You had a bad day, you didn't do your best, and you got a reprimand from your boss for failing to meet deadlines. What do you say to yourself when the day ends? You sure despise yourself, blame yourself and feel bad. So when you finally put your head on the pillow you feel like a rag and the next day you can hardly get rid of this feeling.
Obviously, being effective and in a positive mood in this condition is a mission doomed to fail even before starting.
But if you told a friend about your problem what would they tell you? Surely he would not fill you with reproaches and much less would he say words as offensive as the ones you told yourself. It would probably encourage you and help you cheer up.
So… why don't you turn into your best friend? Why not you are kind to yourself?
We usually tend to be too hard on ourselves, are overly self-critical, and don't forgive ourselves for our mistakes. Don't get me wrong, it's important to recognize your mistakes so that we can grow as people, but everything has a limit. There are times when we need to be kind to ourselves, realize we have done our best, and move on.
Since this is easier said than done, especially since you have probably spent a lifetime blaming yourself for wrong behaviors and decisions, here are some strategies that can help you love yourself:
- Pay attention to the inner dialogue. We often say things automatically, it's like when we get physically injured and a curse escapes us. We have simply learned these phrases over time and have become instinctive responses to an error. So the first step to start loving yourself is to analyze the things you say to yourself.
- Reschedule your inner dialogue. Once you are aware of all the things you say to yourself every day, simply change the tone you use with yourself and use more positive phrases. Make yourself your best friend.
- Feel your emotions. It may sound silly, but our society has trained us to avoid most of what we feel. Some people do not cry because they are considered cowardly or weak, while others are ashamed of feeling anger or rage. In fact, experiencing emotions freely is important because it has enormous cathartic power. For this reason, after crying, we feel relaxed, because it is as if we have freed ourselves from a burden.
- Scale your expectations. Having dreams, ideals, goals and goals is positive because it makes us better people, it helps us to always find a way out and to increase our
willpower. But sometimes it is preferable to reduce our expectations, in this way we will be more tolerant towards our mistakes and benevolent towards ourselves. - Look for solutions. All this internal dialogue based on reproach is really useless because, in addition to denigrating you as a person, it creates a negative mental attitude. So, instead of continuing to criticize ourselves, it would be better to find solutions. Focus on a mistake, find the cause and try to fix it or, at least, take the necessary precautions not to commit it again.
