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What are you not doing in your life because you are afraid of people’s judgments? How are these fears holding you back?
Many people have at least some fears of other people’s judgments. We all have our insecurities, and it’s easy to assume that others judge us based on these perceived shortcomings. It’s helpful to keep the following in mind:
- Sometimes, people are judging you in the way that you think they are.
- Sometimes, people are not judging you at all.
- Often, other people’s judgments are less intense than what you assume they are.
- Occasionally, people’s judgments might even be worse than what you think, or perhaps they are judging you about something you hadn’t even considered!
I Was Judged
Several months ago, I made a video about anxiety for Psychology Today’s social media. and one of the commenters wrote about me, “She seems really anxious!” I mentally reviewed when I filmed the video to see if I recalled being anxious.
If this were one of the earlier videos I had shot when I was starting out, the answer would have been a resounding yes, as I was initially pretty anxious. But not this time.
Nonetheless, I came off as anxious to this random person on the internet, and negative comments like this can sting. I asked myself, So what? Does it matter what this person thinks about me?
Many of you might think, who cares what some random stranger thinks about you? I’m concerned about being judged by my ____________ (friends, family, boss, partner, date).
Unhelpful Efforts to Manage Judgments
While we all want to make good impressions and appear a certain way, we cannot control how others view us. We often do ineffective things to manage the judgment of others because of our fears, and then we often suffer in the long run. Consider common behaviors that people do to try to manage the judgments of others:
- Avoidance behaviors
- Examples: avoiding conflict, self-advocacy, eye contact, social situations, dating, finding a new job when you are unhappy in your current one
- Appearance-related behaviors
- Examples: Spending too much time getting ready, dieting behaviors, use of filters on social media
- Compulsive behaviors
- Examples: re-reading and/or re-writing texts and emails, over-rehearsal of social situations
- Compensatory behaviors (compensating for a perceived shortcoming)
- Examples: disingenuous social media posts (making your life seem much better than it is), buying expensive or showy things to impress others, being overly boastful in social situations
The list of what people do to manage others’ judgments goes on and on and on. Consider making a list of what you do to prevent or manage people’s judgments of you.
Find Your Why
If you believe your fears of people’s judgments are negatively affecting you, consider asking yourself how your life would look if you did not fear other people’s judgments. What would you be doing differently? Would you be living more authentically? What risks might you take?
For me, one way I was avoiding judgment was by not putting myself “out there” professionally on social media. However, a potential literary agent told me I needed to build a social media platform to get an agent and publishing contract. I also know there is a lot of inaccurate mental health information on social media, and I realized that I could make an impact on people by making videos about my specialty, anxiety. For these two reasons, my why, I decided to challenge myself to confront my fears.
Take Action
If you want to free yourself from fears of others’ judgments, consider taking action. Here are some steps you can take:
- Accept the idea of being judged. You are judging other people, and they are judging you. You absolutely cannot dictate how someone will think about you, no matter how hard you try. Moreover, most of the time, you will have no idea what people are actually thinking about you. They might even be positively judging you. Acceptance of these facts is critical in moving forward.
- Assess your goals. How are you hindered by your fears? Do you want to make more friends? Find a new job? Find a relationship? Be more authentic with your family? Reduce self-criticism due to perceived judgments? For me, the goals I wanted to achieve were to build up a big enough following to get a book deal and to provide helpful information for people who were struggling with anxiety issues.
- Identify the specific behaviors you can do to achieve your goals. Break down these behaviors into small and doable components that you can do at different times. For example, suppose someone wanted to find a relationship and felt like they should get on a dating app. They could break up the following tasks into small and manageable parts that don’t all have to be completed at one time:
- Download a dating app
- Set up a profile
- Spend 5 minutes on the app at first
- Increase time for the next sessions on the app
- Respond to or send one message
- Respond to or send more messages
- Go out on one date, etc.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of your actions. Is what you are doing working? In my case, I initially planned to build my social media platform on Instagram. However, I realized that I knew many of my followers and needed to build up my confidence in a more anonymous way, so I turned to TikTok, which felt much more accessible. Suppose the person above tried dating apps for a few months and then became demoralized. At that point, they might change tactics and figure out activities they could do to meet people in person.
In Sum
Most people are concerned about others’ judgments at least some of the time. It might be helpful to assess whether these fears are interfering with your well-being, and if so, it might be time to take action.