Today we’re going to discuss how you talk to or treat yourself when you’ve made a mistake, or maybe when you’ve not shown up as your best. And specifically, what to do when we have a habit of beating ourselves up for that. 

For example…

Let’s say you lose your patience with a friend or co-worker and say some things you wish you hadn’t. 

Or maybe you take on new responsibilities at work and give it your absolute best but in your view (or maybe your boss’s) you come up short.

When you do something that you regret or show up as less than your best, how do you handle it? 

Do you roll with it and vow to do better next time? Or do you obsess and overthink and beat yourself up?

How many mistakes and regrets from your past are you still punishing yourself for – either in your personal or professional life?

This is important to know because how we talk to and treat ourselves matters. 

We all know that none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes. We all show up sometimes as less than we know we can be. But some of us find it easier to accept that while others spend their entire lives punishing themselves for every way they believe they’ve stumbled a little.

Being self-aware that you’ve fallen a little short of expectations – your own or others – is a good thing. We can learn from those situations and ideally vow to show up better next time we’re in that situation. 

But too often, instead of using that self-awareness of the mistake or failure or regretful thing to improve how we show up going forward, many of us will instead compound that thing we regret by lashing out at ourselves. 

Because for some, the self-awareness and feelings of regret can trigger an overactive Inner Critic who might make the problem even worse by beating ourselves up. And instead of looking for the lessons to fuel a better performance in the future, we can erode our self esteem and confidence by bullying and berating ourselves endlessly for what we did wrong. And that can really hold us back in our career. It can keep us stuck in fear and uncertainty and regret and make our life less joyful than it could be.

For so many of us it’s too easy to be tough on ourselves and it’s a regular habit. And the problem with that is that instead of realizing that the problem is coming from habitual negative patterns of thought, we can make the mistake of thinking that nasty voice in our head just knows the truth about us. 

So, for all you perfectionists and overthinkers and self-doubters, this is for you. Even if beating up on yourself has become a life- long habit that’s deeply ingrained. The important thing to know is that you can shift out of that habit by learning how to practice self-compassion. 

For more, give the episode a listen.

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