We are always judging – it is how the human mind works to sort out all the observations and information it gathers. What is deemed to be good – not so good, appropriate – not appropriate, wanted – not wanted. While judging in and of itself is not ‘negative’ it has gotten a bad rap as meaning to find fault.

A great way to reframe judging to make it seem, well, less judgmental is to acknowledge your assessment of a person, situation or circumstance in terms of personal preferences.  You can prefer something over another without making the thing you don’t want or don’t think is appropriate wrong and bad.  You can prefer sunny days over cloudy days without going into how clouding days have you feel gloomy.   Cloudy days don’t get trashed in the process of you really preferring sunny days.

It’s the same with making decisions.  There is sometimes a temptation to justify a decision by making the alternate choice yucky, disgusting or unseemly.  That alternate choice might be just fine for someone else.   Consider positioning your judgments as personal preferences.  You may find it feels cleaner and lighter with no need to spend your energy dismissing the other options.

What if you could make decisions of all kinds from the framework of straightforward preferred choices?  You prefer coffee over tea, you prefer interesting work over tedious tasks, you prefer thoughtful people over inconsiderate people.  Effortless, simple and freeing.