Stop beating yourself up!

Do you find that you keep beating your self up? You are not alone as millions of people have the same habit. The problem is that by beating yourself up it becomes an addictive process so that whenever you make even the smallest mistake or simply don’t fulfill your own expectations of your self then the self critical and hurtful side of the personality kicks in. If this habit is not curbed then you can simply make life hell for your self.

Although you want to know how to stop beating yourself up, the very first thing that is essential to understand is: WHY are you beating yourself up? The reason why you need this understanding is that there is little point in trying the various techniques which help you to stop beating yourself up if the underlying cause is not identified and sorted out.

The fundamental reason for being so self critical and even cynical are almost always due to the lack of self love and self esteem. It doesn’t matter what your portfolio may be like. For example you may be a company CEO, a top athlete or celebrity or etc. It is more important how you value your self internally rather than just what the world thinks of you. The simple reality is that you don’t live or communicate with any one person all the time but you do live with and communicate to your self all the time.

How to stop beating yourself up? It all starts with observing your own thoughts and emotions to learn what is going on inside your head. Recognize what thoughts you produce and what kind of emotions they lead to. Very often you may have one thought of frustration due to a lack of achievement; it may even be due to not being able to complete a very simple task on time. That one thought of frustration then leads to a deeper emotion of frustration which then leads to more thoughts of frustration…and so the pattern continues. At that moment when you have a negative thought stop your mind for a moment and immediately produce a positive thought and try to feel that thought so the thought changes from just a thought to a feeling. For example replace a thought of frustration with a thought of patience. What you are doing is simply giving yourself space to change your thought patterns. It works; try it

Here is another very effective method to stop your self from beating yourself up: Before you start your working day and also before you launch into each particular activity within the day, stop for a few seconds to qualify and quantify what you want to achieve and by when you want to achieve it. As many causes for self criticism are due to the self imposed pressure of time, the time you give to your self will enable you to plan out your day more effectively so that the priorities get listed first on your list. By stopping before you start each main activity to check why you are about to do such an activity and how you are going to get it done will provide clarity and purpose as well as a chance to make sure that you have everything that you will need. This also works

To conclude it is very simply giving your self some much needed space in your own mind so that you know what you are thinking and the likely results of that. Then you are adjusting or re-directing the thoughts to experience a much more positive state