The Fear of Judgement is Holding You Back

Let's be clear - sometimes, I'm my own worst enemy. I tend to allow myself to self-sabotage or convince myself that my bad, toxic ideas are good ideas. Or I don’t stand up for myself or allow myself to harbor limiting beliefs. There are so many different ways that we can be our own worst enemy. I think part of being human is  to sometimes be our own worst enemy. It's something that we all deal with. How do youI let go of the fear of judgment? 

Judgment is inevitable. We are going to judge people because it's a natural human thing to do and people are gonna judge us because again, it's a natural human thing to do. It's a protective mechanism in our brain. You know, we judge people to figure out if we wanna be friends with them, if we wanna talk to them, if they're trustworthy, if they're going be a good match for us in friendship or dating. There are so many reasons why we judge so I think that we need to get comfortable with the fact that judgment in all ways, in all forms is inevitable. 

You judging people is inevitable. People judging you is inevitable. Once you become comfortable with that and sort of accept that as truth, then you can take the next step. How can we accept that it’s inevitable and let go of the dear of being judged? Maybe it’s more the fear that a negative judgement might actually be true. Even if it IS true - then what? No one is dying. No one is getting hurt. It doesn't mean you're a bad person, it doesn't mean you're a “cringe” person. It doesn't mean you're an embarrassing person. It doesn't mean you're a failure. It doesn't mean any of that necessarily. It's just an inevitable part of being a human being and it's an inevitable part of doing things. 

Anytime you do anything in front of anyone else, you're at risk of being judged. And, I think it can be kind of comforting to think back at all the times in your life when you were judged, you survived it. It's actually not that bad. It's not that big of a deal. In the confines of our mind, we can inflate certain fears, and judgement is one of the biggest things we blow out of proportion. So I’d say step two is to look at your fear rationally and bring it back down to reality. 

Step three is to practice doing step one and two. The best way to get over a fear is to activate that fear in yourself, in your day-to-day life. For example, I get shit scared 30 minutes before every pilates class I teach even though I’ve practiced the moves, memorized my combinations, and know my playlist by heart. I know that even if I mess up, literally nobody will notice. I also know that I love teaching and even if one person doesn’t like my class that it’s not going to stop me from being a teacher. So every week, I try and do MORE of the thing that scares me to prove that I can survive and do hard things. 

It gets a little bit less scary every time and it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of courage. But actively activating your fear and not running away from your fear is crucial. So when it comes to the fear of judgment, do the things that you're afraid of being judged for and let yourself be judged and then prove to yourself that you don't care about judgment. That you're confident in what you're doing and that you're gonna do it anyway. And that judgment just rolls off your back. But the only way you can prove that to yourself is by doing it. Not just once, but over and over again. So wear that risky outfit, send that risky text, do the hard thing, post the photo, talk to that person, apply for that job. 

Do these things and see what happens. The worst case scenario is that you do get judged and that it is in a negative way, but you're still going to be okay. There is so much to look forward to in your life in the future. When you no longer fear judgment, you'll be more confident in yourself. You'll be more independent in a lot of ways because you’re not relying on other people’s opinions. 

Big risks reap big rewards a lot of times. In order to to win big, you have to risk big. There’s always a big benefit or payoff to the risks you take that you can’t imagine. Life becomes richer and better and more exciting and more full of reward when you're not so afraid of judgment. This gets me excited about the future and endless possibilities. Once you’re not scared of judgement and actually do the thing, how can you take the pressure off yourself to perform? We all want to do our best, but sometimes that is paralyzing. 

But striving to do your best is very different than striving to perform well because sometimes performing well means doing more than it is your best. Torturing yourself in an unhealthy way to perform well is not doing your best. Doing your best is working as hard as you possibly can in pushing yourself as much as you possibly can. Within reason. When someone is in a moment where they're stressed and anxious and overworked trying to perform well, it's important for that person to remember that doing your best is also enough. 

That doesn't always mean succeeding in the eyes of others. That doesn't always mean getting an A+ on every test. That doesn't always mean getting promoted at your job on the timeline that you wanted to or that people expect of you. And that's okay. That's not a failure. As long as you're doing your best, that's something to be proud of. So I think the most important thing is to shift your mindset. Instead of striving to perform well strive to do your best. And it's really challenging because many of us are overachievers and our ego and identity is tied up in performing well. In order to set new standards and say, “I'm just gonna try to do my best, and wherever I land is where I land” is challenging in and of itself. 

When your identity and self-esteem and ego is all tied up in your performance, it can be really foundationally rattling to make your new goal to “do your best” and then potentially fall a bit shorter than you are used to. That's when you need to consider how important your quality of life is. When you're stressing about performing well, instead of just being satisfied with doing your best, your quality of life is destroyed. I mean, that is a one way ticket to a stressed out, burnt out life. Our ego and self-esteem should never be tied up in our performance. 

It should be tied up in our work ethic, which has nothing to do with the end result. Our work ethic is just how we get our shit done. Somebody can have incredible work ethic and fail all the time. In fact, there are many people who have incredible work ethic who fail all the time. Work ethic is where your self-esteem should lie. The type of person that you are is where your self-esteem should lie. Those are the most important things, how you actually perform. It feels great to perform well and we should strive to perform well as often as we can, but not if it’s achieved in a toxic way. 

Instead of wanting to perform well, do your personal best and then work on building your self-esteem in other areas. The type of person that you are, the type of friend you are, the type of child that you are to your parents, the type of sibling that you are to your siblings, the type of partner that you are to your loved one. Find your self-esteem in your work ethic. Are you proud of your work ethic? Even if you fail, who cares? Are you proud of the way that you dedicate yourself to what you do while still maintaining a quality of life? 

Those are the things that your self-esteem should lie in. And when you set your self-esteem free from your performance, you'll find that your sense of self is far more solid because it lies in something that you can control. You can't always control your performance. All you can control is how hard you work on something, but you can't control how well the ultimate outcome is. 

How to ensure you're living life to the fullest? I don’t think there is some universal agreement on what it means to live life to the fullest. For some people, living life to the fullest means traveling the world. To some people, living life to the fullest means succeeding in in their career. For others, it’s having crazy stories to tell at the end of a party. To some people, living life to the fullest means having a family one day. And for some people it's a combination of a billion different things.It’s different for everyone. It can be really easy to get caught up in comparing your life to other people and saying to yourself, well, they're living their life to the fullest because they're traveling the world and I'm not. So that means I'm not living my life to the fullest. Well, that might not be what living life to the fullest means to you. So, I, think determining what you want to experience in your life and what your ultimate goals are in life is one of the most important things you can do. When feeling stressed about living life to the fullest, really talk to yourself and avoid all bias as much as you can to determine what you want to do in your life. 

From there, take the steps necessary to get closer to having those experiences. I would say that that is what living life to the fullest is, it is working towards, and then ultimately arriving to your goals in life. 

When you have all these things that you’re working towards, all the things that happen on the journey to accomplishing those goals is incredibly fulfilling. Of course there are challenges and moments of hard work along the way,  but I think when you have goals and you have a vision for what you want to experience and accomplish in your life, the journey working towards accomplishing that, experiencing that is living life to the fullest. 

I think that that is a really important element of living life to the fullest is constantly striving to have good people around you that you can do fun things with. I think living life to the fullest is a combination of having fun and making dumb memories in tandem with working towards accomplishing and experiencing your dreams. 

You don't need to like go to the moon and date your celebrity crush and party every night and go to the Bahamas every month to live life to the fullest. Living life to the fullest can (and probably will) look far more mundane. 

If you have good people around and you have goals that you're striving towards the path that those two things will put you on the path towards living life to the fullest. But don't worry if you're lost right now and thinking, “I don't even have a group of friends and I don't even know what I want to do in the future.” That's all a part of the journey. Most people aren't born with a perfect group of friends and a clear idea for their future. That stuff takes time and it forever evolves. 

Next time you’re scared of being judged, try to build excitement for the thing you’re doing. You’re going to be judged, but do it anyways. And remember that there are so many people who have done what you're about to do. So why can’t you? That perspective always makes me feel better. Whenever I'm really afraid to do something I think, "wait a minute, so many people have done this." And they’re being judged but also reaping the benefits that I can’t even begin to imagine (job offers, deals, partnerships, travels, friends, connections, etc). If they can do it, so can I.

You're gonna be okay. And you're far more self-sufficient than you think. Just GO!