“My intense self-criticism kills all my ideas.”
“My intense self-criticism kills ideas by preventing me from taking calculated risks. It distorts my judgment to make an undesirable outcome seem inevitable.”
This one hits deep; for every launch I’ve had, there have been a million failures to launch behind it. Here are the areas I want you to focus on, knowing this will be a gradual process of learning to trust yourself - namely, that you’ll be able to handle whatever happens after the launch.
Right now you’re in a combative relationship with yourself. The goal is to shift it to a place where you can feel compassion, starting with your self-criticism. Yep, that’s right, I’m asking you to have love for this part of yourself. She’s trying to protect you from - what? Failure? Judgment of others? So she does exactly that: forces you to fail (by not following through on your idea) and judgment (self-criticism.)
It’s ironic you’ve created the exact scenario you’re trying to avoid. Why? Control. You’ve convinced yourself that the devil you know is better than the unknown. You are self-sabotaging so you feel in control. You “know” it will be bad so you don’t do it, 100% guaranteeing that it won’t work. Keeping you small is attempting to keep you safe.
Consider this: what is the worst thing that can happen if you follow through on an idea? Whatever you come up with, then ask: why does that matter? Try it at least two more times. This is called the Downward Arrow Technique and the goal is to strip away the narrative we tell ourselves to the core concern underneath. Once you examine that, you can be more targeted with how to approach it.
You admit that your judgment gets distorted - most likely you’ve gone into fight or flight and your prefrontal cortex has shut off - so my suggestion would be to have a plan ready for the next time you start to feel triggered, that reminds you this isn’t “you.” This is a part of you that’s trying to protect you. See if you can take a deep breath and speak to that part, validating its concerns and then going through a decision-making process you’ve created at an earlier time when you weren’t so activated. If you have a rubric for making decisions, you’ll have something to tether to in those moments of distortion/when you’re taken over by one of your critical parts. For example, for every idea you come up with, see if you can reduce it to its least risky version of itself. That will help lower the stakes and lower the pressure.
Speaking of lowering the pressure.. lastly - and this will be ongoing work - I’d love for you to see how to take the pressure off yourself in general. I have a feeling your sense of self and self-esteem is largely tied to your performance, which is why the prospect of failure is so threatening. Shifting your focus from outcome to process will help: what can you learn from the building (ie following through) of this idea? Imagine that it fails. Will it not have been worth it for all that you learned?
Whatever happens, remind yourself that you did the best you could with the resources, experiences, and information you had at that time. That’s why hindsight is always 20/20: you simply have more wisdom with time. Which in my experience, usually comes from the stumbles, not the successes.
You got this 💪
x Claire
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