If Only One Question Defines Your Life, Let It Be This
A whole new way to think about yourself.
I’m too hard on myself.
It’s a line that comes up often in therapy. People beating up on themselves, being too critical — way more than can be justified.
Any therapist can vouch for this — people can find an awful lot of ways to put themselves down. Their brains, their looks and body, their personality traits. Their relationships. Their choices.
That’s before they even get started on the things they believe they lack (a good career or partner, close friends, achievement, motivation, discipline, resilience).
It’s a long, long list. Which is a pity. Because it promotes a negative self-view.
And there’s absolutely no gain in that.
Maybe you are “good enough”?
A struggle with self-criticism can almost always be tracked back to this core belief: “I’m not good enough.”
Most people don’t have too much trouble identifying where this belief first took hold. Perhaps from a predator or abusive figure, perhaps from someone in their family, perhaps at school where they were bullied or excluded, perhaps in their early relationships/friendships?