Why We Self-Criticize And How To Be Kinder To Ourselves
The key to self-compassion is through practicing mindfulness.
Have you heard of Quitter’s Day? Apparently, it is the day that most of our New Year’s resolutions or goals fall by the wayside. The exact dates that we are most likely to negate on our goals seem to differ depending on whom you ask.
In general however, researchers agree that most people give up on their goals in the first month of setting goals i.e. January or specifically, on January 19 as suggested by a study of over 800 million user-logged activity on Strava (an app used for tracking activities like running and cycling).
It is of course, natural to give up on goals if they are incompatible with how we live our lives or if we do not feel attached to how meaningful or important the goal is for us.
However, the abandonment of our goals often comes with hefty side dishes of shame, guilt and most of all, self-criticism. The self-criticism eats away at our self-esteem, our self-worth and sometimes threaten how we see ourselves.
We then move on to set new goals or work on new habits, but the unyielding self-criticism is always there rearing its ugly head.
The underlying mechanism of self-criticism
I am sure this does not come as a surprise to you, we criticize ourselves on many things. Our failed attempts at goals, our inadequacies (perceived or otherwise), our failures and setbacks and even our successes.
When we experience failures, we will naturally blame ourselves on not being motivated enough or procrastinating too much or not being competent enough. When we succeed however, we might still criticize ourselves on how long we took to get there or how we could have achieved more.
We just can’t help ourselves when it comes to self-criticisms.
Research suggests that when we experience perceived failures, it threatens our-self-concept or how we think of ourselves. For example, if we failed at establishing a workout habit so we can lose weight, our inner critic tells us it is because we are lazy. However, being lazy is not how we see ourselves and this dissonance sends our minds into a tailspin.
This threat to our self-concept then triggers our fight or flight response which releases cortisol and stress in our body. To alleviate that stress, we then try to “scold” ourselves into moving out of the situation, much like how parents and teachers might try to do with children.
Naturally, the “self-scolding” then creates more stress and before you know it, we are stuck in a vicious cycle of criticisms and stress.
Perfectionism and fear of failure
Self-criticism is a part of our natural mindset, however where it gets dicey is if we get overtly critical in too many aspects of our lives. Study suggests that people high in self-criticism also tend to score high in perfectionism, however this by no means indicate that all self-critical people are perfectionists.
Self-criticism has also been suggested to predict depression. In a study involving fourth-year medical students, high levels of self-criticism predicted onset of depression two years later for the female students and ten years later for male students.
It is not just actual failures that trigger an overdrive of self-criticism. The fear of failure can trigger an avalanche of self-criticism which results in us not even trying to achieve anything in the first place.
Have you ever thought about doing something big like aiming for a big promotion, or entering a competition or even publishing an article online. What does your brain tell you? Do you hear things like “you will never get picked for this” or “what makes you think you are qualified to do this”?
This is your inner critic making its voice loud and clear. And for most, this self-criticism is enough to stop them from reaching further.
Parental criticism can play a part
Studies also indicate that the propensity for excessive self-criticism may stem from our childhood or significantly, parental criticism. I can’t speak for all childhoods as I am Singaporean Chinese, but for most Asian children, our parents tend to be critical of what we have or haven’t done.
For example, when I was a child, if I came back with a high percentile score on a paper, say 85% or even 95%, instead of praising my high scores, my parents would ask why I did not score a 100%. Even as an adult woman, and many Asian daughters would attest to this I’m sure, my mother would remark that I had gained weight when I haven’t. The criticism does not end.
It seems counterintuitive to criticize your own kids, however, in Asian culture, praise is a rarity for one’s child. Instead, criticisms and comparisons against others are used as encouragement. And these are the warm and fuzzy parents!
On the extreme end of the parenting stick is called “tiger parenting” which is a controlling and authoritarian form of parenting involving excessive control, lack of emotional support and severe criticisms. When this kind of criticism is rampant during childhood, it conditions us to have an overt fear of failure and an excessive propensity for self-criticism.
Higher stakes, more criticism
That said, we cannot blame our parents for everything. Often, propensity for self-criticism comes from our own personality. We are also more self-critical when we care about an outcome and when more is at stake for us, the more critical we become.
For example, you might want to learn to dance for fun but have two left feet, it is likely that you will not learn to dance well but you are not as critical with yourself because it is just for fun. However, you might be less forgiving with yourself if you failed your college exams after spending a lot of time and money on studying. The higher the stakes, the more self-critical we become.
Be kinder to yourself
Even though self-criticism is going to be a life-long companion for most mortals, it seems that we might be able to mediate it with a little self-compassion.
According to Kristin Neff, undoubtedly the expert on self-compassion, when we are kind to ourselves, we release oxytocin (feel-good hormones) in our body and decrease cortisol (stress hormones). She has also found in her studies that being self-compassionate also helps improve our heart rate variability and allows us to adapt better to challenging situations not just mentally but physiologically as well.
Research also suggests that people with more self-compassion are less prone to depression, have a higher sense of self-efficacy and agency towards their own lives. They also experience a lesser fear of failure, are better equipped to deal with setbacks and are less likely to ruminate over their past failures.
This by no means mean that self-compassionate people never criticize themselves, their self-compassion however allows them to recognize that failures do not diminish who they are as humans.
Nurture your self-compassion
Self-compassion does not come naturally to most of us, however we can nurture it in ourselves gradually. The most vital factor in nurturing self-compassion is through the practice of mindfulness.
First, we start by being aware of our setback and how we feel about it without judgment, exaggeration nor avoidance. Next, we can also be more kind and understanding about our perceived inadequacies. A useful way of thinking about this is, what would you say to your best friend if she was criticizing herself? Often, we find it easier to be compassionate to others and not to ourselves.
Lastly, self-compassion starts simply by recognizing that we are humans, and that failures and setbacks are just a natural part of our lives. There is no need for prolonged self-criticisms, we just need to learn from it, pick ourselves up and continue moving forward.
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