and to stay motivated in life, it is necessary to be extra hard on yourself. These people end up being extremely critical of themselves.
The good news is that self-judgment is not permanent and there are ways in which you can start treating yourself with the kindness and compassion that you deserve:
Here are 15 tips to overcome self-judgment:
1. Refrain from comparing yourself with others
When you spend all your time comparing yourself, you are always concerned with what others are doing and lose focus on yourself.
Start focusing on your abilities and be comfortable with who you are.
2. Avoid the need to be perfect
You don’t need to be a perfectionist. Nobody is perfect. Period!
Embrace your imperfections and you will see that you become less critical about yourself.
3. Focus on your strengths
Self-judgment makes you always focus on your weakness.
Move past that and focus on your strengths.
You can start by making a list of every little thing that you are proud of and then praise yourself. This helps you to see yourself in a more positive light and boosts your self-confidence.
4. Develop a habit of creating positive affirmations
Positive affirmations help you to develop a positive attitude about yourself. Get into a habit of using positive affirmations to get rid of any sort of negative self-doubt and insecurities.
5. Always be kind to yourself
Would you call your friend unworthy or a failure, just because he made a mistake?
You won’t. So why treat yourself so harshly?
Be compassionate towards yourself and remind yourself that you too are a worthy person. Talk to yourself in the same way that you would talk to your friend.
Be that friend of yours, you always needed but never had.
6. Practice self-care
Start getting into the habit of practicing self–care. Self-care teaches you to value yourself.
When you start respecting yourself, you take a step forward to stop being self-critical.
7. Free yourself from the company of toxic people
Remember we talked about that friend or family member who is always putting you down? Steer clear from such people.
If you want to free yourself from self-criticism, you must stay away from the company of toxic people who give self-criticism and negative self-talk more importance than they deserve.
Try and associate with positive people who encourage you to do better and realize your true potential.
8. Practice self-love in daily life
Practicing self-love helps you in appreciating the person you are and you become much less critical of yourself.
It teaches you to give importance to your needs and desires so that you don’t sacrifice them to please someone else.
9. Focus on the “now”
To stop judging yourself, you need to concentrate on what you are doing in the present. Try not to think about your past failures and focus on improving yourself.
10. Understanding the situations that cause self-criticizing thoughts
Try to identify the situations that are the root causes for your self-criticizing thoughts.
Once you identify the trigger situations, you become better equipped in managing these negative thoughts and direct them into something positive.
11. Venture outside your comfort zone
When you step outside your comfort area, you become aware of qualities and abilities that you didn’t believe existed.
You become a more confident person and less self-critical in your attitude.
12. Seeking Professional help
If you cannot overcome self-judgment on your own, you can always seek professional help from a therapist who can help you cope with your negative thoughts.
13. Practice journaling
Journaling your thoughts helps you in aligning yourself with your emotions and you start understanding yourself better.
When this happens, it becomes easier for you to become less self-critical and more accepting of who you are.
14. Avoid negative self-talk
When you indulge in negative self-talk regularly, you tend to start believing in them.
Get into the habit of thinking positively about yourself and start believing in your abilities.
15. Practicing gratitude
Gratitude teaches you to be grateful for what you have instead of focusing on what you lack.
When you practice gratitude regularly, you become a much happier person and you don’t find the need to constantly criticize yourself.
Please know that change does not take place overnight. You need to be consistent in your efforts to overcome self-judgment.
Take one step at a time but do move forward.
Know that like your strengths, your weaknesses are a part of you. Both combined, make you the person that you are.
And YOU ARE WORTH IT!
So what do you do in your daily life to overcome self-judgment?
Hi there, I write content on Lifestyle, Wellness, and Beauty niches and share my experiences as a mother to my baby girl. If you enjoyed reading this article and want to read more, please follow me here on Medium and make my day with a few claps.
Thanks!
-Swetha
