Margo Newman
I had an interaction the other day that I just haven’t been able to get out of my head, and I wanted to share as I think it is an important story highlighting the significance of mental health and self-care in today’s complicated world.
Here is the interaction, which left me truly speechless and resulted in days’ worth of reflection. My friends and I recently got together, and one friend started telling us about a project she was working on. She made a comment that she let “weird” and “judged” by her team since she wasn’t getting much feedback. We all asked is someone had said anything negative about that project to make her feel that way, and we asked if she felt proud of the work she presented for feedback? Her response was that she had yet to receive any response, but that she was in fact proud of the work she had done. My daughter happened to be passing by, and she clearly had overhead as she stopped and said, “no one is judging you, that is the imaginary audience!” We all paused and the room fell silent, and I asked her to tell us more. She proceed to tell us that the “imaginary audience” is all in our heads, and If no one has said anything directly, then we are just judging ourselves and creating stress and scenarios that haven’t even happened. All from a 9-year-old!
After that interaction, it had me pondering on this term “imaginary audience.” I wondered where this term originated from, as it seems that many of us unconsciously have this worry to please this audience. I looked the term up, and the imaginary audience was actually introduced by David Elkind to “refer to the tendency of adolescents falsely assuming that their appearance or behavior is the focus of other people’s attention or that we are being watched when we are not.” This definition hits it spot on. With the ever-growing pressures and presence of social media, the imaginary audience consumes us. Today in a semi-virtual world, the amount of pressure we put on ourselves to be successful – as friends, colleagues, spouses and parents – the more the approval of the imagery audience is needed.
I believe that the imaginary audience has also shown its face in the workplace – and can be hard to recognize. Most often, I have seen it when someone hasn’t heard back from a colleague within a timeline that they expect, or the colleague doesn’t respond in the way they would have liked. And over the last couple of years, for those now working 100% virtual, not hearing from a colleague or boss that you used to have more interactions and face time with. When compounded with our time on social media, are we falsely assuming that one’s behavior is being watched or judged? That our actions are the focus of other’s attention? This often leads to a slippery slope of self-doubt and/or assumptions which ultimately results in our imaginary audience standing in the way of our own success and triumphs. In addition, could the imaginary audience be making it harder for us to disconnect and give ourselves more self-care because we are assuming if we disconnect, we will be viewed or judged in a different way?
So how do we fight the slow creep of the imaginary audience as adults? Here are my thoughts:
With all of today’s media outlets and assumed perceptions of one another, the imaginary audience can come out of nowhere, and we can tend not to recognize it. For me, it has been a good reminder that when I start to make assumptions, or doubt something, I should ask myself if it is truly a worry, or perhaps just the imaginary audience?
Share with me. Have you ever felt like the imaginary audience has creeped up on you?
Like what you’ve read? Let's connect.
