Self(ish) Confidence

[290] You Can’t Judge Yourself Into A Better Life

• Jess Clerke • Episode 290

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When everything feels heavy and a chapter closes in plain sight, it’s easy to confuse an ending with a verdict. Jess opens up about identity shifts, public judgment, and why a normal season of change can feel unbearable when the internet turns every moment into a headline. From canceling plans to protect loved ones to reimagining a community offering, she traces the quiet decisions that make space for new beginnings, even when shame tries to take the mic.

You can’t judge yourself into a better life. You can love yourself into one by trading rigid standards for realistic rhythms, measuring inputs you control, and honoring endings as the preface to beginnings. Expect practical reframes for heavy seasons, grounded encouragement for navigating holidays without perfection pressure, and a compassionate reminder that nothing is perfect behind the scenes. If this message gives you a little breath, share it with a friend who needs one too. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what judgment are you ready to release today?

Thank you for listening to Self(ish) Confidence! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or on your social media and tag me @jess.clerke so I can personally thank you for helping spread some confidence + love!

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Selfish Confidence, a place where we can connect and be real about how hard it is to be your damn self. My name is Jess, and my goal is to help you build confidence and belief in yourself to live any life path you want, even if it's unconventional. It's time to flip off societal pressures and connect with women who've also felt on the outside by their life choices. We're here to encourage you to grab the mic and speak your truth. I know it can be scary, but we're in this together. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Selfish Confidence Podcast. It's Jess here, and I'ma set the scene for you, okay? I just got the baby down for the night, and I made myself a nice cup of peppermint tea. I put some collagen in there to help these creaky joints, and I sat down to hang out with you. And I just feel like I am ready to hang out with some girls to chit-chat and to share with you some of the things that have been on my heart lately. And I don't know about you, but it this season feels heavy. And honestly, I I felt really emotional coming on to the microphone tonight and the microphone. I felt like really emotional coming on. And normally when that happens, it means that somebody else needs this message too. Myself included. Oftentimes I'm talking to myself. Well, I am literally talking to myself, if you think about it. You're not here as I'm recording this. So I'm just sitting in my office space, sipping my peppermint tea and talking to myself and getting all of my thoughts out and things that have been in my brain for the last couple days. So it is what it is. If you hear a little bit of scratchiness in my voice, we got the first family cold. Our little guy had his first cold and then passed it off through everybody in the house. And so we've just been having a really chill couple of days, chiller than it has been for a while. Normally, our weekends are really busy on the go, um, trying to get chores done, trying to get things done. And this weekend we couldn't really do that. I actually even had to cancel my girls' night on Friday night, which I was like so disappointed about. We were supposed to go see um a show and have dinner, and I just didn't want to spread any germs. I didn't want to spread any germs. A lot of the ladies who were going with us were also moms, and I just pictured the germs spreading through their households, and I just said, we can't do that. We can't do that. So we just took it really chill, going to bed early, eating good food, spending a lot of time together as a family, and it was a really, really wonderful time, um, despite the fact of being sick. And our little guy is still unfortunately a little under the weather, but we're getting through it. We're getting through it, and that's why I'm coming here to hang out with you to escape for a little bit longer. Maybe you need the escape too. So I'm so happy to be here with you and to chat things out. Um, one of the things that yeah, I've been thinking a lot about, and this was actually the episode that I wanted to make last week, but I don't know. Something told me in my gut to scrap it and to start something new. And well, what came out was a really heartfelt message about the seasons and the endings, and a lot of you really related to it. The season of the unknown of the next chapter of what's coming next, and also just there being so many endings, like there's so much going on, and there's so much heaviness in the world, and there's so much unknown ahead, but there are also a lot of endings, and with endings, I've noticed in myself, really, the judgment that can come from that. I've almost been embarrassed or ashamed of an ending happening, especially an ending that I had tied to my identity being the selfish sisterhood. And if you're listening to this in real time, I have had some ideas brewing about the sisterhood, so it might not be the total ending of it, okay? I'll just leave it at that for right now. But it is shifting and it is changing, and it's going to look different, whatever that looks like come 2026. But I have some bubbles in my in my brew pot, and I've been thinking of some really cool things that we could transform it into. And with these endings, again, I've been feeling a lot of shame and embarrassment around it because again, we tie our identity to so many of these things. So whether you're thinking of the endings being your career, there has been some shifts in where you are on the career ladder, up or down or into new, you know, companies, whatever it is. There's also been a lot of shifts in business lately and people pivoting in new directions and closing down businesses and selling businesses, and that can have a lot of shame and and guilt to it too, because you've built something, you've put all of your eggs into this basket, maybe without the intention of it being sold someday, and maybe with the intention of it being your forever, right? We have this visual of the bottom of the ladder, right? That rock bottom, and you build something, and every year it gets stronger and stronger and stronger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and we just expect that it's going to be our end goal, right? And so it's so difficult when that ending is tied to our identity. And I know for a lot of families, relationships, there's so many endings that have been happening in this world. And if that's you, I see you. I am putting my arms around you and I'm hugging you so tightly because I know the endings are really difficult. I made a post this week about, you know, just things changing and pivoting things, and somebody had commented on it and said, like, one ending is another new beginning's end, right? Or one new beginning is another new beginning's end. And it's a quote from a song, right? I know someone's gonna send me a message and be like, yeah, that's this song. Um, I can hear it playing in my head, but I don't know who it is or what it is. And it's this great reminder that all beginnings come to an end. And the last time we had this ending cycle was not 10 years ago. 2015 was the last nine year. And it's kind of crazy when you think about it how much has changed in our world in just 10 short years from beginnings to endings to cycles of different things that we've been going through in our lives. And I think it was actually easier to face some of these endings in 2015 because we didn't have as much pressure of the whole world knowing what was going on in our lives all of the time. In 2015, we actually got married, and I remember not wanting a videographer at our wedding because I was like, why am I gonna want a video of our wedding? I'm never gonna watch it again. And now the world is so heavily based on video content that I just never even saw that shift coming. I'm like, oh, I just need some cool photos, and you know, I'll put that up on my Instagram and everything will be fine, and it's just a totally different world now. And I think that we didn't have as much public influence on us 10 years ago when we last faced this cycle of endings. Now there's a lot more content out there, there's a lot more judgment out there. People know us on a much deeper level because of what we post online, and I think that there's this extra layer of judgment that comes with these endings because it's a lot more public than it used to be. It's a lot more public than it used to be. It of course there's endings in businesses, and and that's scary too, in a public way, but this is very personal. Like we share our personal lives online all of the time. So when something happens in our life and we share it and we know others are gonna judge us, we're judging ourselves in these situations. It is really hard to humble yourself and put that out there. It is like it is hard to be vulnerable in this world when you know everybody is judging you, everybody has an opinion. And we were recently reading the let them theory by Mel Robbins in our book club, and I say it in my head as often as possible like, let them, let them judge you. She talks about judgment in her book and how she's even judging like her favorite people, her kids, her husband, her dog. Like, she's like, This is what I think about them. Like, I'm judging them. And it's like knowing that even the people who love you the most are judging you too, kind of takes a little bit of the pressure off, I think. At least it it helped me to think of it like that. It's like I'm judging these people all the time. Like, that's just part of who we are. So let them have their judgments. It's not a malicious act. I just have thoughts and feelings about things. Like, let it be what it is. And sometimes that can make it easier, and sometimes it makes it a lot harder. I don't know. There's just something about this, like constantly being on social media and seeing other people's lives all of the time that makes these choices to have public endings in life a lot harder. I think about this even with like some of our favorite couples on online, right? Who share content about being in a couple and love and relationships and all these things, and then they break up. And we all have feelings about their breakups, right? Like they're having feelings about their breaks, and then also to have on top of that it being a very public thing. Like that is so difficult for someone to go through. We're always gonna have feelings and judgments towards things. It's kind of hard to say, don't do it, but we can do it, I think, with good hearts and good intentions. So when I first thought of this episode, I was thinking of a very specific story. So we had recently gone out to the pumpkin patch. I wanted to get a giant pumpkin to be able to put my baby in, okay? And I was so excited to do that. Side note, by the time I did the pumpkin and I opened it up, we had a really hot fall. It was moldy inside and I couldn't put my baby in it. But that's okay. You know, that is okay. That's on me. But in this scenario, we were going to the pumpkin patch, and so my husband, I, and our little guy went to the pumpkin patch to find a pumpkin big enough for our baby to go inside. And when we were walking out to pay for our pumpkins, the the lady who was working at the booth, our our baby, just wasn't really feeling it that day. Okay, he wasn't necessarily cranky, but he wasn't like his smiley, giggly, happy self. And I've noticed actually a lot that he doesn't always show that side to people until he feels safe to do so. I don't know if that from a human design standpoint is because he's a projector, he's waiting for the invitation. I don't know, he's a baby, but he definitely has to feel safe in order to share all of these beautiful characteristics about himself. And the lady at the booth was like, oh, what a serious baby. Like, he's a serious little guy, isn't he? And I couldn't help but think, like, no, not really. It's kind of the same when someone tells me, like, oh, you're a little kid shy, right? It's like, not really. They just don't want to talk to strangers. Don't we teach them that? But people instantly have these judgments of other people. And in this moment, I just was like, okay, whatever, lady, like, I don't know, he's not really a serious baby, but okay, sure. Just let me pay for my pumpkins and get out of here. She was like so kind. It wasn't even from like, again, like a malicious way. It was just like a very it was an interesting point for her to make and for me to be like, hmm, like I know he's not. So how often in our life are we doing this to other people? Like in the grocery store line, right? When someone's rushing to get their groceries, or their kids screaming in the cart, or you know, they cut you off in the line, they butt the line, or they give you like they got the stink eye face, you know, like we instantly have judgments of these people, like, oh, what a mean person. Like, oh, like, can't they get their kid under control? Like, or like think of these things that you have said, like, I know you have, okay, and you know, you know you have, right? Like, there's it just instantly happens. These 30-second interactions that we have with people are creating a whole story in our head and forcing us to judge them again on these 30-second interactions. It's almost the same thing on the internet and in social media nowadays, too. You see one or two reels, and we have a whole opinion about their life and their choices, right? It's 30 seconds. We're seeing a 30-second glimpse of someone, and then judging their whole story on that 30 seconds. Like, how crazy is that? I want you to think of your worst moment. Go back to your like the worst. You could think of it like you're crying on the bus, or maybe you, you know, at work. Oh man. I can just add to this image. At our old, my old, old, old office, okay, is my first job out of university. It's not as clamorous as I anticipated working would be. And we had this laundry room. So I was working at a health clinic, and you know, I dealt with like a hundred patients every day. Like I was dealing with a lot of people. It came with a lot of emotions and a lot of stress, and it was just a difficult season overall. And we had this laundry room where we would fold laundry for our massage therapists, and we used to go there to cry. We used to go there to cry. It was our space to just kind of vent and cry, and we just needed a space, like it wasn't a big deal. But I remember people walking in, like, because they had to get some laundry, and they just see someone crying in there, and it's so uncomfortable, right? And that's the mem image that came into my head when I thought of like even my worst moment. And of course, we've had horrible moments and all over our lives, but that was one where you're just like a fudge, like, what is this person thinking of me? I just need to cry in the laundry room, okay? It's not a big deal. And it's those moments. Someone comes in, they get a 30-second glimpse, and now they're like, Oh my goodness, Jess is in there crying, like, obviously, something horrible happened, like, is everything okay? Like, and you have these judgments that even the things that we play in our head that we think someone else is thinking about us, right? So I want you to go to that moment. And somebody walks in on you, and they have a 30-second interaction with you, and they've already made up a whole story about this human. They've made up a whole story about you at your worst moment, and you are forever gonna be known to that person as that moment. Oof, right? Like, we don't want to be remembered for that. We don't want to be played in the cycle of their head, which obviously, like, that's really self-involved to think that we're playing on a loop in their head at this moment, but think about it like that. Like, when they think of you, they're always gonna think of this judgment that they have of you, you know. Oh man, she was so mean, she brushed me off in the grocery store, or oh my gosh, like, did you see how many donuts she ate today? 12. She ate all 12 donuts, right? And it's so interesting how those quick judgments paint an entire picture of who you are for that person, and even sometimes for ourselves. And my little guy is forever going to be known as the serious baby who picked out his giant pumpkin and never got to go in it, right? I want you to reverse that. When you meet someone and you have these 30-second judgments of them again in the checkout line or on the bus, or you know, when you're driving and someone cuts you off real quick, how can you give that person a little bit of grace instead of instantly judging them as a horrible person? Like, how could this dummy cut me off? Like, did they not see me there? When really they could just be really distracted. I think the world is so distracted right now, it's making it so much harder to drive because someone's on their phone or they're in their own world or they're playing with the radio. Like, we're just so distracted. And maybe this person is just distracted because something's going on in their life. I often try to tell myself, like, this person's just rushing to the hospital. There's obviously something really serious going on, and they need to get somewhere quick. Like, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt, and I it's so hard to do. It is so hard to do because we are wired to judge other people. It's almost like this way of us seeing the world and making ourselves feel better if that person is having a worse time, a cycle that we have. It's it's honestly so strange that we do it, but it is a survival instinct. For us, it creates this need of belonging, right? Like it helps us to connect when we judge other people, when we gossip, when we, you know, share in misery, commiserate. I think that there's something really interesting about this, but it is just the world that we live in. And you know it because you're also living in it too, right? Especially online. We see it all over on TikTok, right? Where you where one person makes a video and then another person makes a video judging that person in the video? It is so wild how quick we are to judge these people. But I make this episode to remind you that it can be really simple for us to rewire this to. How is judging these people so quickly helping you? And how is it hurting you? I think that some of these thoughts that we have is really just a reflection of the deeper things that we're seeing in ourselves or or we don't want to see in ourselves, right? Think about maybe someone who recently, you know, gained some weight, right? I notice it in people who are insecure about their own bodies tend to judge other people's bodies a lot more. You hear it in just like quick comments. Again, this is a societal thing too, right? We come, and it's unfortunately going back into that same societal standard of having really tight, slim bodies, especially I notice it now too, as someone who's like postpartum, and you're just like, oh my goodness, like this is so difficult to even keep up with, right? But we have these quick judgments of other people, of their bodies, their physical looks, um, their thoughts, their ideas, all of these things. And I really just want you to pause in those moments and ask yourself, how can I judge from a place of peace right now? It's not even necessarily about totally throwing judgment out the window. It's that's impossible. But how can we give this person some grace? And how can we give ourselves some grace and some peace here by just rolling it off our shoulders and saying, let them, let them do what they want to do, and even if I do it differently, it's okay, right? Give yourself some power back and give yourself some peace. And I think we really need to be giving other people some grace in this society right now because things are getting a little spicy out there. Even from that standpoint of like what you can do, I want to reverse this for a second on the judgment of ourselves. I've noticed this in myself lately. Again, through making some decisions to pivot some things in my business, I've been really trying to decondition and rewire these beliefs that I've built around myself that are making these judgments I have of myself a lot harder lately. Oh, they're so hard to to sit with, to feel, to think about because we are our worst critics. Just the same as we think that that person in the grocery store line is judging us, or that person who walked in on me crying in the laundry room is judging me, I am judging myself ten times harder. We are so hard on ourselves. Oh, I feel so emotional as I say that because I have been so hard on myself in this season. This season of like juggling all the balls in the air and just been like, I need to be the best entrepreneur and I need to be the best mom and I need to be the best wife and I need to be the best, you know, dog parent, and all of these things. Like, we are so hard on ourselves. Even like I could think of 10 things today that I've judged myself on for not doing a good enough job on. This podcast is one of them, right? Like, even just like I feel sometimes like I've dropped the ball on how well I create and how well I do things and showing up for you. Like, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. So if you think that judging other people and what those other people are thinking of you is one thing, what you're thinking of yourself is the most important thing because we are so hard on ourselves, and again, you are ten times harder on yourself than that person on the internet ever was, or that person that said that one thing to you one time that still sticks with you. I have some of those. We are ten times harder on ourselves than that one comment. It's easy sometimes to say, let them, let them, let them, but like, can we also do that to ourselves? Let me give myself a little bit more grace, let me release these judgments that I have about myself in this season of my life. Can I just chill out a little bit more? And where can I find some more peace? I really do think this part of judging other people is one thing and something that we all need to be shifting and giving people more grace, but I really also think we need to be giving ourselves a lot more grace than we have been. Oh man, in this season more than ever. And as we walk into the holidays right now, it's just about to get harder. And then the new year's gonna come, and especially anyone who's been facing endings and that identity issue that comes with endings. I really know that some of these insecurities are like popping up, popping up, popping up, and that judgment is getting heavy. These endings have nothing to do with you, it has nothing to do with your soul, it has nothing to do with anything other than we are meant to have endings right now. We are meant to see a season of change that we can walk into new beginnings and to give ourselves a fresh start. So we need to start taking some pressure off of our shoulders and really start to enjoy the process of new life coming. Right? There's something so beautiful that could come on the horizon if we stop judging ourselves a little bit. With every judgment that you have of yourself, you're holding yourself back a little bit more. I think that's a really big part of manifestation and bringing the life that you want into your reality. But if you're bringing your vibration down with these judgments you have of yourself over and over and over again, it is not gonna help you get to where you want to go. You can't judge yourself into a better life. You can love yourself into one and you can allow yourself to grow. Isn't there like this um this study on like someone who said negative things to a plant and it died? And then there was another plant that they said positive things to and it thrived. Like that's the reality, and that's the inside of our heads. The more that we have these judgmental thoughts of ourselves and the things that, you know, all of the things we're doing wrong. And I can make a list of the things that I've told myself today, even sitting at my desk, I have so much work piled all over here that I'm just like, oh right, I said I was gonna do that, and oh yeah, I said I was gonna do that, and oh yeah, I said I was gonna do that. Well, I'm just gonna ignore all of those things and sit down and hang out with you instead. And, you know, let myself have a little bit of grace in this season, knowing that one, our family's been sick all weekend, so I haven't been able to get any work done. And also, it's okay to take a break. It's okay to give yourself a little bit more time when you need it. And if you are struggling with this, this judgment of yourself, the things that you've been saying to yourself every time you look into the mirror, I want you to take a pause, send me a message, and just say, Yeah, Jess, it's me. I'm the I'm the one who's struggling with that. And I'm right there with you. This season in particular, I'm really hard on myself, but we need to shift that. In order for beautiful beginnings to happen, we really need to be shifting how we're talking about ourselves and talking to ourselves on a daily basis. That judgment of other people is one thing, but really again, that judgment of yourself is way more important. So if we can shift that and start to see other people for the humans that they are, it's time for us to also do that for ourselves. That's one thing I've been doing actually a lot, is even when I see someone walking down the street, I visualize their life. And they have a whole life, right? Like they might have a partner, they might have kids, they might have, you know, they might drive this car, they might do this thing. And the more that we can see them as a human with a whole life, not just a 30-second clip, as a human with a whole life, I think the better our world could be. Because again, maybe they're gonna do that for you. And maybe you need to do that for yourself. You're human on this earth figuring things out for the first time. Give yourself some grace. Just because you saw Susie on social media doing it ten times better than you, chances are she's also dropping the ball, okay? Chances are behind closed doors, she's also messing everything up. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is perfect, okay? So stop holding yourself to a standard that doesn't exist. And give yourself a little grace in this season. I love you so much. I'm so grateful that you're here along for this journey with me. And I can't wait to talk to you again soon.

SPEAKER_00:

What's up, sis? I am so glad we could hang out today. If you love this episode, send it to a friend or share it on your social media and tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me sprinkle some confidence in the world. And don't forget, you are magic. Let's show the world your shine.

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Jess Clerke

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