We will become better learners and more independent thinkers. - Timothy Gallwey

letting go of judgments does not mean ignoring errors. It simply means seeing events as they are and not adding anything to them.

It is interesting to see how the judgmental mind extends itself. It may begin by complaining, “What a lousy serve,” then extend to, “I’m serving badly today.” After a few more “bad” serves, the judgment may become further extended to “I have a terrible serve.” Then, “I’m a lousy tennis player,” and finally, “I’m no good.” First the mind judges the event, then groups events, then identifies with the combined event and finally judges itself. As a result, what usually happens is that these self-judgments become self-fulfilling prophecies. That is, they are communications from Self 1 about Self 2 which, after being repeated often enough, become rigidified into expectations or even convictions about Self 2. Then Self 2 begins to live up to these expectations. If you tell yourself often enough that you are a poor server, a kind of hypnotic process takes place. It’s as if Self 2 is being given a role to play — the role of bad server — and plays it to the hilt, suppressing for the time being its true capabilities. Once the judgmental mind establishes a self-identity based on its negative judgments, the role-playing continues to hide the true potential of Self 2 until the hypnotic spell is broken. In short, you start to become what you think.

It is helpful to realize that whereas our external goals are many and various and require the learning of many skills to achieve them, the inner obstacles come from only one source and the skills needed to overcome them remain constant. Until subdued, Self 1 is capable of producing fears, doubts and delusions wherever you are and whatever you are doing.