I’m naturally an introverted person, and one thing I struggle with a lot is the constant feeling that people might be judging me.
This happens especially at work, but also in general social situations.
For example:
When I speak in meetings, I keep thinking about how people might perceive what I said.
If I stay quiet, I worry people think I’m awkward or not contributing.
Even small interactions sometimes make me overthink later.
Logically I know most people are probably busy with their own lives and not analyzing me that much, but the feeling still comes up.
Because of this I sometimes hold back from speaking or participating, even when I have something useful to say.
I’m curious how other introverts deal with this.
Did anything help you:
stop overthinking social interactions?
feel less judged by others?
become more comfortable speaking up?
I’m not trying to become super extroverted — I just want to feel more relaxed in social and work situations.
Any advice or mindset shifts that helped you would be appreciated.
12 comments
Work on reading body language. I did this by watching like true crime and stuff but that’s not for everyone.
People are judging you all the time but if you don’t care that they are judging you they will judge you as confident. Try to be ok with making mistakes, saying something that doesn’t make sense, or stumbling over your words sometimes.
Wrong question. It should be “How do I stop feeling like I am judging myself all the time?”. The reason you feel like people judging you is because you’re judging yourself.
In reality, your existence is just a snippet thought of people at best and most of the time is background noise.
no one care about you….
they only care about themselves
The feeling of judgement does not come with introversion… It’s probably an anxiety thing. But I found that realising that I don’t spend much time judging other people probably applies to others thinking about me too.
The first answer is that the judgement of 99% of all people in your life will not (or should not) matter at all.
The second answer is that it’s likely you are projecting self-judgement onto them. You are judging yourself and thus feel that energy from other people, and it’s statistically likely that you’re perceiving negative judgement even when it isn’t present.
The third answer is that if you can reach a place of acceptance- which is the intersection of honesty, kindness, and patience, then you stop caring about what most people think. It’s possible to love and respect someone and not care for their opinion.
What other people think of you is none of your business. There are thousands of versions of you in other people’s minds. The only one that matters is yours.
I always cope by knowing I have good intentions. If they think less of me, they are making a bad call on incomplete info. And that I’m not interested in impressing people who do that.
Most people know all this, but through trial, exposure and repetitious self talk (and possibly the right medication), you will believe it.
This has nothing to do with being introverted. This sounds like anxiety. They aren’t the same thing (though it is possible to have both).
I’ve found that being involved with sports and fine arts – music, painting, writing – and running, or Tae Kwon Do (me, since 2020) means taking leaps of faith, getting used to putting oneself out there, getting used to critiquing others, and being critiqued. Just talk to the instructor(s) or whoever is more or less in charge, and tell them what’s going on with you, like your goal is more extroversion or more confidence, or that ___ is a trigger for you. Not necessarily to completely avoid the trigger, but to help desensitize the trigger.
Overthinking and judgement from other people is felt when you feel like you need to depend on their approval for your own survival and sense of identity.
It means you don’t feel important to yourself and your own emotions aren’t being listened to and cared for by yourself.
If you want to stop thinking about what others think, you must first feel important enough that your own opinion matters to you more than the opinions of others. This means you need to prove that to yourself with your own intent and thoughts.
If you cancel an event and then for example keep saying that you’re a failure or loser for doing so, you’re abusing yourself. Many people do this without realising.
Inside you there is two people, one the conscious mind/protector and one the inner-self/your soul. You’re meant to be on your own side. If you’re not and you don’t listen to your feelings, you’ll detach and seek that approval for your emotions from other people.
Hence, caring what others think, judgement, etc.
People judge us all the time in a way.sometimes we don’t even know we have said or done anything wrong or caused any offence I guess it’s just being comfortable with yourself and learning to be indifferent to others opinions.it is so hard though