How to Stop Worrying About Being Judged

Worrying about being judged by other people?

This episode is for you.

In this episode of the Podcast I share what judgement is (hint: it’s not what you think).

And I give you 5 steps to take if you’re feeling judged so you can feel better and not let it stop you from moving forward.

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Transcript

Hello, hello and welcome to the podcast, the episode where we're talking about how to stop worrying about other people judging you. So I am back from my three week trip to the UK and oh my God, we had the best time. This week has been honestly a struggle. I have the biggest travel hangover ever. We had an amazing first week in London, even though my daughter got sick for sort of 24, 48 hours and we had to hibernate in the hotel. Um, London was awesome. And then we had two weeks on the road and we covered a lot of ground. We started in London. We went all the way down to Cornwall, down in the south, um, to a few places there, up to Inverness in Northern Scotland. And then back down the other side of the country. I'm actually thinking about creating a blog about the trip, like including our itinerary and where we stayed because we stayed in pubs, we stayed in Airbnbs, a b, Airbnb, a guest house, and even an active convent. 

So would that be something you'd be keen to hear or read about? Let me know over on Insta and I will hop onto it. You guys know how obsessed I am with Travel <laugh>. So now that I'm back, I've taken this week to ease back in and I've also have my bestie arriving from Interstate tonight for a few days, which will be fun. So it's a bit of work and a bit of play this week, which is good. And a bit of recovery. <laugh>. I've also started thinking about where I want to go next and I've signed up for a couple, uh, of house and pet sitting websites because if you've hung around here, like I mentioned a moment ago for any amount of time, you'll know how much I love to travel and how much more I want to do. I mean, it was part of the reason for selling my other business and going all in, uh, and focusing on growing this coaching business of mine. 

It is also one of the reasons that I moved to the house where I am. Uh, there's a lot of things that I've done to kind of line up travel, becoming more and more of a reality in my life moving forward. And my daughter and I actually spoke on our trip about the next trip, which I wanna do this year. I wanna be away. I want to go away at least a couple of times a year for up to two or three months. Not each time, but you know, I would love to be traveling two or three months a year, whether that's one trip or whether that's two trips or three trips, I don't really care, but that's how much travel that I want to do. So anyway, we spoke about, uh, my next trip and she said that she doesn't really want to come. She's got other plans now. She's got the boyfriend, she's leaving school at the 

End of the year. She has her own life to lead now. Uh, so even though I'm hoping this isn't our last big trip together and we agreed that it wouldn't be, but for now, she doesn't wanna come on this next trip with me. And you know, I see a lot of solo travel in my future. So now that I am back, uh, and my books were never closed while I was away, but my books are open and I have availability for a few new clients and I'd love to support you. So reach out on Instagram and we can chat. You can find out more. We can have a bit of a chat about how you need help and, and what that might look like with me helping you. Uh, I can help you with getting clarity about what you want next, about building the confidence and the courage to go after it, to feel less overwhelmed and stressed and like, you know, I'm never gonna get off this hamster wheel to feeling better and being armed with just a bunch of tools that you can pull out of your own tool belt anytime you need them, that you'll have forever to help you feel just more calm and relaxed and have more time as well. 

So if that sounds good to you, then reach out over on Instagram. Alright, on to today's episode. So I'm gonna share how to overcome the fear of judgment and to stop worrying about what other people think of you. Well, I say stop, but honestly we're always going to care to some degree what other people think of us, right? I mean, I wanna care what my daughter thinks of me, what my sister and my mom and my close friends talk. You know, think about me, but I don't wanna let that worry about and I'm gonna use, you know, inverted commas here, other people and what they think stopping me from being me and allowing me to feel like crap and preventing me from making decisions and taking the action on things that I want to take. And so often it's that piece that holds us back, right? That fear of being judged, you know, worrying about what other people think. And sometimes people we barely know or don't even know at all. 

So then I'm also gonna give you some practical strategies and tools to help you stop worrying so much. And if you are not worrying so much, you're gonna feel better and you're gonna do more. You're gonna take more action, you're gonna try new things. So I'm gonna get controversial here for a second. So bear with me. <laugh> judgment from other people isn't real. Think about it. Someone judging you, is you thinking that someone else is having thoughts about you? Right? Notice I said thoughts. So let's talk first about people that we know and how this shows up for us. So, you know, you decide to quit your job and you go back and study something. So you decide to quit your job and go back to study something completely new, right? And you're in your mid forties. How do you know? Like categorically know that your cousin Susan is having thoughts about you and judgments about you. Unless cousin Susan comes right out and says something to you. How do you know what she's thinking and that she's judging you? 

You don't know <laugh>. My daughter sometimes comes to me and says, I said this at school today and they all thought I was stupid. And I look at her and I say, Hmm, did anyone actually say you were stupid? And of course she says no. And then she says, but I'm sure they were thinking it or they didn't say this. Like whatever she expected them to say. Like, you know, they did. They didn't say blah, blah, blah. Right? What in her mind, what she had hoped or what she wanted them to say. So in her mind that must mean they thought I was stupid. Hmm? I usually say to her, <laugh>, is that true that they were judging you? Or are you just making it mean that they're judging you? 

Yep. She just loves having a coach as a mom. <laugh>, think about an example from your own life for a second. A time when you thought you were being judged, did someone actually come right out and say something to you? Or did you assign a meaning to what they said or didn't say that made it feel like they were judging you? And then what about people we don't even know or barely know? How could we possibly know what they think about us? None of us are mind readers. I don't think the answer is we have an absolutely no freaking idea because we never actually have a conversation with them. It's all made up in our head, but it doesn't stop us, does it? My god. Our brains and the drama they like to create. And remember, it's our brains job to keep us safe. And this is a perfect example of our brain doing its job, creating the thought that someone else is judging us, to keep us safe, to keep us from quitting our job and going back to study from keeping us from, you know, whatever it is that's new, that's scary. So whether we know the person or not, when we feel judged, what we do and how does it affect us? So we worry and we feel anxious, right? Because we want other people to approve. We want them to like us. That's 

Part of being a human. We want approval and love or connection. We need it. It's in our biology. So of course we feel judged and then we perhaps withdraw. We don't share or communicate out of fear. It might stop us from taking action. So last year I had a fear of judgment from my fellow business owners in the finance industry about me selling my business. No one ever said anything to me, but I had my brain was offering me things like, oh, they're gonna think I'm an idiot. They're gonna think I'm stupid for selling so soon. And I'm just glad that I have the knowledge that I do and the tools that I do to know that this wasn't real judgment. That this was my brain trying to keep me safe. No one was judging me. They might have been having thoughts about me. I have no idea because no one ever said anything to me. And even if they did, and even if they say something out loud to you, you get to choose what you think and feel about it whether you agree with it or not. 

So this thought about being judged, they think I'm, they think I'm stupid or an idiot. They think I'm doing the wrong thing here or making the wrong decision. They think I look old and overweight. Whatever the thought is, it's actually a thought that we're having about ourselves because we couldn't have it unless it was within us. Otherwise, how would we know to think us think it, right? I'll say that again cause I really want this to sink in. It's actually a thought we're having about ourselves, a judgment about ourselves because we couldn't have that thought or that judgment unless it was within us, right? Otherwise how would you know to think it? 

It's you judging you. Oh my god. Ouch. So now you know what judgment is and how it can affect us. What do you do about it? So if you're not driving, you might wanna grab a pen and paper right now, have a look at the show notes or come back to this later. But I've got five steps here that you can take if you are worried and feeling shitty about someone judging you. The first one is simply recognizing it for what it is a thought we're having usually about ourselves. And that unless someone comes out and says something to us, it's simply that a thought. And recognizing this creates awareness. And with that awareness we can begin to make change. Remind yourself that this is your brain doing its job to keep you safe. So thank it. Welcome to being a human, fricking being. 

Number number three, reflect on the thoughts about judgment from others that you're worried about. Ask yourself if they're true. Am I an idiot? Is this a stupid decision? Am I too old? Am I too overweight? How are those thoughts helping you? How are those thoughts holding you back? And what else could those thoughts mean? And just grab a journal out and write in your journal. Do a big brain dump answering those questions. The other one, this is super important cuz these emotions are sitting in our body. So we need to be in our body. Notice the feeling. Notice the emotion that you're having. Is it anxious? Is it worry? Is it judged? Name it. Process it. Feel it in your body and process it. Now, I'm not gonna go into processing emotions on this episode, uh, because I've done other episodes purely on this. So reach out on Instagram if you are feeling like this and you wanna know how to process it, only too happy to talk you through that on Instagram. 

And then the last one is from there, once you've reminded yourself that it's your brain, you've created the awareness, you've reflected on it, you've journaled, you've noticed the feeling, the emotion, you've felt it in your body and you've processed it from there, once you've feeling a bit better, you can decide what you wanna do next, what action you wanna take from there. So you know what judgment is, it's simply us having thoughts about ourselves, thoughts that we are worried that other people are having. And that nine times outta 10, those people aren't even thinking that. Honestly, those people are probably way too busy thinking about themselves. Everyone's favorite subject in the world, right? Is themselves. They're probably not even thinking about you. 

The only way we would know that they're thinking about us and judging us, having thoughts about us is if they come outright and say it. Which again, more often than not doesn't happen. And if they do, then you get to decide how you think and how you feel about that. And from there, what you wanna do about it. So I've given you also five steps to stop worrying about being judged that you can implement today. And it might take some practice. This doesn't automatically mean that you're gonna feel okay as soon as you do this. It might take some practice and it might take doing this a few times. And like I said, there's certain people in our lives that we don't want to, uh, you know, remove judgment. You know, we wanna care what other people think of us. Sometimes I wanna care about my daughter, my mom, my sister. Like I've mentioned, this is not about not caring at all 

About what anyone thinks about us. We wanna care what some people in our lives think. So I'm gonna ask you if this episode of around fear of being judged has helped you, can I ask your favor? Pretty please. Can you share it on your social media? I'm gonna have this on Instagram. I'm gonna have this on Facebook. If you are on there, if you see this, if you've been helped by this episode, I would love, love for you to share it. This'll help get the podcast out to more women like you and, and help more women like you. And of course it helps me too. So I would be eternally, eternally grateful. Alright, it is good to be back in the podcast chair. Until next week, have the best week ever. Bye.