The Single Most Important Reason You Are Not as Effective as You Can Be! Self-Judgment is sabotaging your professional efforts learn how to STOP it!
I work with clients daily to clarify their efforts toward success and to see what is hobbling them in that process. After over twenty years of this I see over and over again how some form of self-judgment and self-criticism is
major culprit. I see how it establishes self-doubt, stops possible solutions from developing, and diminishes vision and energy of what could be. It keeps many people within realm of what they have already learned and not taking new strides forward. What steps would you take in your business, what results would you expect, what would you dare if judgment wasn’t present? It may be a more important question than you even realize! For many people this dynamic is silent and is like air that they breathe. For others it is loud and clear but accepted as just way they are. So question is – Who is in Charge Anyway? Is it some idea based on your cumulative experience, some old voice that has haunted you for years or is it full force of your vision and your creative ability?
All self-judgment is a reflection of learning from past. It is fabric of things you were taught by your parents, teachers, religion, media images and constantly offers you advice, evaluations, information about how short you are falling. Self-judgment creates ideas and images of who we think we need to be in order to be acceptable. Its action is very cruel because it attacks core of who you are. Many people when life has been inexplicably difficult for some time call themselves a failure; if they make a mistake they call themselves stupid – they repeat what they were taught somewhere along line. Often when I am working with a client they will cling to some self-judgment saying, “But it’s true –I did fail at that”. The issue is how that is used to diminish yourself. It is very different to recognize you made an error than it is to attack yourself saying you are a failure. In first instance you may be able to look objectively at what has happened and find a solution. I n second instance you end up feeling small, worthless and helpless.
Operating within an inner or outer atmosphere of judgment deprives us of a large percentage of our creativity and connection to our deepest acceptance and therefore access to deeper qualities of functioning. Self-judgment keeps old limiting beliefs about our selves in place and often prevents us from creating what is that we truly want and from achieving broader levels of success. Often judgments are felt as: criticisms, condemnations, guidelines, motivators, accusations, advice, rejections, suggestions, comparison & questions. They have energetic effects including: loss of energy, anger, tension, depression, anxiety, heat, weakness, restlessness, deadness & numbness. The feelings generated in us are to dislike and to reject ourselves.
Because they seem generated from inside us and are largely unconscious we don’t recognize them as attacks and do not know how to defend against them. Attacking ourselves is a major source of self-betrayal and sabotage. Attacking others is an important cause of separation and alienation.
The first step in learning how to dis-engage from self-judgment is to begin developing awareness of it. As I said sometimes it is like air you breathe, so much a part of you that you can’t identify it. When this is true I often ask clients to notice it’s results: when you feel small, helpless, when you are walking into a meeting and anxiety is high, when you suddenly erupt when someone misunderstands you, when you feel collapsed in face of someone or something. During these circumstances I ask clients to notice if they are judging themselves and then begin to notice voice or energy of judgment: “I’ll never get this right – I’m useless” etc., etc. Self-judgment diminishes you and these are some of its hallmarks. When you become more aware of it you then have an opportunity to begin finding ways to stop it.
