"When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself." - Wayne Dyer

It's a very common habit to judge others. However, it is unfair to form an opinion based on your limited information and faulty perceptions or beliefs. Why would you make such discernment toward someone especially if you hardly know the person well enough?

It's true that there are people out there who make you feel annoyed and uncomfortable. But in actual fact, it is your response toward them that make you feel that way. Your beliefs about something lead you to think the way you do because you relate them to your own experiences.

How do you avoid from making inaccurate judgments?

• Self-assessment.

Can you accept that the way you feel is a reflection of your own thoughts and feelings? When you see something, you start to form internal dialogs followed by pictures or images and then associate some kind of emotions to them. What you experience on the outside are actually the expressions of your internal focus.

Ask yourself a few questions before you judge.

1. Why do you feel and experience such emotions or thoughts about the other person?
2. How would someone identify and assess you based on the results you are producing? Are you going to like their conclusions about you?
3. What does judging the other person benefit you?
4. What if you could change your thinking and views about the person?

• What's the positive intention behind it?

No amount of logic can change a person as long as her internal perceived reality is not changed. Instead of being judgmental, why not understand that there is positive intent in every behavior. Everyone's conduct has it's own purpose that conveys some kind of beliefs and experiences, mostly acted out of conscious awareness.

There are good and bad, beauty and ugliness. You are free to judge and perceive a person, behavior or response any way you like. But if you look out for the good in people, you will inevitably notice them.

Learn to accept people for what they are. Instead of making evaluations, give warmth and understanding. Find something to love in that person.

• Keep an open mind.

Keep an open mind. Get curious and question your assumptions and evaluations. See things and observe people in new ways. Watch what's happening and how people are behaving. Look for something that you can learn.

If you take the time to observe, you will find that everyone has something to teach. What is it about someone's behavior or attitude that reflect who you really are?

• Delay your emotions.

How do you do that? Change your focus, those dialogs and images playing in your mind. When you shift your attention, you are also altering your emotions and not giving in to them. Doing this will enable you to delay your judgment.

Of course you can also just walk away and eliminate them altogether and come back to rethink, especially if your temperaments are getting in the way.

• Get this. It is you.

People are not the problem. It is your response to how a person dressed, talked, and behaved that brought you to your conclusion. It mirrors some parts of you that you are rejecting or disliking. It has something to do with you comparing yourself to this person, your expectations and how you feel.

You attract the kind of people into your life in harmony with your thoughts and emotions. So to attract the people and situation that you would like to exist in your life, you need to make the change within.

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