If you are overly critical with yourself... Read this

Are you a high performing man who’s overly critical with yourself?

You probably used self berating and being hyper self-critical as a form of motivation in the past.

Your parents, teachers or coaches may have used this with you too.

This can be a potent energy to kick us into action and get us off our backsides when we are younger and into high performance, whether at school, sports, career etc.
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It can stir something within us to instigate quick change.

However, as we get older the motivational ‘effect’ wears off, and the self berating turns from motivation to depression.

If this is you…

The key is self compassion.

Self compassion cultivates more positive emotions, improves our mental health, physical health, fulfilment in our life and relationships.

Here are 3 ways to develop more self compassion:

• Find a photo of your younger self and spend time looking at it and really experience what you feel as you look into his eyes. Have it in a space where you can look at it on a regular basis.

• Write down all the major challenges you’ve already overcome in your life to get to where you are now, how you got through it and how it made you a better person. Celebrate this.

• Think of someone you love dearly in your life, preferably a young person, whether your child, a niece or nephew, a friend’s child etc, and if they came to you telling you they speak to themselves, the same way you speak to yourself, what advice would you give them? That very advice, start giving to yourself.

It's also important to understand that you’re not the only one dealing with this, so many silently suffer with this, which included me for a very long time, you are not unique in your struggle, you're not alone.

You've got this!