Why Am I So Hard on Myself?
You may be trying to figure out why you have difficulty accepting your flaws, allowing for mistakes, and recovering from regrets. You find yourself replaying mistakes in your mind, holding yourself to standards you would never expect from others, and believing that self-criticism is necessary to be successful.
These are all signs that you struggle with self-criticism, the process of being internally critical towards yourself. Many people who struggle with self-criticism also struggle with anxiety, which involves frequent worry and rumination.
What Self-Criticism Can Sound Like
Self-criticism is often experienced as a harsh internal voice, sharing all the ways you are not measuring up. If you struggle with self-criticism, some examples of messages you may say to yourself are:
- “I should know better”
- “I’m not doing enough”
- “Everyone else handles things better than me”
- “I’m worthless and have nothing to offer”
- “I’m a fraud and they made a mistake in hiring me”
These harsh messages can go beyond simply having low self-esteem – often these messages involve an active process of putting yourself down and vigilantly monitoring yourself for flaws.
When High Standards Turn Into Self-Attack
You might think it’s good to have high standards, and perhaps you feel your self-criticism is helping you to be successful. However self-criticism is different from healthy ambition and self-accountability. Healthy ambition looks like treating yourself as a human who is bound to make mistakes on the road to success. And healthy self-accountability looks like recognizing that you deserve empathy and forgiveness even when it’s important to you to own up to your mistakes.
On the other hand, self-criticism involves stripping away any humanity, compassion, and empathy in talking to yourself. Once these characteristics are no longer present, your high standards are no longer supportive, and are instead a tool of self-attack towards yourself.
How Self-Criticism and Anxiety Feed Each Other
Anxiety and self-criticism are closely related and often turn into a cruel cycle. This cycle starts with anxiety creating fear of uncertainty and of making mistakes. Self-criticism is then used as an attempt to gain control of the anxiety. The idea is that as long as you’re hard on yourself, maybe you can create more certainty and avoid mistakes.
However, the harshness and pressure created by self-criticism layers pressure on top of you, leading to more anxiety. By being hard on yourself, you’re sending the message to yourself that failure is not an option, upping the stakes of the anxiety.
This cycle can involve overthinking, perfectionism, avoidance, and reassurance-seeking, which are all elements of trying to reduce anxiety and respond to your harsh inner voice.
Why Being Hard on Yourself Does Not Make You More Motivated
It’s hard to let go of your inner critic after living with it so long – you may start to believe that your critic is helping you. However, bullying yourself does not actually lead to more motivation or success.
Picture times in your life when someone was harsh with you – maybe you had a really tough coach or teacher growing up. When those figures were angry and intimidating, did you find that motivating? Or were you more prone to make a mistake under the pressure, or simply give up due to overwhelm?
Your inner voice can have the same impact as a harsh coach or teacher, leaving you feeling defeated, fatigued, and afraid to try much for fear of making a mistake.
Where a Harsh Inner Critic Can Come From
Your harsh inner critic may come from a variety of sources. To begin with, as humans, we are all wired to be social and seek social approval, which can lead most people to be self-critical from time to time to ensure that you’re staying included in the group.
For some people, that propensity for self-examination can be amplified due to experiences of abuse or emotional neglect, high expectations from parents, sports or academic environments that demanded high standards, and general achievement culture that may have been promoted in your community. You may have a predisposition towards anxiety or perfectionism that can exacerbate self-criticism as well.
For many people, self-criticism doesn’t come from a single source. For example, you may be a generally anxious person who ends up in a demanding academic program, and have a parent who emphasizes getting high grades. No one source caused your self-criticism, but these factors came together to lead you to internalize harsh standards inside of yourself that can last long after you’ve left the environments promoting these standards.
What Self-Compassion Looks Like When You Feel Anxious
When you’re stuck in a loop of self-criticism and anxiety, you may struggle to find your way out of it. A simple and manageable place to start is offering yourself self-compassion. Self-compassion is the process of treating yourself with the same empathy and kindness you would offer to anyone else who is suffering.
Through self-compassion, you can start to view your self-critical thoughts as painful messages that you would likely never want others to receive. You can acknowledge this pain, and take small steps towards envisioning a kinder way to approach your perceived mistakes and your anxiety.
Self-Compassion Is Not Letting Yourself Off the Hook
Self-compassion may be difficult to embrace if you fear the consequences of letting yourself off the hook. However, self-compassion is not about never caring about the impact of your actions. Instead, self-compassion involves taking a holistic view of the situation – recognizing your role, but also all the factors that led you to that point.
Self-compassion recognizes that shame is not a very good motivator, and that accountability can come with empathy and gentleness. Picture how you might treat a pet who made a mess – do you get farther yelling and criticizing, or calmly making a plan for how to prevent the next mess?
We can treat ourselves with that same patience and room for mistakes, forgiveness, and growth.
How ACT Can Help You Change Your Relationship With Self-Critical Thoughts
Acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT, is an approach that can help you respond to your self-critical inner voice without having to make the critical thoughts go away before moving towards a life that matters to you.
ACT recognizes that we have very little control over the thoughts our mind generates. So when your mind generates negative and critical thoughts, ACT encourages you to build room for those thoughts without getting caught up in believing the thoughts as facts.
For example, before giving a big speech you may have thoughts like “you didn’t prepare enough”, “people are going to laugh at you”, and “it’ll be too embarrassing if you mess up during this speech.” Using the ACT approach, you can thank your mind for trying to warn you of potential dangers, while recognizing that these thoughts are not helpful for you. Instead, you can re-connect with the reason you wanted to give the talk, and give the talk despite the anxious and critical thoughts that come your way.
When Therapy Can Help With Anxiety and Self-Criticism
Hopefully this article has given you a few ideas to start down a path of greater self-kindness and freedom from anxious self-criticism. However, there are times when therapy can help continue your progress towards less self-criticism and greater self-support.
If you notice yourself experiencing any of the following, you may benefit from seeking therapy for self-criticism and anxiety:
- Constant second-guessing around your decisions
- Frequent perfectionism
- Avoiding taking risks in line with your values
- Burnout
- Feeling like nothing you do is good enough
If you recognize yourself in these signs, therapy can help you identify the roots of your distress, build better habits of self-compassion, and clarify meaningful steps towards change. If you’re in Texas, I’m a licensed professional counselor specializing in compassion-focused therapy for anxiety and self-criticism. I offer virtual sessions for people throughout Texas, and in-person sessions in my Houston office. If you’re interested in working with me, schedule a free consultation call at the link below.