My Inner Critic

Recently, I’ve become aware of my own inner critic, a little voice inside my head who likes to judge me as I go about my day. I’ve been familiar with the concept of an inner critic for years, but for whatever reason I’ve always associated it with work. When I think of an inner critic, I think of someone who has imposture syndrome or feels like they aren’t good enough in their job. I’m not sure why I’ve assumed it’s something that is only related to someone’s work life, but I did.

I’m not really sure what helped me realize that I had one of my own, part of me thinks it’s the meditation work I’ve done, another part some trauma journaling I’ve done, or maybe it’s the anti-depressant but I have finally paid attention to the non-stop judgement going on in my head and I can see why I can be a little down at times.

For example, a typical day may start for me:

-I hit the snooze button, so I have to rush in the shower and while making my lunch. I think to myself, “How could you be so lazy? You knew you didn’t make your lunch last night, and now you’re going to have to rush this morning”

-I pack my lunch and as I start sticking cans of Diet Pepsi in my bag, my inner critic pipes up, “Six cans… really? Is that healthy? Maybe you should have gotten more sleep, so you don’t need the caffeine. Maybe you should stop wasting money on things like diet soda.”

-I drive to work, and I think about how my car needs to be waxed. I look at the floorboard and realize how dirty is, and I think about how unresponsible I am and how down the road, if I don’t wax my car, I’m going to have to paint it and that’s going to cost me a lot of money. Then I think about how much worse my wife’s car is and question whether I fail her as a husband by not taking care of her car.

-I get to work, and I sigh as I walk up the stairs. I’m underemployed and I get no satisfaction from my job. I think about jobs I’ve turned down and jobs I should have gone for, and I tell myself if I had only been more mature and less scared, I wouldn’t be stuck in this soul sucking existence.

-I take the mail downstairs and I get a little winded. I haven’t been working out, nor eating well. I think about how I just don’t have it together. How I don’t act like an adult, and how ridiculous it is because I know better. I had that little scare a couple of years ago, and here I am, back in the same place just waiting for another set of bad bloodwork.

At this point, I’ve been up for about ninety minutes and the rest of the day keeps at this same pace. I judge myself harsh all day long on just about everything I do or do not do.

I realized, I feel guilty and bad for almost every decision I make or don’t make. If I eat a candy bar, I feel like I let myself down. If I don’t work out, I let myself down. If I work out too much and don’t relax, I let myself down. I don’t respond to emails, texts, phone calls fast enough. I don’t blog consistently enough. I don’t finish TV shows enough. I need to save more money. I need to drink more water. I need to stretch more. I need to use my standing desk. I need to stay on top of the laundry. I need to find a new job.

This is result of an issue with perfectionism. I feel like I should be able to be perfect in every aspect of my life. Everything should come together nice and neat, and once I get it there, I’ll be happy. Of course, this is nonsense, but my brain struggles with that. And when I spend all day telling myself I’m not good enough, well… I begin to believe it.

So, the question is, how do I stop this? Well, upon realizing this was going on a few weeks ago, I decided to just stop. I would make decisions and I wouldn’t listen to the commentary. I just did what felt good. This wasn’t always the healthiest of decisions, but I thought it was important to start somewhere with less pressure where I could isolate the inner critic and take away his power. I could recognize these feelings of not enoughness and realize these were the result of my own personal drill sergeant and not reality.

Now that I have a few weeks of practice under my belt, I’m going to slowly start making some positive changes without my inner critic’s expectation for perfectionism. I’m a huge fan of the concept of “dailyish” when it comes to meditation, so I’m hoping to take this sort of middle of the road approach to other aspects of my life such a diet, exercise, etc. I’m also going to try and eliminate the pressure of feeling like I’m not doing enough. As of right now, any exercise will be a 100% improvement and I need to lean into that, not why am I not working out five days a week.

This is a difficult concept for me to embrace, because I’ve always found my most success in being all-in. Giving up everything and becoming hyper focused on something such as counting calories or working out or reading book series gets me results. It’s usually at the cost of something else, such as my wallet, my mental health, or other hobbies. It also isn’t sustainable for long-term, thus the reason why this cycle repeats itself. Of course, failing, and not maintaining my results only fuels the inner critic, because now he has proof that I’m a failure to throw in my face.

I never realized exactly how hard I was on myself until now. I spend a lot of energy reducing the amount of negativity that comes into my life, but I’ve neglected the negativity that comes from within. I’m hoping now, but acknowledging, I might be able to exert a little control over it and make my head a more peaceful place.