Judgements

Today made me think about judgements a lot. Partially because it is this time of the year, where academia is running the personal development reviews, or annual reviews, or performance reviews–whatever your local label. Partially, because in a training session I ran today the topic of judgement came up in a very intensive debate. And a discussion from last week about the role of intuition in selecting job applicants.

We judge all the time. It’s human nature. A truism. From research demonstrating just how quickly our brains categorize and judge someone, to arguments that there is not objectivity–we judge situations or others based on our own experience, to CBT which explores unhealthy perspectives influencing these judgements.

Questioning our judgements doesn’t mean that they are not valid. That the experiences they are based on are less significant; it just means we need to learn to look over our own shoulder and check in with HQ where that particular judgement just came from. How successful are we in our daily lives with taking that outside perspective? How easy is it, when stress and deadlines let emotions run high? How good or bad are we in judging our selves? Are you kind to yourself–or harsh?

And then there are situations where we ran out of benefits of doubt. And the evidence is staring us in the face, and why then, in these situations, are we so paralyzed? Is it really that much easier to live with status quo?