How to Overcome the Fear of Judgment

Hey there,

I was running late for the train. The kind of late that had my arms and legs flailing all over, like my body got Bluetooth disconnected from my brain.

Somewhere between grabbing my phone and mentally calculating if I had time to stop for coffee (I didn’t, but I did anyway), I realized I had forgotten something.

Not my wallet. Not my keys. My book cover.

Not the actual book, but the blank paper cover I slip over it so no one knows I’m reading something esoteric, slightly embarrassing, or deeply weird.

The cover keeps strangers from knowing that, at 7:30 AM, I’m nose-deep in a book on How to Communicate with the Dead Without Freaking Yourself Out or some other absurdly mystical title that might as well come with incense and a crystal ball.

Because… people judge.

Normally, I could’ve hid the book in my bag, but in my rush, I left myself defenseless.

No bag. No jacket. Just me, my book, and nowhere to hide it. So there I was fully exposed to the world.

My brain: Everyone is looking at you.
Reality: No one cares.
My brain again: They are all judging you for your weird little book, and now you have to move to another city. Just fake your death and start over in a small fishing village. It’s the only way.

The whole train ride I scanned faces for the inevitable looks.
— the little half-smirk from the finance bro across the aisle,
— the oh, she’s one of those people glance from the woman scrolling Instagram.

And in that moment, as I stood there, gripping my book I realized I felt something deeper than embarrassment.

It was the fear of judgment itself.

Why We Fear Judgment Even When It’s Irrational

We all have moments when we’re afraid of people’s judgment, no matter how confident we are.

Psychologists call this moment of self-consciousness evaluation anxiety or the fear of being judged negatively by others.

— It’s why we hesitate before posting something online.
— Why we’re scared to death of public speaking.
— Why we reword a text three times… only for autocorrect to turn "Let’s get together soon!" into "Let’s get together SOONER." Now sound like you’re a stalker.

The fear is primal. When we feel judged, our brain responds as if we’re facing a real threat. For most of human history, survival depended on belonging to a group and being alone in the wild was dangerous. Rejection wasn’t just emotionally painful, it meant life or death.

Even now, our brain is wired for survival. It sees acceptance as safety and judgment as threat.

So when we feel scrutinized or excluded, it triggers a full-blown alarm, treating rejection as if it’s life-or-death, even when the worst consequence is an awkward glance on a train.

The Spotlight Effect: No One’s Watching You

Research shows that our fear of judgment is usually exaggerated. Studies on the spotlight effect suggests that we think people are paying more attention to us than they actually are.

In reality, most people on that train were probably too busy scrolling their phones, thinking about their own lives, or wondering if they should have ordered oat milk instead of regular.

And yet, we all have these moments where the fear of being seen, truly seen, makes us shrink.

The truth is no one is thinking about you as much as you think they are.

Which raises an even bigger question:

If the fear of judgment is mostly an illusion: How much of our lives do we spend being scared of what people will think of us?

The Hecklers in the Crowd

This reminded me of the time I took a stand-up comedy class, and someone asked the instructor, "How do you handle hecklers?" Without missing a beat, he said:

"You don’t. You keep performing. The best comedians don’t argue with hecklers—they own the stage and let the idiot yell into the void."

That stuck with me.

Because life is full of hecklers. They’re the people who judge you for your choices, criticize you from the sidelines, and project their own insecurities onto you.

Imagine you’re on stage, whether it’s presenting, performing, or just living your life. Someone in the audience shouts something negative.

You could stop, walk off stage, and try to convince them they’re wrong about you. But then what? You’ve abandoned your own life for one loud idiot.

Great performers don’t let hecklers run the show. They focus on the people who actually came to listen, who value what they bring.

So the next time you fear someone’s judgment, ask yourself:

👉 Am I going to let this heckler veer me off course?

How to Stop Letting the Fear of Judgment Control You

How Are You Holding Yourself Back?

Maybe it’s not a book cover.

Maybe it’s an idea you’re afraid to share. 

A passion you downplay. 

A version of yourself that only comes out when you’re alone.

Every time we tweak, conceal, or censor parts of ourselves, we reinforce the quiet, crushing belief that:

“Who I really am isn’t acceptable.”

But the funny thing is that the people we admire most—the ones who seem effortlessly confident, unbothered by opinions aren’t that way because they never feared judgment.

They’re that way because they stopped letting it dictate their actions.

So what if, just once, we didn’t cover it up? What if we let them see?

READER POLL

Final Thought

Every week, I hesitate before hitting publish.

Who am I to write about this when I don’t always live up to it?

I’ve stared at sentences, ready to hit delete, because the gap between what I believe and how I actually show up feels too wide.

But I’m not writing from the mountain top of mastery. I’m writing from the middle of the climb. Life isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about learning, forgetting, and relearning.

Truth is:

– I’ve written about boundaries right after breaking them.
– About saying no, right after saying yes to something I shouldn’t have.
– About confidence, even when I feel at my lowest.

Writing helps me process, recalibrate, and move forward.

Some days, I nail it. Other days, I don’t.

Maybe the most valuable thing I can offer is an honest account of the journey, not a blueprint of perfection. Because at the end of the day, we’re all just doing our best to grow, evolve, and build something meaningful, flaws and all.

When you read my words, just know that I don’t have it all figured out. No one does. We’re all stumbling forward together toward something better.

The goal isn’t perfection, it’s progress. Small, steady shifts in the right direction.

And if we can share in the missteps and small victories, that’s enough. Thanks for reading my messy highlight reel of blunders and lessons still in progress!

By your side,

Shakila

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P.P.S. Here’s the results of last week’s poll.