Just a draft from 10:58 on a Sunday Night

It’s a mix of lighters and candles burning and staring at my rolled up apron. I’m a workaholic in self-isolation burning up her extra time by over-thinking. I’m watching SNL and listening to podcasts and watching interviews. I’m stuck in a cave wanting to be better by the time I come out. So if I dissect my lesser qualities and formulate techniques to improve them will I become better? Maybe not completely, but I want to try. What quality should I dissect today? Being overly sensitive.

I’m overly-sensitive. It makes me defensive, it feeds my anxiety, it makes work more uncomfortable than need be. In which situations can I recall being oversensitive? I’m overly sensitive when it comes to recieving criticism. I need to work on remembering 2 things. Number one, criticism is constructively given to address a miscommunication in expectations. If I make a mistake ringing in an order at work and my management complains they’re doing so to address expectations in order to achieve a common interest: providing better service. Number two, if someone is being disrespectful, inappropriate, or unreasonable when they’re expressing criticism, I should just take it knowing that an overreaction of me would make that situation worse. I’d be smarter to take the high road more often, anyway.

Why am I overly sensitive? I need validation. Without having validation from authority figures, or approval from the company I keep, I feel like I’m a bad person. I think I’d be a better person if I could digest a negative performance review, or not read into a joke from a boyfriend without acting up. I don’t think successful people can afford to be crippled by the anxiety caused by feeling like a bad or unliked person. I also would like to think I’m a good person.

How do I implement a plan to get thicker skin? I have to remind myself I wouldn’t be employed if I wasn’t a good employee. So I can feel secure knowing that I’m good enough to have my job, and through listening to constructive criticism I can only become better. Some criticisms might feel unreasonable or difficult to swallow, but through the acceptance of them, I’m still taking a healthier approach by swallowing the criticism.