Have you ever criticized yourself at some point in your life?
Don’t worry. Self-criticism is not something only a few people have. Most people are going through this.
The only thing we need to pay attention to is toxic self-criticism, which leads us to a miserable life with pain.
A toxic self-criticism not only hurts yourself’s performance in your life and work, but it can expand its destructive power to a wide range of people. Very often, you are inclined to criticize everyone and everything.
If you have such a painful experience with toxic self-criticism, you come to a place where I might help you based on my personal story.
Throughout one year in 2022, I have learned to overcome my toxic self-criticism for self-worth and self-love, and I’m excited to share with you the strategies that helped me achieve that success.
First, let me tell you a story between my self-criticism and me.
How My Self-Criticism Developed
Self-criticism is a habit we have learned from our past — our strict parents, school teachers, etc.
I was born into a strict family with traditional rules to guide me on how to live, especially since I am a girl. The gender disparity was so evident in my living environment. Boys are allowed to make mistakes and experiment with anything they like. But girls should behave like a “lady,” doing what their parents tell them, with no arguments.
So, since my youth, I was scolded harshly whenever I started to blame someone for my mistakes. And I was told that I should never blame anyone because all mistakes are mine. My performance was horrible. I did everything wrong. I deserved every error in school and life.
As time passed, “blaming myself for every bad thing that happens to me” became my habit. I was so used to talking toxic to myself even when nobody around me.
I ended up getting addicted to finding faults within myself. It became a toxic habit, making me feel bad about myself.
It got even worse. As soon as I end up criticizing myself more, I build a critical mindset — being critical of everybody and everything, including myself. I was so good at focusing on the weakness of others, ignoring the good parts. What a master of self-criticism I was! Anything could become the victim of my criticism.
Because of such a toxic self-criticism habit, I generally didn’t live a happy life and did not perform at my best. Another side fact was I was always looking for external validation. I was desperate for that, but sadly, I never got any confirmation from my family and friends.
When you are desperate for something, it becomes even hard to get it!
The Turning Point
I didn’t feel anything terrible when I criticized other people and myself. But I felt pain whenever I was attacked by other people, especially my close family members. I couldn’t control my anger and pain. It was more obvious each morning. My brain was full of critical comments about me.
I always thought that self-criticism existed simply because I was not worth it. Those successful people (according to the social standard) don’t have self-criticism because they are perfect. My belief was so far from the truth — most people are affected by self-criticism throughout their lives.
After many years of struggling with my toxic mindset, I finally came to learn something new in my life, which is what I need:
“Once you embrace your value, talents, and strengths, it neutralizes when others think less of you.”
― Rob Liano
It’s my life! I should live it how I want, not what others want. I don’t need external validations and self-criticism to “help” me become “successful.” I only need to live my life as enjoyably and freely as it should be.
Work on me instead of expecting the “mean” individuals to shut their mouths.
Last year, I started to leave a full-time job for my startup ideas. As I had more time to work for myself, I talked to myself a lot about what was going on with my mind.
Here is one of the chats between me and Amy (myself):
Me: “I think Amy is so mean to her friends. Why did she say those words to the people who helped her before? Besides, why did she keep criticizing her performance? She is crazy, doing things out of her mind. I don’t like her so much. But she loves animals, she loves helping people, and she loves her dreams. She told me that she felt the pain of being criticized by others. And she now starts developing an awareness that those people she criticized before must feel pain as she did. She wants to change — becoming a kind person to others and herself. Let me help her!”
So, let’s start to make a change!
I started to Work on Myself
Here is the list of my activities every day for a year:
- Morning workout
- Meditation
- Reading
- Writing
- Coding (work on my startup project)
- Chat with my close friends.
- …
As you can see, I have tried many things, from physical workouts to mind workouts. I EXPERIMENTED WITH VARIOUS THINGS because I didn’t know which one worked. All I could tell is that physical, intellectual, or mental engagement with some forms of routine can make a big difference in my life.
It’s wild. When you get ready to commit yourself to something, very often, you will get lucky!
Something inside my mind started to click. I found myself spending less time criticizing myself and others. Instead, I began to love myself more than ever before and have more focus on what’s the most important thing to me. I started to live the life I wanted!
Strategies for Overcoming Self-Criticism
There are many elements involved in the transformation, but I have developed some valuable strategies that you might find helpful in changing your life for the better.
The initial step is to clarify what you want to achieve with a deep awareness of the harm of toxic self-criticism.
Build a system for your daily life
Having a life structure does not constrain your activities, energy, and creativity. Instead, you will find it much easy to focus on the most essential thing in your life. If your life is a mess, how could you determine the priority on your to-do list?
There are many ways to establish a system for your life. For example, block your time on your calendar for a particular task or any vital activity like a workout. This will help you be more productive with your day, preventing you from internal and external distractions.
Train your mind-muscle through meditation
If you do a workout, you must be familiar with strength training, making you stronger, leaner, and healthier. Like training our muscles through activities, we can train our minds through meditation. That’s what I have been doing every single day.
As a beginner, you might wonder how I could stick to the plan and practice meditation consistently. Well, here is what I have experienced:
At first, it’s meditation helping you find peace in your mind and connect to your soul. Interestingly, the more we feel the power of connection, the more likely we will spend time practicing meditation.
Give yourself some time, maybe a couple of weeks, then you will see your improvement.
After one year of meditation practice (10 mins daily), I find peace inside my body and mind. I have trained my mind to observe my body and mind objectively, without judgment. I look at my existence from a space.
Quickly move forward by taking action
When you make a mistake, look into it, admit it, figure out where the problem is, and keep moving forward. If you don’t make the same mistake repeatedly, you already succeed.
The quicker you move forward, the better chance you will avoid being drained by self-criticism, and the more likely you will enjoy your life.
Be obsessed with your life/work
Obsession is the key to getting you where you want to be—concentrating your best attention on the things you love and being authentic to yourself. Embrace who you are and what you love.
It won’t take long for you to realize that the new skills, new experiences, and achievements facilitate building your self-affirmation and self-worth. You then get more obsessed with your life and work. You make a virtuous cycle to generate energy constantly.
Overcome Self-Criticism for Self-Worth
Once we overcome self-criticism, we must accept and embrace everybody and everything. It always makes us love ourselves much more because our mindset completely changes.
Self-criticism is not a one-time thing but a habit. So it takes time to overcome it. Try to experiment with the strategies I’ve shared above.
I’m looking forward to your new self!
Thanks for reading!
This blog was originally published on Medium. Discover the full article here: I Overcame My Self-Criticism—Here’s How.
