It's easy to be hard on yourself, because you are your worst critic after all. But it’s something that you should try to avoid, because it can have so many negative effects spanning across so many aspects of your life!
Why it’s so Detrimental
Being hard on yourself can hold you back from doing things that will help you grow.
It breeds a negative mindset which you may unwillingly reflect back onto other people, even friends! For example, say your friend said they really want to try something out, or accomplish a certain task, and your immediate reaction is to doubt they will ever accomplish said thing. And if you act on these doubts and try to bring your friend down, this can make you into a “toxic” friend, which is the kind of person many people would rather avoid.
It’s important to remember that nobody is perfect, and in fact failure is a necessary and unavoidable part of life!
Examples of Why it’s Bad
It’s common for some artists to not want to draw because they feel like the resulting artwork won’t be good enough.
This is extremely detrimental as if you hold yourself back from trying, you’ll never be able to improve - and so that feeling of not being good enough will NEVER go away!
This can then in turn have a very negative effect on your mental health, as this attitude may develop into far deeper negative feelings towards yourself.
What to do Next
First and foremost, you need to accept yourself in your current position.
You can’t change the past, and so there’s no point in dwelling on it.
Instead, all you can do is look to the future and how you will improve your habits, and therefore your situation. Instead of dwelling over how skilled you COULD HAVE been right now if you hadn’t “wasted” the past months or years not practising, you should instead focus on how you’re going to start fitting in that time to practise in the next few days, weeks, and months.
Everyone can benefit from practising positive reinforcement - continuously tell yourself that you CAN and you WILL accomplish what you want!
Another thing I think is extremely important, is you need to find the joy in learning and practising - not just the attractive picture of the “end result”. In life, there is no end result - people only perceive it that way. In reality, life is endless learning and experiences - you can never be perfect, but you can always strive to be better than you were yesterday.
And most important - remember that you control your destiny. The only thing holding you back is yourself.
What are you typically too hard on yourself for? And what affect has that had on you?
If you try out anything mentioned in this blog post, I’d love to hear about how you go!