Why You’re So Self-Critical

Why are we so mean to ourselves?

It’s easy to think self-criticism is like a punishment we deserve for making a mistake. But the truth is much more interesting: your self-criticism is trying to protect you, not punish you. And once you understand what it’s protecting you from, you can finally stop doing it.

The Origin of Cruelty

Suppose you overheard a coworker being overly-critical and judgmental of someone else at work. What would be your explanation for why? Because they’re dumb? Probably not.

If you really reflect on it, most people are mean because they’re compensating for an insecurity. Think of the schoolyard bully who picks on other kids at school: are they a bully simply because they’re a bad seed or a budding psychopath? Unlikely. More plausible is that they have learned that exerting power over others helps temporarily alleviate some fear or insecurity in them—maybe because they’re being bullied or hurt themselves.

Nine times out of ten, cruelty is a compensation for insecurity.

We can see this in other people fairly easily, but the trick is to realize it applies to ourselves as well. If you’re cruel to yourself it’s likely a defense mechanism against insecurity or pain. Because even though self-criticism makes you feel worse in the long-term, in the very short term, it feels productive and distracts you from the emotional pain of having made a mistake.

For example:

Let’s say you misspeak during a presentation at work and everyone chuckles about it leaving you embarrassed.
After the meeting, you’re replaying the event in your head and feeling even more embarrassed.
Then you start criticizing yourself for making such a dumb mistake.
Eventually, that self-criticism will lead to shame and anger on top of the embarrassment. But in the moment, it actually distracts you from the embarrassment because it feels like analysis or problem-solving.
In this example, the function of self-criticism is to alleviate the feeling of embarrassment.
So if you want to be less self-critical, the question is: What’s a better way to deal with embarrassment?
Because if you have a healthier way of dealing with embarrassment, you won’t need the self-criticism—basically, you’ll put it out of a job.

Like any self-defeating behavior, the key to understanding self-criticism is to figure out what underlying need or function it serves, then get creative about addressing that need in a healthier way.

Using Validation to Put Self-Criticism Out of a Job

Luckily, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time. Almost always, self-criticism is an emotional avoidance strategy, which means if you can get better at processing your emotions in the moment, you can be a lot less self-critical in just about every aspect of life.

And while emotional processing is a big term, there’s a really simple way to do it using a framework I call The AVA Method that goes like this:

Acknowledge the emotion. Simply label the difficult emotion you’re feeling using plain language. For example: I’m feeling pretty embarrassed right now. This is called affective labeling and decades of research shows that this simple act of labeling how you feel helps alleviate that emotion’s intensity.
Validate the emotion. Validation means briefly reminding yourself that just because an emotion feels bad doesn’t mean it is bad or that you’re bad for feeling it. One way I like to do this is to remind myself that it makes sense or isn’t surprising that I feel upset given what just happened.
Act on your values. Instead of continuing to dwell and ruminate on how you feel, ask yourself what’s most important to you right now—including what value or ideal is behind that—then take a small action toward that value. So, rather than continuing to stew on the mistake, you might remind yourself that resilience is a key value for you and go for a walk to help clear your mind.

To sum up:

Self-criticism is simply an unhelpful attempt to deal with painful emotion.
And if you can get better at dealing with painful emotions—using a technique like the AVA Method, for example—you will have an easier time letting go of the habit of self-criticism because you won’t need it anymore.