Excessive judgmental thoughts can be toxic to your mental health and your peace of mind. To be clear, let us draw a sharp distinction between being judgmental and exercising good judgement. Excessive judgment can become attack thoughts if it jumps to conclusions, ignores mitigating circumstances, assumes bad motives, labels the person instead of the behavior and operates from a place of backward-looking blame instead of forward-looking solutions… and applies a double standard, judging themselves by the most favorable interpretation of their intentions and others by the most damning possible explanation of outcomes.
By contrast, the exercise of good judgement investigates motives and circumstances, focuses on specific behavior not on labeling people as globally good or bad and most importantly, holds people accountable without blame or shame with an emphasis on responsibility, not fault.
Releasing a judgmental mentality is NOT abandoning critical thinking or discernment; rather it is embracing their essence: we observe fully, we carefully evaluate the totality of the circumstances, and then we make a wise decision. “Judge not” does not mean “See not.” Nor does it mean “Act not.” Indeed, excessive reluctance to hold others accountable can become avoidance of responsibility. Rather it means as we observe and evaluate others, we remain humble and always think and act with a good heart.
As Cary Jung put forth, the traits we judge most harshly in others are frequently the disowned, unacknowledged aspects of our own personality. Also, beware the laws of unintended consequences and self-fulfilling prophecies: judgments can create the reality they project, as people frequently respond to the way they are treated.
Closing Quotes:
“A false definition of the situation may evoke a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true.” – Robert K. Merton
“First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” – Matthew 7:5
“When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.” – Robert Rosenthal
“As we judge others so are we judged by others. The suspicious will always be tormented by suspicion.” – Nelson Mandela, Conversations with Myself
“If you treat a person as irresponsible, you will soon find that they act irresponsibly. Low expectations breed low performance.” – J. Sterling Livingston, Pygmalion in Management, Harvard Business Review, 1969
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832
