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Monday 2 February 2015

Excessive Self-Criticism

This week I am continuing on with my focus on type of 'Thinking Errors' - ways of thinking that can create problems for you. Today I consider Excessive Self-Criticism. A certain amount of self-evaluation is sensible and helpful but if you have a tendency frequently to put yourself down or focus more on what you see as your bad characteristics than on your qualities then this can create a lot of stress and reinforce low self-esteem.

Some tips for balancing your tendency to be overly self-critical:
  • Remember that no one is perfect and it's OK for you to be imperfect occasionally!
  • If you regret something you have done then rather than dwell on it and castigate yourself, set a simple goal for what you will try to do differently next time and focus on that.
  • Ask yourself what a good friend would say your good points are. Remind yourselves of those good points when you are tempted to be overly self-critical.
  • Don't be so hard on yourself
For information about where you can get more tips for dealing with negative thought patterns, click on the link below:

CBT Techniques to Beat Negative Thinking

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for the great tips. I agree that it is very important to understand that life sometimes is not easy. However, we only live once, and we have to understand that everyday we have another chance to live life fully.
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  2. Excellent tips! Self-criticism may be important but it is also important to remember that we are not perfect and we make mistakes. We should not be too hard on ourselves but instead we should learn from every failure we encounter in our life.

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