Do you ever go home after a social interaction and start critiquing everything you said in the conversation, wishing you said it differently? Do you ever hold back from doing something because you are afraid that people will judge you? Ever feel like you shouldn’t go out because you’re having a bad hair, skin or outfit day, and don’t want others to notice? Well guess what? You’re not alone. Being a girl in today’s world is tough, especially with social media being so present in our daily lives. It causes us to set unrealistic expectations for the way we look, what clothes we wear and how much money or friends we have. This, along with the human tendency to assume everyone is judging us, makes it so hard to just be ourselves.
You’re not alone
If you’re in a social setting, chances are, most people in the room are only paying attention to themselves and the way that they’re acting. Do you ever find yourself explicitly focusing on every action that someone makes, every word they say and nitpicking everything about their appearance? Probably not because that’s not normal behavior. So chances are, no one is doing that to you either. It can sometimes feel like everyone is looking at you, but the truth is that we notice and critique things about ourselves that don’t even cross other’s minds. For example, let’s say you walk into a party and you let out a really loud laugh and you thought it sounded ugly, or annoying. Maybe a couple people turned their heads, but I will bet you that absolutely no one is going to remember it. Most likely, they didn’t even notice it at all. So if you start to feel a wave of embarrassment coming on, just remember, our brains tend to blow situations way out of proportion. Most people in that room are probably just paying attention to themselves. This doesn’t mean that they’re selfish, it’s just human nature.
Change your perspective
Peer pressure, feeling judged and social anxiety can make daily life super tough for a lot of people. As someone who has struggled with some of these things and learned a lot about confidence and sense of self, I can confidently say that life becomes so much easier when you change your perspective. I used to be drowned by thoughts and fears that I was being judged for simply existing. First, as I mentioned earlier, you have to remember that nobody cares as much as you think they do. We are our worst critics. Additionally, if someone doesn’t like you or judges you for any reason, remember that we are in control of who we surround ourselves with and how much we let people get to us. So even if someone is actually judging you, it doesn’t change the way the world spins, your value as a person or mean that you should change yourself. At the end of the day, it is most important that we like ourselves, and feel confident in our own skin. If everyone loves us but we don’t love ourselves, being happy becomes so much more difficult. So next time you start to assume someone is judging you, remember that first of all, they probably aren’t. But even if they are, so what?
