You Are Your Own Worst Critic.
Why do you do it? Why do you blame yourself for every aspect in which you feel less than?. It is crucial to set high standards for ourselves, in order for us to achieve our goals and aspirations. However, it is also these self-imposed, high expectations that will eventually cause us to turn on ourselves with self-deprecating words. That is when you unknowingly, become your very own worst critic.
Our entire world exists within a bubble we have created for ourselves. In this bubble we hold ourselves to an immeasurable standard of perfection, and when that standard of ‘perfection’ fails to be met, like dominoes, piece by piece, the image we have spent years curating begins to fall upon another until it feels like the world is collapsing around us. That is when we begin to question our worth. We replay the same scenarios in our head over and over again, all the things we could have done, all the things we should have done, all the different outcomes we could have produced had we done one thing differently.
Words like “I’m not good enough” or “I will never be good enough” start spiralling in our head — this is what ultimately tears us down, sabotages any progress we are making and make us believe lies that strip us of our self-esteem.
We measure ourselves, our self-worth, our value, by standards that are not even real. Why? because these standards are created by you, yourself. These benchmarks that you so desperately want to attain, that achieving them becomes a matter of life or death — who created these? YOU DID. It is your own perspective, your own head, your own mental dialogue… it is you.
You can’t reverse time and right your wrongs. You can’t fix that relationship you messed up. You can’t get back that career opportunity you lost out on. People leave this world, and are currently lying in their graves with piles of unfinished business. They spent their whole lives trying to be perfect, trying to right every wrong, they never really got around to making their life worthwhile.
Don’t make heartache, regret and disappointment a norm in your life, because you feel undeserving or unworthy. What you value in yourself, and what other people have valued in you your whole life, makes a difference in how you live your life today. The labels you deem yourself worthy of are a result of, shame-based self-image and are often formed when you are in a dark or depressive state of mind. These labels could also be a product of the environment you grew up in.
What happens when you believe those labels you’ve deemed yourself to be true? You spend your whole life believing those lies and trying to prove to the world that you are anything but those things. Your hunger for approval from others hits an all time peak and you try to grasp at any form of flattery, to make yourself feel good. You try desperately to find your place in society, or to just belong.
You fear being exposed as flawed, or even insufficient because your self-image is embedded in shame. You firmly believe that your failures and disappointments are the only logical outcome of who you really are, and because that has been your belief system for the longest time it is self-enforcing. The unceasing self-critiquing and hatefulness you carry within yourself, is what kills your self-esteem. It takes away any semblance of joy you may feel as a blindfold of hate and disgust restricts you from seeing anything good and worthy in yourself.
Your successes may be seen by others. Your accomplishments may even be admired or envied by some. But you are unlikely to believe that any of your accomplishments are anything more than mere chances. You are unlikely to believe that you have the power to make great things happen, solely because you don’t believe in yourself. You are your own worst critic.
