How To Put An End To Self-Criticism
Have you ever had an experience of failure, or something happened that went pretty wrong? Do you beat yourself up when you make a mistake or things don’t go as you planned?
We all have certain mental habits that keep us from reaching our full potential in life. Self-criticism is one of those mental habits that can be destructive and harmful.
It is a common and familiar stumbling block on our path to a better life. It is a deterrent to our confidence, productivity and fulfillment: it prevents us from expressing our true personalities and talents; it makes us feel as though we are not good enough.
Here's the good news- you can put an end to self-criticism with a few key skills!
Taming Your Inner Critic For Long-Term Growth
1. Reduce Comparison
The human brain is designed to compare. Social media plays a huge part in this comparison game and can be toxic to our sense of self. And we tend to compare the worst of ourselves to the best of others. Another comparison pitfall is comparing our sense of self with what we see on everybody else's exterior (which is mostly a dressed up and masked sense of themselves for public consumption). It's one of the main reasons why people lose their confidence so easily.
The more we focus on how other people look better than us or how they seem happier than us or how their lives seem better than ours, the more critical we become about ourselves — which makes us more unhappy with ourselves. It is a vicious cycle.
It is important to remember that your thoughts and self-criticism are not facts. They may be extremely convincing at times, but they are not reality.
The best way to lessen the impact they have on our lives is to notice the thoughts and get curious about why we are comparing and how comparing is making us feel about ourselves.
2. Embrace Imperfection
We are all flawed, as this is the human condition. Learning to tolerate our imperfections helps us to reduce self-criticism. When we make a mistake, there's a natural tendency to blame ourselves. We may even start doubting our abilities. We think, "I should have known better," or "I'm not good at this."
There's a part of our brain that's determined to make sure that we're always in control and always have the ability to be perfect. But that is a lie. That part of our brain is lying to us about the danger of being human or making mistakes and it's based on past experiences.
Self-criticism doesn't help us learn from our mistakes. It just makes us feel worse.
We need to learn that we're not supposed to be perfect, because there's no such thing as perfect. We are human; flaws are what make us who we are. And mistakes are a part of life--they're a part of being human. What's important is that we learn from our mistakes and move forward with grace and understanding, instead of closing ourselves off from everyone else because we feel like failures. Always remember to be gentle with yourself.
3. Notice Without Judgment
As you notice your thoughts, feelings and behaviors, without judgment, you become the observer of your thoughts, which creates some emotional distance. This distance is helpful because it allows us to go into the observing part of our brain, which can bring some relief.
Understanding the difference between a thought and a feeling helps us to notice without judgment with more accuracy. Recognize that when we are being critical of ourselves, we are having a thought, not a feeling. Thoughts like “I'm stupid,” “I'm a loser,” and “I never finish things” are not feelings. They are just thoughts and they are not facts.
Those are all thinking assessments done by the brain. There's no emotion called ‘feel stupid.’ And when we can accurately label our thoughts as thoughts and stay away from labeling everything as an emotion, that can help us mitigate the intensity of harsh inner critic.
The Less Critical We Are, The More We Stay In Our Wise Mind
Research on addiction at the University of Stanford found that we make better decisions when we are less critical of ourselves. We are less reactive in our choices and we are able to treat ourselves with the same kind of grace, care or compassion that we are often able to extend to our loved ones.
We can achieve this by exercising self-compassion.
Imagine when a child wakes up from a nightmare. The parent doesn’t run into the room and start screaming at them about how stupid their nightmare was. Instead, they offer them comfort, nurturing, and compassion.
Action Step: Write a letter to yourself as if you are writing to your best friend
Take a situation that you're in now that you're having a lot of distress about, and you're experiencing a lot of self-blame. Write a letter to yourself as if you were a dear friend or loved one. How would you respond if your best friend came to you confessing they had been having those same critical thoughts about themselves?
If you want to change something about yourself, you're going to face some resistance. But it doesn't have to be so discouraging. Instead of letting your inner critic run the show, you can learn to observe your thoughts and check them for accuracy. This will help move you towards self-compassion and away from the internal critic.
I hope these tips are helpful to you, and I hope that you are able to take some micro-steps and develop some small habits to help you minimize your inner critic.
The deep inner critic is a common trauma response. We address this with our clients. Join us at www.mendingtrauma.com! You can check out our signature program, The Whole Health Lab, which is a one-stop shop for all things trauma and toxic stress.
If you are unsure if trauma or toxic stress is affecting your life, take our free quiz!
