When you meet someone for the first time, do you ever hear a little voice in your head that tells you if you should like them or not ? Have you ever thought about how truthful that voice was? Have you ever corrected that inner voice? Perhaps…once…twice… Maybe never..
In our everyday life, we seem to come across so many situations where people judge us, and we judge them. Sometimes we don’t hear their thoughts and sometimes we don’t know how they are judging us, but other times we judge people and it shows from the way we treat them . In order to move forward in life, we want to figure out the behaviours of people and get to know what they are like, therefore we heed to judging. It is not wrong to judge, it is the WAY we judge people which might just be wrong. This article will help you change your outlook to judge people, if you are doing it the wrong way and will open you up to what you should do instead. So by talking to a psychologist, reading related articles and from my own experience I have put together a few ways to help you move forward from judging people and instead moving towards keeping a broad mind.
Be able to love
Instead of having a negative approach to people, learn the art of loving everyone and being grateful for the things that surround you. Whoever you come across, find a way to love some aspect of them. Start by loving the things that you are surrounded with. Perhaps you love your family, but do you ever take action to show this to them? Go ahead and show your love to the people at home, and venture out to even the most ‘frightening’ people you come across. Feasibly, in all of this, you might just need to love yourself first. In order to be able to love, you have to be able to forgive, be kind and try and understand the people and happenings in your everyday life. This will help you love yourself and other things surrounding you, and you will be comfortable with who you are and what you have. Eventually, you won’t have time to judge anybody at the blink of an eye because you’ll be too busy loving and understanding.
Find yourself-it starts from you being able to look deep down
When you judge people, it may be because you’ve gone through a situation where you were constantly judged for something you were not. Or perhaps you focus on your weaknesses instead of your strengths, and are always putting yourself down. Or you might not enjoy social environments, so you judge people because you don’t want to be apart of this ‘social environment’. Look deep down and realise why you judge people? Is it because maybe you don’t allow broader options once you’ve set a conclusion in your mind, or maybe there are insecurities you need to work one. When it comes to people, sometimes what they display to the public is not what they really are deep down. I used to be very nervous in certain public settings , and I wasn’t able to communicate well, but I was able to communicate well in other settings. Eventually I realised this and it was just a particular situation that made me change my behaviour.
Find yourself first, look at your strengths and your weaknesses, this will help you polish your ability to judge people. Gradually as you realise yourself, you will be able to understand why and how you judge people, and you will not judge people in order to compensate for what you feel that you lack.
Giving respect to everyone allows you to refrain from judging, and instead lunge into accepting. When you judge people you seem to be putting them at a misconstrued level. In order to give respect to everyone, you might as well start with being fair. Be fair with your thoughts towards that person. Treat them with kindness and listen when they speak. You can always be kind, but able to speak up for yourself when need be. Respecting everyone, does not mean that for one day you are resilient to give respect,and then another day you are not. Simply be respectful to everyone and divert from prejudice.
Refrain from treating people the way others do
Sometimes in a new environment people might treat others in a lowly manner, and slowly you realise that everyone else seems to find it okay to treat them that way. You slowly become a part of the commodity and unconsciously you treat that particular person as the other members of society do. Be true to yourself and don’t get dragged into the gestures and mind of others, when you know that you can do better. I experienced being treated as if i had done something wrong by members of the community, not through verbal communication but by physical interaction, however that did not affect how I treated those same people because they never said anything wrong to me. I was sharp and would speak up whenever I needed to, but I have never looked down upon them. It’s hard not to treat people as they treat you, especially if they look down upon you, but try and challenge yourself not to fall down that road and stay true. The Bible says that ‘a truly fair judge is blind and deaf to any outer influence.’ (Isa. 42:1, 19-21)
Communicate with people
Perhaps the best way to put yourself out there in the world, is to talk and converse with people. If you don’t communicate with people how will you be able to know them better? And if you don’t want to get to know them better, why judge them in the first place?
Change your thoughts from negative to positive
The way you see your outer surrounding in your mind, is reflected through your actions. If you seem to hate a certain person because of their characteristics, it will be reflected in the way you respond to them, or talk about them to other people. If you seem to want change and don’t seem to be moving forward, then perhaps your mind may have more negative thoughts than positive. Every time you think negatively, there will be a part of you that will struggle to see what could have been positive. If you feel that you might judge too much, then it’s high time you started seeing things the other way around. Judging people with a positive mind helps you understand them better. For example, if you go up to a few people and notice that they are talking in loud tones, a negative, judgemental person would say ‘look at them gossiping’ or ‘look how loud they are’. A positive person, would not judge them because of the way they are talking to others, they will wait to talk to that person to know them better. The Qu’ran quotes ; “O you who have believed, avoid much [negative] assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin. And do not spy or backbite each other. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his brother when dead?..” [49:12]
The right way to judge
The wrong way to judge, is believing that you are able to read the motives and intentions of another persons heart and mind perfectly. This is when you believe that you can see through someone. You might feel that after talking to a person once you are able to know them inside out. But that happens to be the wrong path to lead. That is the path that will have you jumping to judgement’s, without considering other factors. Dont get me wrong, there are people out there who are able to judge people ‘correctly’, but those people might not be reading this article, because perhaps they aren’t struggling. There’s no need to judge someone through a negative outlook by addressing their physical traits, religion, clothes and so forth. But instead by understanding their background, words, situation and most importantly keeping a positive outlook to everyone. I Know, I know… There are people out there who might get onto your nerves because they say things that are completely wrong and self-centred. But you do not have to judge them for that, in fact such people are having their own problems and can easily be avoided when you keep to your own thoughts and stay true to yourself.
Hey, judgement’s come to people naturally, that is not bad. But you can choose to be different, in terms of avoiding judging people and instead having a strong, broad mind and also not loosing respect towards anyone. Treat everyone with respect; the little boy you meet, the teenage girl with a frown, the lady who sweeps the floor, the man with a shy nature and even yourself… 🙂
Being sensitive gives you the ability to perceive other human beings from the depth of emotions and to be able to feel and understand deeply. This is not a bad thing at all. It is an ability that some of us have. It allows you to form deep connections and pick up on peoples emotions quickly. But there is a difference, when you are sensitive and when you are overly sensitive.
Sometimes you may be struggling with this feeling inside you; the feeling of being sensitive to every matter, every situation, every conversation. You become critical of your everyday surroundings. When you are overly sensitive you tend to over-analyse what people said, no matter how petty the matter was. You tend to hate criticism and not take it well. You resort to shyness because your sensitive nature makes you appear that way, and slowly you allow this shyness to takeover you. You tend to feel negative because of your oversensitive nature and not many people realize how tender your heart is but if you know someone realizes it then you tend to back away from them, fearing that they might take advantage of you… People might perceive you as immature when in reality you are really really mature. Perhaps you come across that way because you are always smiling, joking and avoiding serious topics, to avoid triggering your sensitive side and hurting your sensitive heart.
I have been down the line where due to my over-sensitivity, I was always told to ‘toughen up’ or ‘stop catching feelings’. This made me become even more sensitive. My empathetic and sensitive nature has been confused for weakness, my sensitive heart was under no control and was always hurt. But over time, I realized that I am sensitive by nature, and it is just that I had taken my sensitivity to the point where I let it make me feel negative instead of positive; I was over-sensitive. You do not have to lose your sensitive nature! I want to help you make sure that it is of the healthy kind, and not the kind where you are not able to take criticism or are always despising people or always feeling ‘bummed’ out. If you have a sensitive nature, firstly embrace it because it is beautiful and it makes you….YOU. But you need to stop the over-sensitivity and instead be at a healthy level of sensitivity. This article can help stop making you feel weak and stop letting the sensitivity take-over you . Either way, let us begin.
Be confident in your skin and evolve from that shyness that is keeping you repressed from moving forward. Become confident with the person you are and most importantly, the sensitive nature you hold. Be confident that you will be able to control it as well as be able to embrace it. When you do this, you will see that naturally you will become calm and not hate yourself for being the sensitive kind. Tell yourself that “I am beautiful’, mean it and speak as if you are filled with passion. Tell yourself that “I can do it”, because as much as you might think you cant become more confident, you always can. If you constantly think or tell yourself that ‘I am weak’, ‘I am useless’ , ‘I am too sensitive’, ‘I cant speak well’, then this will always be the case. But when you put your foot down and start by changing those thoughts everyday, no matter how hard it is, then you will manage to push the over-sensitivity out and leave room for healthy sensitivity.
Being overly sensitive might make you believe that anybody who speaks in a sharp and loud voice are trying to put you down. But remember, in your mind, you already think that way. Instead don’t put it in your mind that you dislike loud people, tend to understand them instead. They might naturally be loud and domineering, and because you may be quieter they appear intimidating. If anything, you can speak calmly and sharply to them and eventually you will understand their thinking frame.
You might not realize that when you are overly sensitive, your jokes might put people down. For example, if you’re joking with someone, make sure it is based on your idea to have a laugh with them, not based on belittling them. Let your jokes be based on a situation, experience or even something funny you saw.
On the other hand your sensitive nature might make you laugh at things that you may not find funny… even when people joke to put you down. You can laugh, sure, but put a firm hand when someone says something to belittle you. Speak calmly and speak sharply and don’t let the words get to you. Do something about it. From time to time you can joke about yourself, if for example you’ve done something silly, hey, why not laugh about it yourself. But don’t let other people constantly put you down because they believe that you will say nothing. You will be able to know when someones jokes are harmless, and when someone aims to put you down.
If you are very sensitive then you are likely to avoid confronting people that you find ‘loud’ or even ‘really outgoing’, in fear of them saying something that will trigger you sensitive button. Take them on, talk to them normally and confront them, be straightforward and do not fear them. You might have social anxiety, which might make you ask yourself ‘should !’, ‘what if!’, and so on. But when you decide that you’re gonna stop hiding, you will realize how much potential you have and you will see yourself having broader perspectives to people and ideas. You will not be in your unhealthy sensitive zone, but you will be able to connect with people on deeper levels, as well as conquering your fear of confronting certain people. Confronting does not necessarily mean starting up a fight, it can simply mean meeting a person and having the right thought process to talk to them.
Try this; talk to people in a jolly yet calm manner, so that if you feel that someone is trying to get under your skin they wont be able to because hey, you don’t fear anyone.
Stop complaining. Enough of feeling drained and hated. Wake up every morning feeling grateful for every little thing you know you are lucky to have, even the simple things such as having a family or even eating food. Be grateful and be able to enjoy positivity. Why I say that you should enjoy positivity is because when you are overly-sensitive your mind tends to prefer negativity and darkness over positivity and light. Sometimes, deep down you really want to be alone and feel sad, because you don’t think there will be a change. It may seem tempting to want to connect with people on deep levels in order to manipulate them or judge them in odd ways; try not to do that. So start accepting the positivity whenever you can, only then can you push out the negativity and avoid sadness, over-thinking, and so forth and eventually your overly-sensitive nature will die down.
HAVE HEALTHIER THOUGHTS-
Having healthier thoughts derives from changing your thought perspective towards the positive, but I wanted it to be a new topic on its own. Always set your mind with thoughts that are going to help you to grow out your overly-sensitive state. For example, If you are going to meet community members do not prepare your mind to expect to find ‘annoying people’ , instead don’t expect anything, except to be calm and considerate and not get dragged into the unhealthy thoughts of those who think in negative ways. This can be termed as: WILLPOWER. Having healthier thoughts means that you are able to put your overly-sensitive nature aside, and be able to remain calm and control yourself.With these thoughts, over-time a good change will come your way.
For me , my nature made me constantly question what was wrong with me, when everyone else was always never as sensitive as I was. I was always told ‘be strong’, ‘dont be quiet’, ‘open up’ and so many more things. One fine day I was so fed-up with it all that I decided to bring a change upon myself, so I decided to change my thought process and stop saying that “I am sensitive” and instead saying that “I am strong and won’t let my sensitivity get in the way”. And it has helped my thinking process. (From time to time my over-sensitivity can pop-up, but I make sure it doesn’t get in the way).
Do you constantly feel like you have to complain? Perhaps you think you’re the best? Do you find it hard to genuinely apologize? Maybe you want to stand up tall all the time? Do you seem to underestimate everyone you come across? Then perhaps this is ego. When things do not work out your way you may get into a state of sensitivity , hence catching feelings and getting inwardly angry. If this is the case, then maybe your overly-sensitive nature derives from the idea that you have bad ego. There is good ego, and there is bad ego.
I knew someone who would get anger tantrums, complain, judge, and he always wanted to be the best in everything. He had been brought up in a family that would belittle people and want to be the best, so he too was a culprit. When our friends used to casually joke with him, he would catch feelings and unleash his very sensitive nature, then he would feel upset and not be able to do anything about it. He never realized the problem because he always thought that the problem was with everyone else, but he needed to look deep inside to know that the problem started with him.
Therefore sometimes, our overly-sensitive nature might come from having an ego that does not welcome you to understanding positivity, but instead negativity.
HEART OR MIND?-
When you are sensitive you tend to constantly think with your heart. I’ll give you an example, when you think with your heart you associate feelings,tones and emotions to people, and to yourself in everyday life. But when you think with your mind, you do not take into consideration the tone of anybody, even if someone is shouting at the top of their lungs, and voicing words, you will analyse those words in a mature way and come up with your conclusion. In order to stop feeling overly-sensitive and letting it control you, you can start thinking with your mind, and not always with your heart. You can use your heart to associate emotions from time to time but also use your mind to be practical to the points someone is putting forward instead of just associating emotions to them. When you do this, you will see that your over-analyzing and over-thinking will reduce, and you will find a balance between heart and mind .
When you are a really sensitive person, you tend to set up barriers to protect yourself form being hurt, mostly to appear really tough on the outside in order to protect your soft interior. And when someone says something you might not find pleasing, you retort back with saying something you think is right… You just HAVE to say something. And sometimes that ‘something’ is not so well thought out. You don’t have to retort to everything that everybody does or says to you in order to adhere to your emotional state. Instead sometimes staying silent is the best choice. Or unless you feel the person requires to be responded to go ahead, but not until you’ve thought out your response, not based on your feelings, but on analyzing everything.
ESCAPE YOUR COMFORT ZONE AND FEARS-
Once you venture into the world and explore things that you might be afraid of, you are likely to be less sensitive because you will have established a broader mind. If for example it is criticism you might be afraid of, challenge yourself and go and take on critics. Ask people what they thought of something you did or you know of. Invite the criticism actively, and push away any feelings of negativity for the response you get. If you fear taking the bus alone, go ahead and get in that bus. These are just examples. Escaping your comfort zone will let you broaden out and will let you develop the sense of seeing the bigger picture in life.
Perhaps you’ve read my other post and seen that I love to emphasize on loving yourself. Because in day to day life, it really works and helps build on everything you seem to be lacking on. And therefore I’ll never stop emphasizing it. Start by realizing what you feel and what the triggers are to lead to your over-sensitivity. If for example people call you stupid, do you resort with over-thinking, do you think you aren’t smart or knowledgeable enough?
Change those thoughts, find YOUR strengths and always love yourself.
It’s not always ‘bad’ when you are sensitive because sometimes you can be sensitive and still be able to have the confidence to do other things in life. But sometimes you might need to find that extra push away from being overly-sensitive.
Believe in yourself, and remember not to become too sensitive towards everything because you will fall into negativity, and we want to move ahead from that, not back.
Self-confidence is an essential in today’s nation. You need to be able to express yourself, communicate and become an individual of your own, without feeling self-conscious.
I have grown up as the shy girl between two siblings. Having an older sibling who has always been social, a hard worker , an athlete, a painter, and has got traits that do not touch on self-consciousness or shyness , always made me question everything I ever did. It is not that I envy my older brother, I just used to wonder why I was always the shy, closed-off child, and he, not so much. Therefore, I was always comparing myself with him, and so was the rest of the world…at-least that’s what I thought.
I had become so conscious towards everything. When I was in class seven, I remember being conscious of my teeth, then later my hair, my body, my talking manner, my laughter, my friends… It was a viscous cycle in my head. But nobody understood…and those who did, tried to help but they could not fully help. It was agonizing knowing my capabilities and social potential and yet not being able to fulfill them. I used to fear myself, my actions, people and so much more. And as much as I would be conscious I never thought of the side-effects, which included depression, isolation and even anger outbursts. Many of us go through it.
But, as much as I used to have a problem with self-confidence, I’ve finally managed to conquer the fear of It, and become more confident. It took awhile, and I’m still struggling here and there, but I’m no longer at the point where I look at myself in shame , questioning why i’m not confident. I really wanted to show you what you can do to increase your self-confidence If you might be struggling with it. By consulting a Psychologist, reviewing articles on the world-wide web and basing my information on my own experiences, I decided to write this article to show you how to unleash your confidence and self-esteem.
Before you start any of this, you have to believe that you can attain the confidence that you lack. Then only can you move forward.
Stop worrying what other people think of you-
Find things you love to do and focus on that. This will distract you from the energy you waste thinking about what other people did, said and so forth, and it diverts your mind to better and more important things. The more you worry the more negative energy you feel around you.
Let’s say someone is talking to you but you don’t like what they are saying, don’t agree with them or keep quiet about it. Be yourself and kindly yet sharply tell them what you have to say about whatever it is they think the opposite of. But then again you have to be able to see their perspective first, before concluding that they are saying something wrong.
In your mind and heart always know that you are important and you are valuable as a person, therefore you can stop worrying what other people think, and start focusing on things you love.You have the right to speak up, even when others discourage it…
BE POSITIVE. THAT’S ALL.
This..for some people, is easier said than done. But you can do it. Don’t let your worries put you down, therefore making you despise yourself. Wake up every morning, look in the mirror, look at yourself with optimism and smile, thinking in your mind how beautiful you are. If for example, it is pimples you are conscious of, tell yourself “it’s alright” and that “this is ME”. If you are unhappy with your figure, tell yourself, “nobody else can pull-off this look”. (If you have gained unhealthy weight, make an effort to lose it, it will not only motivate you, but bring health to your lifestyle).Engage in a healthy lifestyle and it will make you feel better on a daily basis. Have authentic gratitude towards others around you for the small things they do, and you will see the gratitude reflect back to you. Tell yourself that “I am confident”, and follow through with these words throughout your entire day. Let the fear go….
If you have always been a sarcastic type or one who judges too fast, it’s time to change. Don’t be afraid of change, after all, the benefit will come to you. Sure from time to time small sarcastic jokes are alright, but there’s no need to over-do it. When you are sarcastic, you intend to put people down, therefore your own insecurities show. The same comes with judging people. Generally speaking, kindness should come from your heart and it should be genuine and selfless, where you perceive others as equal and treat people with love and understanding. Do not follow the path where you pretend to be kind in return for a reward or expecting people to do things for you; this is more selfish than selfless.
Make a program to do something kindly everyday. Start small, for example opening the door for someone and then move forward to bigger actions, like helping out at a charity. If you fear that becoming kind will make you appear weak,that is not true, because then you are mixing being kind with the idea of pleasing people. There’s a HUGE difference. You can be kind, and yet still be able to say no when needed. Being compassionate will not only make you feel stronger and happier, it will raise your self-confidence as well .
Usually, and I dont know if this was just some people, but having low self-confidence made them smile alot because they were self-conscious of using words to communicate, in fear of feeling moronic, unnoticed or misunderstood …So they would over-smile, and yes, it was wrong, because It left no room for seriousness. So they would ignore facing reality.
When phrased with a serious question , answer it without fearing, and don’t just smile! Don’t get me wrong, smiling is beautiful, but smiling to please others and show that you are perfect is phony. You should smile whenever you want to, but it should be genuine and dont be afraid to stop smiling and become serious.You do not need to worry if people will like you or not or worry that they might get intimidated by you just because you have stopped smiling for awhile. A genuine smile will always lift your confidence.
Trust yourself first-
Trust comes from within. Sometimes when you talk to someone they seem unsure of their words, they mumble, let’s say that they forgot where they left their keys , would you trust such a person at the top of your head? In order to help you understand yourself, start trusting yourself from within and symbolize it. Give people a reason to trust you. Take responsibility in your hands, even if it seems intimidating. People will automatically start trusting you, and this will raise your esteem. If you have a problem with trusting people, think of whether you are worth being trusted first.
Fake it, till you make it-
Stand up tall, talk slowly and look into peoples eyes. Do not react with too much excitement when spoken to, it leaves you with no room for calmness… Therefore be calm and act as if you always know what you are doing. Eventually you will attain the confidence that you want and need.
Refuse to Judge. Refuse to compare-
The title says it. Refuse to judge people before actually getting to know them. For example, do not perceive someone as ‘ugly’ just because they have a physical or mental trait which is not common among other people or as ‘weird’ if they do something that you don’t like. Basically put an end to judging people instantly. In your mind , shut off any random judgement’s that come by, until you truly know a person. It will help raise your confidence to know that you are able to treat other people with respect, starting in your mind. You are your own individual and when you compare yourself to other people it is because you are insecure of yourself. Whenever you feel like comparing someone, think of something you like about them. Think of what makes them beautiful as an individual, and change you thought perspective. I used to compare myself with my older sibling, and I would always feel down thinking I am not good enough, but when I stopped doing that, I viewed myself as a unique individual with my own abilities and traits. Nobody is perfect and if you’re ready to accept that, you’re ready to move forward.
Encourage small talk-
Try step by step to talk to anyone who wants to talk to you. Be calm when you first meet them, and for example, don’t glance at your phone in-between, just because you dont feel like talking. Think of everyone as beautiful, and it will make it easier for you to showcase your beautiful personality to others, and them to you. This will give you a social opening, a platform to begin on. And to be able to talk to people without feeling afraid simply think of them as your friend. Small talk will lead to paths of bigger and deeper conversations. When you talk to someone, have genuine interest in communicating with the person, no matter how unfriendly or awkward you might perceive them to be. Try it, you might just make someone happy. And it will boost your confidence too.