Are you being too hard on yourself?

Here’s something I notice quite often when I’m coaching high-performing people.

If I suggest they might benefit from being a little kinder to themselves, they can become slightly suspicious.

They hear something differently, and respond with something like:

‘What, lower my standards? Stop pushing myself? Let myself off the hook?!’

And I completely understand this... because my own inner critic has never knowingly let a minor mistake go uninvestigated. It’s remarkably thorough.

But I think we sometimes confuse three different things.

Drive: I want to do this well.

Discipline: I’m prepared to do what it takes, ethically and within reason.

And Harsh self-criticism: If I don’t do it well, I’m going to give myself a seriously hard time!

The interesting thing is; you only need the first two.

And excessive self-criticism can eventually start getting in the way of progress.

You rehearse the presentation for the forty-third time to try and make it perfect.

You don’t offer an opinion in a meeting because you want to be completely on top of a subject before contributing.

Or you have a difficult conversation then spend the rest of the day - and night - replaying everything you said.

The inner critic might think it’s maintaining standards. Actually, it may just be consuming bandwidth.

So here’s a useful question.

If a colleague you respected made exactly the same mistake, what would you say to them? Probably not:

‘Well, that’s it then. Your career’s had a good run.’

You’d say something like:

‘Ok. That didn’t go brilliantly. It's not the end of the world. So what can you learn from it?’

And that’s the distinction.

Self-kindness doesn’t mean lowering the bar.

Keep the standards.

Keep the discipline.

Lose the punishment.

I work with a small number of leaders and professionals each year, helping them develop greater confidence, executive presence and influence in the moments that matter most. You can find out more about my coaching approach here

And if my work sounds relevant to you and would like to talk, I would first encourage a half hour conversation, with no obligation, to see if I'm the right coach to support you.

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