General considerations on self-criticism

It is very common for people to evaluate their own behavior so that it is possible to realize their mistakes and successes. This habit is known as self-criticism, this is a thought process that can offer both benefits and harms.

Generally, we don't choose to criticize ourselves negatively, however, it can happen. This is why you should be careful, because the way you react to your self-criticism can trigger a series of problems that will undermine your self-esteem.

Do not naturalize this behavior, understand everything about self-criticism, know if it is negatively affecting you and discover how to use it more effectively in the following reading!

Understanding self-criticism, when it is positive and when it is negative

Self-criticism is a natural process that needs to be understood for you to enjoy its benefits and for it to cause more serious problems in your life. Understand self-criticism and identify when it can be positive or negative in the reading below.

What is self-criticism?

Self-criticism is the capacity that you have to perceive your defects and qualities, as well as to recognize your mistakes and successes that have been committed in various social contexts. Recognizing these behavior patterns and conducts is fundamental so that you can eliminate all the triggers that cause your suffering.

This is a capacity that belongs to all human beings, the ability to analyze our decisions and behavior allow us to be rational in the way we act. However, this analysis can be affected by our emotions.

Therefore, those who have experienced abuse that mainly affected their self-esteem due to strict family members, abusive relationships or bullying, for example, usually have difficulties in performing positive self-criticism. Because the negative perception that these people have of themselves led them to see only their faults.

Therefore, it is necessary to have an emotional maturity when performing a self-criticism, only then you will be able to properly harness this skill to achieve improvement.

Is self-criticism always negative?

Here is a detailed list that exemplifies when a self-criticism is being negative:

- When you find it difficult to accept compliments;

- You always seem to be apologizing for everything;

- When you do not express your opinion in conversations among friends, family, or in the professional realm;

- You always cling to the mistakes you've made and dwell on them, even after you've resolved the situation;

- You're always striving for perfection, using that as an excuse to give up (or not even start) on your ideas because you can't be perfect;

- When you have negative results you blame yourself for your mistakes. It doesn't matter if some external circumstance, that you have no control over, has negatively influenced your result;

- He does not believe in his potential, believing that he will always fail in any project or activity he undertakes;

- You tend to compare yourself to others, always belittling your worth and feeling inferior;

- You cannot be satisfied with your achievements and accomplishments.

- You feel that you are behind, or that you can't handle responsibilities, comparing yourself negatively to others.

All of these points denote something in common, the inner dialogue. This intimate conversation that is only found in your consciousness, occurs in a negative way always hoping to bring you down.

These thoughts are the same thoughts used by self-criticism that occur when you compare yourself to others (or your expectations), when you evaluate your own performance, and when you interpret the experiences you experience (which you care about).

If you follow this tendency in your inner dialogue, the tendency is that you limit your ability to believe in your potential and your abilities. This makes it impossible to have any healthy attitude and prevents you from realizing yourself in a positive way, thus assuming a posture that is reflected in the way you see yourself.

Can self-criticism be beneficial?

The fact that self-criticism helps us evaluate our habits, conduct, beliefs and opinions to the point of identifying what is right for our lives reveals that it has a use.

For example, when we start a new job, we can use self-criticism to evaluate our behaviors and which of them correspond to the company's expectations as we insert ourselves into this new professional environment. In this way, we enhance our performance and improve our performance at work.

Another situation is when we fail in some result. Through self-criticism you will evaluate what led you to make this mistake, thus seeking ways to improve so as not to repeat the same mistakes when this situation happens again.

It promotes personal development through reflection and self-knowledge. The ability to trace inadequate behavior patterns and defects. It then makes it possible to modify them to achieve personal happiness, which is extremely valuable.

However, when your inner voice begins to focus only on negative judgments about yourself, self-criticism will have the opposite of the desirable effect. For instead of promoting your personal development, it will paralyze you.

You may initiate a series of errors in your self-criticism, which can easily turn into personal attacks. Negative self-criticism will cause you to belittle or blame yourself for having done it that way. Therefore there is no possibility of learning from the situation.

Assessing the benefits of self-criticism

The benefits of self-criticism will allow you to improve your qualities and learn from your shortcomings. But to take advantage of them, it is important that you know what its benefits are. Discover its benefits in the following.

Allows for the development of accountability skills

The benefit of self-criticism of accountability is that which refers to the individual observing himself and reflecting on his own behavior, thus taking responsibility for his actions and avoiding externalizing blame to others for his mistakes.

In this sense, for example, if something went wrong at work and you feel entitled to blame someone even though you know that it is not fair to hold one person responsible for a collective error. Then, from self-criticism you realize this injustice and understand that you have behaved wrongly by externalizing the blame to a single individual.

This is the capacity that self-criticism has to evaluate our own behavior, thus showing that we are responsible for our actions. This is the main benefit of self-criticism and generates all the others, because it is from the accountability that we begin to reflect on our posture under the circumstances.

It teaches us to recognize our mistakes

By developing the skill of self-criticism you will become able to recognize your mistakes and successes from the internal observation of your behaviors. Soon, you will be letting go of your ego and recognizing your faults, learning to deal with them with humility.

At this point, being humble is a reflection of the recognition of your own essence. You will realize through self-criticism your limitations, you will know when to ask for forgiveness for your mistakes and you will not blame the other unduly. This is the virtue of those who have a humble conscience.

Through her, we learn to forgive

In this way, self-criticism allows us to recognize our mistakes and to take responsibility for them, to realize our faults and to react to them in a way that seeks forgiveness. For the humanity present in you makes you more empathetic towards others, awakening mutual understanding in yourself and in others.

We draw valuable lessons from the experiences

From the identification of our actions, through self-criticism we become capable of evaluating what we have accomplished, our mistakes and successes, and how we could have done it differently. It is by reflecting on our experiences that we are able to learn from them and draw these learnings from our experience.

We discover varied possibilities for our development

Discovering new possibilities to develop ourselves is the result of all these benefits that self-criticism is capable of providing us. After all, it is by following this process of recognition, accountability and reflection of experiences that we become more evolved and prepared to face life's challenges.

When self-criticism turns negative

Despite its benefits, depending on the emotional state of the individual, self-criticism can become negative, because the way she evaluates herself can lead her to think negatively about herself, thus awakening monsters in her consciousness. Find out when and how self-criticism becomes negative in the following reading.

The pitfalls of self-criticism

Self-criticism is only positive when we face our faults and failures with the aim of improving ourselves. However, this behavior depends directly on our intentions and our emotional state, so what could be something positive may turn out to be paralyzing for other people.

Like when you become intolerant with yourself, criticizing yourself too much considering only the negative aspects of your personality and feeding self-destructive beliefs. In this way, you start to believe that you are not worthy of anything in life because you don't fit into the conditions you created for yourself.

When, for example, you think you can't get the job you want because you believe you don't have the capacity to do it, then you limit yourself by not believing you are capable and not allowing yourself to make the effort to achieve your dream. You prefer to hold the belief that you are incapable and that there is nothing you can do about it.

In this case, your internal dialogue and your conscience become your worst enemy, because your low self-esteem ends up promoting stagnation and self-sabotage. Over time, the tendency is that you limit yourself to just listening to your internal voice, then any recognition or praise becomes dispensable and you will always doubt yourself.

When self-criticism becomes a trap, it is capable of developing other problems because of its dense load of negativity. They can evolve into a picture of psychosomatic illnesses such as anxiety, panic syndrome, depression and stress.

Over time, you get used to your inner voice and your ego comes to accept it without any strangeness. In this way, they are unable to perceive your personal judgments and the gravity of them.

Identifying the triggers of negativity

The first step to identifying the triggers of negativity is in the perception of your thought process. By dealing with this process, you will be aware of the causes of your negativity and will be able to have more control over your thoughts, even being able to stop them when you feel them.

One of the most effective strategies in this identification process is to observe your triggers and name them, so you will have a greater awareness of your sabotaging feelings and thoughts and will notice them more easily.

Another way to deal with the problem of excessive self-criticism is in psychological treatment. The psychologist will guide you down this path through dialogue, thus raising your awareness of the thoughts and judgments that support this negative self-criticism.

Therapy will then help you in this identification process by acting on the origin of the thought patterns and mental triggers, starting from this identification a series of reformulations to interrupt this cycle.

Is self-criticism different from judgment?

Judgment is one of the consequences of self-criticism, so it is necessary to be careful when this thought process becomes negative for the individual. Because, besides stagnation, it is capable of developing self-sabotage. It is at this moment that your internal judgments become negative and start to degrade your self-esteem.

Exaggerations begin to arise and negativity becomes extreme, criticism becomes a problem, for no matter what you do, nothing will seem good enough to satisfy you. You begin to recognize your faults and judge them as incorrigible, making it impossible for you to advance, making yourself inferior because of them.

Excessive self-criticism consequently nurtures excessive judgment. Getting out of this process is challenging, because to get to this point you already have a long-standing history in relation to this problem. Only when you consciously notice this harmful behavior can you take any positive action towards it.

Signs that your self-criticism is being negative

There are some signs that will serve as an indication that your self-criticism is being negative. It is common for at least one of these to present itself in cases where excessive self-criticism occurs, and being aware will serve as a wake-up call to your conscience.

Therefore, having knowledge of them will help you have a better sense of the limits of your own internal assessment. Read on to find out what these signs are!

Social phobia and low self-esteem

Many people who are overly self-critical have a predisposition to ruminate on negative feedback, making them more worried about what people think and even generating anxiety. This can make them more vulnerable to toxic relationships, for example.

This lack of support creates in them a distrust of others, making it difficult to create a healthy relationship because they always assume that people will hurt them.

This state of emotional instability generates in these people a social phobia, for they will generally feel dissatisfied with their love relationships, because they will always judge their partners as they would judge themselves.

Therefore, the self-critics transfer the emotional responsibility to their companions and any kind of statement, or feedback, regarding their emotions may not satisfy them due to this overreaction. This makes them over-sensitive, thus arousing unnecessary conflicts.

This condition ends up undermining her relationships due to her problem of social phobia and low self-esteem, distancing her partner. Not allowing any kind of emotional support to which she desperately seeks.

Problems with body image and eating disorders

The search for perfection and excessive self-criticism can awaken a series of problems in relation to body image. Because there is a need for the self-critics in relation to social standards, they desperately seek to be accepted by the other.

For this, they need to correspond to these standards and their image needs to be worked around them. What often awakens a negative behavior in relation to food, because in the urgency of acceptance arise eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia and vigorexia.

Anxiety and nervousness

The constant evaluation of oneself awakens excessive worry, which generates a state of restlessness and physical agitation. This state often undermines thoughts and wears down emotions, as the physical reactions lead the body into a state of wakefulness and alertness similar to stress.

Just as anxiety and nervousness can be a product of self-criticism, it is also possible that self-criticism is a cause of these disorders.

This relationship allows one problem to aggravate the other. The worry generated by self-criticism nurtures anxiety and nervousness, while anxiety can lead to a process of excessive self-criticism.

Depressive symptoms

The depressive symptoms are diverse and can be caused by self-criticism, through self-inhibition or self-punishment, which in excess awaken the stagnation that often leads the individual to abandon their goals. What makes them more fearful and depreciative in relation to their self-esteem.

The depressive symptoms you should be aware of are:

- Pessimism, or feeling of hopelessness;

- Irritability;

- Sense of worthlessness, or feeling of guilt;

- Loss of interest in day-to-day activities;

- Anhedonia;

- Fatigue;

- Slower thinking;

- Restlessness;

- Difficulty making decisions;

- Lack of concentration;

- Oblivion;

- Sleep problems such as hypersomnia or insomnia;

- Lack of appetite;

- Disparaging thoughts;

- Headaches or gastrointestinal problems.

Feelings of guilt, shame and worthlessness

It is common for negative self-criticism to awaken in us a feeling of guilt, shame, or worthlessness as a consequence of the derogatory thoughts that arise from this process of internal evaluation. Thus, we are constantly regretting the past and feeling worthless for not being able to move forward in the future.

Self-destructive behaviors

Thought is the force that drives our decision-making ability. From this, self-criticism sparks derogatory thoughts about ourselves, which in turn drives negative emotions.

Then arises the need to escape this condition through self-destructive behaviors such as excessive drug use, for example.

Suicidal thoughts

Depression, anxiety and other psychopathological illnesses may be associated with self-criticism. The derogatory thoughts that arise in this evaluation process tend to mutilate the individual's self-esteem awakening self-destructive behavior in them.

These stressors give rise to the conditions that are conducive to the emergence of suicidal thoughts, because it reaches the point that death seems the only solution. If your excessive self-criticism has reached the point of believing this fact, immediate medical follow-up is necessary.

How to stop criticizing me like this

The challenges for those who have developed excessive self-criticism are immense, because many times these negative thoughts are naturalized to the point of unconsciously occurring in the individual. This requires a rescue of his consciousness in relation to his condition.

This awakening comes from the moment you understand your problem. Find out now how to stop criticizing yourself at this level in the following reading.

Recognize your unique characteristics

Everyone possesses exceptional abilities of which awaken an inner pride, for by working on them it awakens a unique feeling of joy and self-confidence. Recognizing your unique characteristics is one way to limit self-criticism, for it awakens a meaning to your existence.

Be supportive and kind to others

Seek to fill your space with positivity and one way to do this is by being supportive and kind to other people. This behavior gives the possibility of feedback, awakening not only positive feelings, but also generating a reciprocity.

You will mobilize positive feelings, emotions and thoughts that will motivate you to feel good about yourself.

Replace criticism with improvement plans

When you perform self-criticism, look at your negative points from a different perspective. Don't take these negative assessments personally, but take them as an opportunity. From your criticism you will be able to draw up plans to improve yourself and evolve in life, thus achieving the changes you so much desire.

Pay attention to your mood

Exercise mindfulness so that you are always aware of your emotional state. Try especially to notice when you are feeling nervous, anxious or irritated, so that you can treat the emotions that triggered this state and avoid starting the process of self-criticism in this negative state.

This way you will have a greater control of your thoughts and will realize when is the best time to perform your internal evaluation.

Train your self-compassion

Self-criticism can awaken both positive and negative feelings and emotions within us. You need to respect these tendencies as they are part of the process and there is no way to stop them, one way to react to them is by training your self-compassion.

Showing affection may be common among people, but when you develop compassion in yourself you will be able to awaken positive emotions and thoughts that will improve your self-esteem.

Ways to use self-criticism in a positive way

You will only be able to enjoy the benefits of self-criticism when you learn to use it in a positive way in your life, for this to happen there are a number of behaviors and thoughts that must be exercised. Discover the ways to use self-criticism in a positive way in the sequence!

Take time out of your day for reflection

Daily reflection allows you to become aware of your emotional states, your thoughts and even your self-critical process. Try in this daily reflection not only to point out the negative aspects of your life, but also to observe the positive points.

By creating this balance you will be exalting the positive aspects and learning from the negative aspects, thus allowing a daily evolution of your being.

Strengthen your self-esteem

It is necessary to consider self-criticism as an objective evaluation of your behavior, for this to happen you need to stop taking your problems personally. Try in this internal dialogue to accept your mistakes as opportunities, not internalizing these thoughts, but as constructive criticism.

Be open to feedback

Remember that feedbacks between friends and family is a common practice to happen, support this behavior and allow yourself to listen to them. Many times the perspective of others allows you to have a new perception about things, use this advantage to your advantage. And most importantly, ignore the negative criticism.

Strive for balance

Balance arises from a daily practice of self-awareness. Observing and perceiving yourself will allow you to have a better understanding of your thoughts and emotions, thus teaching you more about the things that affect you. You will become from this lighter and will know how to balance your emotions in order to achieve balance.

What are the consequences of constant negative self-criticism of oneself?

Constant negative self-criticism will lead you to stagnation and will end up undermining your self-esteem through self-judgment. This behavior will inhibit your reactions, causing you to become discredited of your capabilities and not allowing you to develop in all aspects of your life.

It is capable of generating even more serious problems such as nervousness, stress, anxiety and depression, and there is even the possibility of suicide. In other words, the consequences of excessive self-criticism are serious and need to be treated. If you have been aware of your problem it means that there is still time to solve it!