What would you score yourself out of 10?

What number did you come up with? If it was a 10, congratulations, there’s no need to read on.

If the three-year-old you were asked the same question, what would they say?

Most young children would reply 10 or thereabouts. It’s what happens to how we see ourselves as we grow through life that makes our perception of ourselves less than perfect.

So what would it take to get your personal score higher? It depends on how you judge yourself.

How do you judge yourself?

For some, it’s about how they look. Even if we know the pictures we compare ourselves in the media or online are far removed from reality.

We tell ourselves if only we could lose some weight, have a straighter nose, better hair, be taller, and be a totally different-looking person entirely. Where the hell did that come from?

Then there are those who judge themselves on their perception of success. Where and how they live, how much there is in the bank, the car they drive, the job they do, and how desirable their partner is to others.

The other judgement we make about ourselves is about the roles we play. Mother, father, daughter, son, friend, boss, colleague, student, artist, musician…you get the idea.

It’s time to take a look at the evidence

What evidence have you got for the score you gave yourself? Who or what are you comparing yourself with? Is it a realistic comparison? And the biggie, WHY do we judge ourselves and others?

It’s a primitive thing, in my opinion. It comes from your survival instinct. It’s a pattern that got laid down long ago in the oldest part of our brains.

Judging others would be a sensible approach in the days when a stranger approached a close-knit tribe.

We’d check them out for signs of aggression, weakness, disease or even compatibility or desirability.

We are hard-wired to take in all that information in seconds, relaying a thought in our brains that tells us whether we need to emulate them, fight them or run from them.

It takes less than five seconds to make that judgement. So fast we are hardly aware we do it.

And now we have evolved to make those same snap judgements about ourselves. (Hundreds of years of advertising haven’t helped).

Once we were totally perfect

Once, we were all golden. Perfect in our own completely unique way. We didn’t even think about comparisons of falling short of anyone’s expectations. We were free to be our wonderful selves.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to get some of that natural confidence back? What would you do that you feel you can’t do now if you had that? How would your life change?

Imagine if you didn’t judge others and what they thought about you didn’t matter a bit. Wouldn’t that be blissfully liberating?

It sounds utopian, like an unrealistic dream, but all of us can work on building our confidence. It might not get to the levels of a little toddler, but we can definitely learn to like ourselves a lot more. And with that confident foundation, life would be much sweeter and more rewarding.

In the next few posts, I will describe some strategies for growing your self-confidence. We all have the resources to do so inside us, it’s just a matter of discovering them again and finally coming around to celebrating who we are.

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