I Love My Inner Critic

Most of us are very hard on ourselves. We’re wired to focus on our negatives, so congratulating ourselves feels weird.

Yes, there’s a case to be made for not being so hard on ourselves.

It’s fashionable now to throw around the phrase “self-care.”

Though I see a lot of people bastardizing this – they need an excuse for something so they call it “self-care.”

Exercise, reading, rest = good examples of self-care.

Hurting someone out of spite = no, you don’t get to justify that by calling it self-care.

Eating a pound of Skittles while sitting on the couch and letting “reality” television destroy your last remaining brain cells = also not self-care.

While I don’t think it’s good to constantly focus on the negatives, what we didn’t get done, what we could have done better…

I also think there’s VALUE in being our own worst critics. If you can’t be critical of yourself, you take away your ability to identify areas for improvement.

When I admit what I don’t know, I figure out what I need to learn.

I think the key is using criticism to formulate a plan for change.

(Just wallowing in it doesn’t do any good, because you’ll never improve and you’ll be a miserable bastard.)

But listening to criticism and genuinely trying to understand it is a huge gift. Our inner critic isn’t something that needs to be constantly battled or silenced. I’d argue that our inner critic is actually one of our greatest allies.

Praise feels great. But if we’re not also willing to be honest with ourselves about our own shortcomings, we might as well turn on The Bachelorette and pass the Skittles.