How to Know You're Being Hard on Yourself?

A few weeks ago, a member of my professional development course asked a question I hadn't heard in six years of training: “How do I know if I'm being hard on myself and when?”

After working with her for 14 weeks, I discovered that she suffers from what I call “perfectionistic over-functioning,” a disorder that causes us to do more than is healthy, appropriate, and necessary and try to do everything perfectly, straining ourselves to the core in the process.

This over-performance is a problem I have noticed in hundreds of clever women with achievements, evidenced by nine clear signs. To know if you are hard on yourself and not comfortable with whatever you have achieved and constantly change your goals so that you always feel that you are doing more than what is required of you, ask yourself the following:

• Do I feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and anxious every week trying to keep up with the things I am forced to do in my life and work?
• Do I feel bad or inadequate when comparing myself to other people, including parents, professionals, and employers?
• Do I treat all things in my life as if they were of the highest priority and urgency when I have only a few important things?
• Do you feel that everything you do does not give you satisfaction and is not worthy of praise or admiration?
• Have you ever gotten used to people around you always giving, and you feel that it is challenging to get out of this circle, and you are afraid to try for fear of what others think of you?
• Do you feel that asking for help is a sign of weakness and imperfection, and would you rather struggle and try to do everything yourself?
• Do you feel empty, sad, and unfulfilled most of the time?
• When you stop and take the time to think, do you think happiness, success, and safety belong to you or others?
• Do you know what it's like to be successful or not so hard?

If you answer “yes” to one or more of these questions, know that you are being hard on yourself, which hurts you. This behavior arises from deep-seated fear rather than conscious choice and hinders you from living a professional, personal, rewarding, and happy life.

This kind of behavior and lack of self-acceptance or self-love often stems from the messages and fears we developed in childhood from our parents and strong teachers, signs that we are simply not worthy enough, loved, or accepted if we do not reach perfection in all aspects.

It has often come to my attention that an individual who grows up in a family where one of the siblings is very difficult or troubled in some way, the other sibling often tries their best to be the good person to try to make their parents happy and find more stability and success within the family. Unfortunately, this mostly does not work because one core fact is essential to understand: your childhood molds you into the person you are now unless you forget about it and recover from it.

You can stop being cruel to yourself and strive to develop yourself personally and professionally in prosperity with the help of these basic steps.

Basic steps for stop being cruel to yourself:

1. Reaching the roots of fear:

To review a behavior we want to change, it's helpful to learn about the age of this pattern, the period we've learned it from, and how we've known to behave in this way. Just as we cleanse our garden by uprooting weeds, we can do the same with our thoughts. By revealing the roots of unwanted thoughts, fear, or behavior and learning how they've formed as a coping mechanism, we can treat them and show them more effectively. This is because we realize we are no longer the vulnerable young person who needs this coping behavior to survive or be accepted.

2. Identify what true success means to you, and then review your behavior to enable this type of success:

Many people are subjected to a specific concept of success that they formed unconsciously earlier in life and no longer gives them happiness;. In my book The Most Powerful You, which explores the seven most power gaps faced by working women, a woman named Kendra shares her story about the fact that she was addicted to work as a result of a trauma she experienced in her childhood, and how she entered into this vicious circle that destroyed her health and safety, saying: "I had a workaholic mentality in every situation, and it used to get me into the same vortex:

• I have to work 40 - 50 - 60 hours and more to prove my worth and get promoted. If a person works less than 40 hours a week, they are just an average person, or in my opinion, people do not do their required work.
• I have to get a promotion and get a significant pay raise.
• I have to burn functionally.
• I get rewards from my boss, but I feel my soul empty.
• I felt bad that I was ignoring my husband, gaining weight, and doing nothing but work; as a result, I cared only about one thing, which is my work.
• I think neither the company, the product, nor these businesses are right for me, so I have to find a different company or industry that I can be “proud of” or “give me a sense of purpose.”
• I change jobs all the time.
• I Repeat that every 18 months - 5 years.

After experiencing the collapse that led to seeing the truth, my client changed her way of thinking and her life. I worked hard to abandon this strong adherence to a kind of success that almost destroyed her happiness. She says: “I realized then that I need to think more about the possibilities and give up my negative thinking and adopt an optimistic mindset. It was a challenge, but changing this mindset has broadened my horizons, made me more receptive to who I am, and changed my priorities. I no longer want to let life drag me with it as I want. I want to manage my ship.”

This shift in my thinking helps me know if I am not in line with my current career and live, thanks to it, in my nature. I realize I wanted to have a luxury car and a large house, but I am not a material person in my heart; the mentality of scarcity drives me to excel financially in my career. When my co-workers bragged about their stay in a five-star hotel and expensive lunches, I was upset and hoped to walk and camp in the woods with my family and eat barbecue on the campfire. My current career keeps me with these people and values and causes me massive discomfort.”

3. Strengthen yourself:

We need clear boundaries and a secure sense of self to build a happy and rewarding life and career. We need to learn to say “yes” to what we want and “no” to what is no longer acceptable or tolerable. We need to separate ourselves from the people and messages that crush our true dreams and drain our energy and time that tell us we don't deserve the exciting life and careers we crave.

Ultimately, we need to identify what matters most to us and then reach for the courage and strength to defend those priorities that underpin our lives.