Why You Criticize Yourself (And How To Stop)

Are you harshly critical of yourself? Are you in your own mind picking at yourself, judging yourself, tearing yourself down? If so, you have to watch this video because you're going to discover exactly why you're doing it and then how to stop. I'm Dr. Ziz, I'm the founder of the center for Social Confidence and author of numerous best selling books, including a book called On My Own side, which is all about this subject, about self criticism, how to transform that into being on your own side no matter what. And a very important part of self criticism is understanding of where it's coming from. So let me ask you this question real quick here. When do you criticize yourself? Is it around a certain area of your life? Maybe at work you're critical of yourself, Maybe presentations, maybe dating and relationships, Maybe socially, Maybe your physical appearance, your health, your fitness? Where do you tend to criticize yourself? Because that's important to notice. Do you ever wonder why you do it? Because sometimes people try to stop it. They say, okay, I'm going to say affirmations, I'm great, I'm great, I'm beautiful, people love me. And then it doesn't stop the criticism. So then, you know, it's like you're trying to get really salty water and you're trying to put some sugar in it to make it taste better. It's not going to taste better. Why is the salt going in the water? What's happening here? And when you see this, you're gonna be able to shift it. So let's say it's in dating and relationships. It might not be that way for you, maybe it's at work, wherever. And let's say there's someone you find really attractive and you want to walk over, strut on over and start a conversation. Now, in this day and age, maybe it's type on over and swipe them left or right. Right. But in any way you want to approach somebody. And then your critic says, oh no, you're ugly, you're terrible. They're not gonna want to be with you. Hypothetically, what would happen if you listened to your critic? That's right, you wouldn't go talk to that person. Same thing if it says your ideas aren't smart and good enough, so don't speak up at work. So if you listen to your critic, you don't do what? The action, the bold action, the risk, and that is the entire purpose of your criticism, is to stop you from taking risks, to protect you by avoiding all chances of you experiencing embarrassment, rejection, failure, loss, humiliation, anything. It's like, hey, if we just avoid all risk and stay entirely safe, then we won't have any pain or we'll have a lot less pain. And so your inner critic goes on this propaganda campaign. It just goes and goes and goes. And it might be occasionally to stop you from going over and doing those bold actions. And it might be, you know, every waking hour where you're just constantly berating yourself. That's where I lived for many years when I was in a lot of social anxiety. Constant berating throughout the day. I'd see someone, I'd feel inferior, I'd compare myself to that person. I'd see someone beautiful. I want to go talk to her. Yeah, right. You know, look at you. It was non stop. Why? Because I was trying to keep myself in the most tight contained, non acting, safe way possible. Where are you doing that? That's the key to look at. So how do you shift this? How do you break free? Well, the first thing is to see that. To see that what the critic is saying is not true. It's a propaganda campaign. Are you familiar with propaganda? Right. It's used throughout time and space and history and it's being used right now. It's a power, an authority has an agenda and it wants to convince the populace to follow the agenda. Whether it's eat this, don't eat that, buy this thing, hate those people, go to war with those people, whatever it's been. Right. And so they'll say whatever they need to. Is it true? No, it's just whatever is going to influence people. And that is what your critic is doing with you right now. So I want to share in another video exactly three things that you can do to shift this. But right now the first thing is going to be to identify it and interrupt it and say, ah, ah, ah. I see what's happening here. I'm trying to stop myself from taking a risk and I'm willing to start changing that pattern. I bet you can guess what you might need to do to really free yourself of the critic. It might be coming to you right now. You can probably put it in the comments below. What do you think you need to do if the critic is telling you not to do something, what might you need to do to be free? Well, I'll share in the next video three specific strategies on how to completely neutralize this critic. But you have learned the most important part, which is seeing the critic for what it is. Safety police trying to stop you from taking any bold action. Beautiful. Share down below in the comments what are you learning? What are you finding most valuable? And until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon.