How to Stop Being Your Own Worst Enemy
"You are your biggest critic”
We have all heard this phrase in one way or another. What it is trying to convey is that there is no one that criticizes you more than yourself, because no one knows you better than yourself. Although self-criticism can be a way to reflect on our shortcomings and improve on them, sometimes we can overstep the bounds and hurt ourselves. By constantly putting blame on ourselves for every single fault, we can lower our self-esteem drastically and make ourselves even more confused on how to do better. Here’s several things one can do to avoid this pitfall.
1. Avoid thinking our capabilities and results are fixed
When there is a daunting task ahead of us, it is often easy to conclude right away that we will not succeed. We become too quick to blame ourselves for never being good enough and we shy away from putting our best foot forward instead of seeing things through and learning how we can do better as we go. When I was in sophomore year, I came into my first upper division major course in analytical chemistry very intimidated and thought I was not going to pass because I did not do well in my first lab. Despite this initial demoralizing sentiment, I began to focus on how I could improve on the upcoming work and managed to pass the class pretty comfortably. Our skill levels and results aren’t predetermined destiny, they’re just an endpoint to a long journey we have control over.
2. Don’t become too focused on being perfect
Another tendency we also have when it comes to big, important tasks is that we focus so much on perfection. However, the overemphasis on perfection can lead us to spend more time than needed on the little details and self-degradation over what we couldn’t perfect. Instead, we should aim to do “good” or “great” work overall rather than stifling progress to reach a little further to be “perfect”. As a chemistry major, I work on 10-15 lab reports a semester, and I would often obsess over trying to get the small details right, such as grammar and formatting, thinking it would get me very good marks. However, I failed to realize that I needed to focus on having the main concepts and explanations be concise and well thought out instead of focusing on smaller syntax issues that took up precious time. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s our smallest mistakes that produce the biggest self-criticisms.
3. Take some time to enjoy your wins
Oftentimes, we spend more time focusing on what we weren’t able to achieve instead of celebrating what we have accomplished. As a result, even if we end-up completing important work, we may wind up being more negative on ourselves than before. As someone with a bit of social anxiety, I often have the bad tendency to dwell over the missteps I took whenever I hang out with friends, whether it’s saying something wrong or not doing something I’m supposed to do. However, I, with the help of my friends, try to keep reminding myself that as long we’re having fun and meaningful conversations, I have done my part. If the great things that we’ve accomplished get swept under the rug by ourselves, the self-confidence that is needed for bigger adversities will never come.