Great response and great questions!
When we say that we shouldn’t judge ourselves, I think what we mean is something closer to don’t be judgmental or “judgy” with ourself.
Most of us have an intuitive sense for the difference between the two, but here are a few specific criteria that might distinguish them:
Intentionality vs Automaticity. I don’t think it’s an accident that we tend to “find ourselves” being judgmental, both with ourselves or others. We fall into this kind of passive-aggressive form of judgment when we’re lacking awareness and operating from a more mindless, habitual mental position.
On experiment would be, the next time you find yourself being judgmental after having failed to live up to an appropriate expectation, pause, schedule a time in the future to intentionally reflect on and judge how things went, and then try to move on in the present, knowing that you’ll get back to the situation intentionally at a specific time in the future.
In other words, I think judgmentalness tends to be a more habitual or automatic response, whereas constructive reflection and judgment probably result from a more intentional mindset. The solution then might involve trying to be more intentional and deliberate in our judgments.
Tone. In my experience, genuine and constructive judgment has a firm but direct tone to it. Think of a good professor giving honest feedback on a paper. On the other hand, judgmentalness typically has a kind of sarcastic and biting tone to it: “How could you make that same mistake again?!”
Most of us are pretty good at picking up on subtle differences in tone when it’s external—i.e. hearing someone speak. But we’re surprisingly bad, I think, at picking up on subtlties of tone from our own inner dialogue.
So, when we find our inner voice being judgmental with us, it can be useful to write down what exactly is going through our mind and analyze the tone, noting the sarcasm or overly negative qualities. Then, re-state the same message with a more direct and straightforward tone.
Validation. I think you’re right that holding ourselves to high standards and acknowleding when we fail to live up to them is a form of self-respect and self-assertiveness. But I’m not sure that acknowledging when we fail to live up to standards needs to involve a ton of analysis and critical thought to be constructive. Instead, it could be that simple acknowledgment—or, what we psychologists and therapists call, validation—may be sufficient.
Here’s an example: This morning my daughter spilled the proverbial milk all over the kitchen table and on to the floor. I could literally feel myself getting ready to punce on her with an angry/passive-aggressive comment like “Elena! Why aren’t you being more careful?!”
Thankfully, I was able to reign that one in (I’m definitely not always successful on this!) and simply acknowledge/validate what had happened by saying “Oh (validate the emotion she was obviouslty experiencing), looks like you spilled the milk (acknowledge the facts plainly).”
After I said this, she paused and I could “see” her thinking. After a few seconds, she said, “Yeah, we better clean it up.”
I think by simply acknowledging what happened and validating what she was already feeling, it prevented her from getting to judgmental with herself, which would have lead to shame or anger or guilt, and probably just a lot of crying or acting out.
Instead, I think that by validating her feeling and simpy acknowledging and reflecting back what happened, it gave her all the psycholigical space she needed to come up with a constructive reaction on her own.
I guess the more general point here is this: I’m skeptical that in most situations where we fail to live up to our own standards intense crticial thinking and analysis are all that helpful. My hunch is that 90% of the time, simple acknoledgment is at least sufficient and maybe even superior.
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Hope I actually answered the question… 😬
And thanks for the compliment on the CTA! It’s such a weird process—writing CTAs 😆. Bio descriptions are another one I’m always pondering…
cheers, Nick
