Get Rid of Self-Criticism Once and For All

Welcome back to the show. This is Episode 12. Hi everyone. This week I'd like to start by spotlighting a review sent in by agent heart, who wrote this podcast goes deep. Christine's guidance helped explain some of my own behavior that was previously confusing to me. After reflecting on the issues discussed in the podcast, I feel empowered to change ingrained habits in a way I never thought was possible before. Thank you so much agent heart for letting me know that the show has been inspiring you to make important changes. If you love listening to this podcast too. And if you'd like to receive a shout out in a future episode, please leave a rating and review in Apple podcasts. It would mean so much to me if you did. And of course, every review helps the show to grow. Now in today's episode, I'm going to help you undo the pattern of self criticism, one that you may have been stuck with for a very long time. By doing so we're going to make room not only for your success, but also for much greater ease in your work and life. Let's go listen. Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together. So that you can focus on what's really important, and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the make time for success podcast. Hey, again, it's Christine. Today, I'm going to be talking about being too hard on yourself. That age old topic of self criticism. And when I say being hard on yourself, I want to include myself in this discussion because I have a long history of intense self criticism, which I do feel I'm largely recovered from notice my Bible in my voice, I think that is my inner self saying you're not really, really completely cured of this. So let's talk about it. When we criticize ourselves, I want you to know, we are bringing our energy in exactly the opposite direction of where we are intending to go. When we're trying to get something done. When we're trying to create something new when we're trying to do well. We're trying to move ourselves forward into newness into success. And when we decide we're not good enough, or we've made a terrible mistake somehow, and we start to beat ourselves up, we start to self criticize, then we bring our energy down, we pull our energy back from that space in the future where we're creative, and we're successful, and we're winning. So I think that we want to develop a new habit instead of constantly beating ourselves up. Instead of constantly obsessing over our mistakes. We want to get into the habit of thinking that the only thing that can happen when we act on the world is an improvement that we can only add to the value, we can only succeed. And this may sound totally bonkers to you. But I want you to really consider this because why can't we think that way? Why can't we think that our contribution is a positive one. I want you to just sit with that for a minute. I think it's important to sit with this because it really makes no sense to be our own worst critic. I know that many of my clients have told me that they are worried about the judgment of other people of being rejected, of not being asked for certain things or not being accepted into different programs. But what happens is, they turn that fear into some sort of licence to beat themselves up to really hold themselves back and in a dark corner instead of showing up really confidently. And I think that we do this we stay behind and small because we're used to feeling that way somehow somehow it matches an old story that we have about ourselves or Somehow, it reminds us of that time where we really did do something not so great. And we were reprimanded, and we did have some sort of regret. So, unfortunately, feeling like we've done something wrong becomes the familiar state. And again, I want to remind you that now we're going to develop a totally new state, we're going to develop a state of thinking that we can only improve and that we can only add value, and that we can only succeed. So let's think about it, tightening ourselves up by beating ourselves up just makes us tighter, it makes it more difficult for us to think, to feel, to act to move. And really what we need for success is to be able to develop that capacity for flexibility and flow, the more flexibility and flow we have, the better. I've seen it over and over and over again, not just with my clients, but also within myself. Whenever I feel relaxed, whenever I feel like I've gotten enough sleep, whenever I feel like oh, this might be a pleasure, things tend to go much more smoothly than when I am terrified, or when I'm freaking out. Or when I'm thinking I'm not good enough, it just is kind of like a law of getting things done that when you're feeling open and relaxed, and confident things tend to go more smoothly. So I thought I'd put together a quick list of ideas that I think will help you to make this transition from self criticism to feeling like you're a rock star that you can really just win in this world. So the first idea that I have to share is that we have to accept that mistakes happen. And not only are they going to happen, but they're often our most valuable teachers and lessons in life. Not only are they unavoidable, I think they're also just meant to be because they're they're meant to teach us what we need to know, they're meant to guide us in a new direction when we've taken the wrong path. They kind of get us to stop and think and reflect and re envision things. And so I want to encourage you to not be so terrified of making mistakes anymore. That's the first idea. The second idea is that we want to get used to having our hearts and minds be fully open. When we're afraid when we're beating ourselves up, our hearts and minds close up, they shut down practically because we feel in danger, we feel like it might not be safe to move forward. So let's open our hearts and minds. Whether it's through therapy or journaling, or exercise or breathing, whatever it is, let's keep ourselves open so that we can have our best output, we can have our best results, we can be wildly creative, and free with our action. Isn't that a great image? When we're just it's like roaming through an open field. That's what I'm thinking about now. So the third idea is that we need to let the universe assist us when we decide. It's all up to us. Everything's critical. We can't show anything to anybody because it's not ready. We're basically refusing to let the universe help us out. And the universe has a lot of ways of helping us out. It helps us with ideas from the internet ideas from people that we see in our morning walk. You know, just the way the snow is falling outside my window right now, that's aiding in my creativity right now we need to again, be open. But we need to not be stressing ourselves out. So let the universe help you. And then the last idea that I'd like to share here is that we have to remember that our performance, whether it's a project or an essay, or dissertation or research, whatever it is, our performance is just that it's a performance, nothing more, nothing less. So let's not make it about how smart we are, how talented we are, how we need to prove this or that because that is so exhausting. We go everywhere looking for validation, and it's exhausting because as long as you're looking for it outside of yourself, you're feeling inside of yourself that you don't have enough of it. You're feeling that you are lacking something and lack is a human state that makes us feel stuck. And exhausted. So instead of seeking meaning everywhere and seeking validation everywhere, let's call off the search for validation and decide from the get go that we're good enough as we are. So these lessons that I just shared with you are just general principles that are going to allow you to feel more relaxed when you're trying to get things done. And they will bring you to the opposite of tightness and stress that feeling like oh, I just have to beat myself up one more time. For good measure, we're going to get away from that kind of behavior. And what is the opposite of tightness and ease? I'm going to suggest the word out Sorry, I gave away the word, the opposite of tightness and stress is ease. So how do we achieve this feeling of ease, and here I go with another short list of tips. First tip here, we need to decide that stress is a non essential component of our day and in our projects, and some of you might be listening to me say this, thinking She's nuts, because stress is rampant, right? I want to let you know that we've just gotten in the habit of feeling really ramped up with stress when we think that our projects are super important, or that we feel like things aren't working, and that we need to show that we care about our work. But I want you to know that you can do really excellent work, perhaps some of your best work, without swimming in our rivers and oceans of stress. It's just not necessary, we think it is. But that's just something that we were taught early on. And I just promise you that you do not need to feel stressed when you're working. So the first tip of achieving a feeling of ease is to separate stress out from your work. The second tip is kind of like that universe tip that I said a couple minutes ago, we want to let other forces to help us out. So it's other people, serendipity or imagination, or past experience, our neighbors songs we hear on the radio students you've had, whatever it is, try to take lessons from everywhere all around you. It's not just about our logical, rational brain. And so often we over rely on what our brain is telling us and our brain is just one element of our creativity. It's only part of the story. So let's not forget about all the things that we can't make sense of. But we know and feel in our hearts, because that's some good material that we can use that we might be missing out on. When we're trying to get our work done. Let's let that amorphous stuff, the energy stuff, the spiritual stuff, the creative stuff, let's let that shine a little bit brighter when we're trying to get things done. So the third idea here is to remember, this one's important that we cannot feel like we're responsible for all the things. I think when we feel like we're responsible for everything, everyone's feelings, everyone's outcomes, blah, blah, blah, everything, everything, everything. Again, we feel pressured, and we feel stressed. And we feel like we have to take care of every one, two, and if there's anything that I found, is impossible, it's taking care of everyone and everyone's feelings. So the great thing about being an adult, and being a well functioning adult, is that we can believe that we are surrounded by adults who are also responsible for their feelings and for their outcomes, and that they're also well functioning that we can feel safe that we don't have to rescue everyone and that everyone can actually take care of themselves. And that can free ourselves up for better action, better behavior, better

feelings.

If you're feeling kind of wiped out, it might be that you've been trying too hard. You've been pushing yourself too much. So I want to give you a piece of advice here to do half of what you're doing and see what happens. Chances are you're going to find that one. No one's going to notice that you gave half the effort at all, just nobody's going to notice. And two, if someone does notice they're going to forget about it within a week. It's just not that important. To burn yourself out to get something done. Nothing is that important. So restore yourself. take that time to find your Calm productivity to find that ease when you're working. Use these podcast episodes as reminders that you can build a new framework anytime you want. And I'm definitely hoping that all of your work gets easier for you from here on out, I know that if you decide that it's going to it will. So in order to encourage you to put these tips into play, and to make your work life easier, I've created a one page personal plan for you. And it's just what it sounds like. It's one page where you can map out your plan, the steps you're going to take and the commitment you have to succeed with that plan. And again, it's a free download, all you have to do is go to make time for success podcast.com slash plan. Again, make time for success podcast.com slash plan, and you'll get this one page sheet and with the tips that you just heard on this podcast episode, you should be flying with these. Good luck have fun. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to this episode of The make time for success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website make time for success podcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.