You Inner Critic

Self-awareness is often the first step towards growth. But is there any drawback to being a person who’s keenly aware of his environment, his actions and the people around him?

You betcha.

It’s a tendency to kick himself in the ass for all the mistakes he’s seen himself make throughout the day.

You see, the more aware a person is, the more he’s able to notice when he flubs up.

That’s when his critical voice kicks in; ‘how could you have done that, I can’t believe you said that, you should have known better, yadda yadda yadda now no-one will ever love you and everyone in the universe will know you’re such a total loser!’

Something like that.

That’s when someone, say someone like me, has to yell (inside) ‘stop!’ and remember​ that the only real use for my critical voice is to help me spot my mistakes so I can learn from them.

In other words, to make real the principle that ‘there are no failures, only learning experiences‘.

To say instead to my critical voice; ‘okay, I messed up. So how can I have done better? What can I do instead the next time?’

And you know what? More often then not, that critical voice will have some pretty smart suggestions. Just gotta remember to stop him from being such a crank.

P.S. The more aware a person is, the more he’s able to notice when he does a kick-ass job too