When being hard on yourself becomes your normal

Being hard on yourself can feel less like a problem and more like the way you've always kept yourself in check.

Perhaps you care about doing things properly. You notice details. You want to be reliable. If something could've gone better, you think about what you'd do differently next time.

There's nothing inherently wrong with any of that. But there can be a point where having standards becomes something more personal. A mistake isn't just something that happened; it starts to feel like evidence about you.

You finish something and immediately notice what could've been better. Someone tells you that you've done well, but part of you dismisses it. A conversation doesn't go quite as you'd hoped and you're replaying it hours later.

From the outside, this might look like conscientiousness or ambition. From the inside, satisfaction can be surprisingly short-lived. You reach something you'd been working towards and, almost before it's landed, your attention is already on the next hill - or back on the part that still wasn't good enough.

When high standards become something harsher

There’s a difference between reflecting on what happened so you can learn from it and using what happened as a reason to attack yourself.

You might think:

I wish I'd handled that conversation differently.

There's potentially something useful in that. You can think about what happened, decide whether there's anything you'd like to change and move on.

Self-criticism adds another layer:

Why did I say that? I should've known better. Why can't I just get this right?

Now the question isn't only whether you made a mistake. It's becoming a judgement about the kind of person you are.

If there's already a familiar belief underneath - I'm not good enough, I get things wrong - a mistake can start to feel like proof. The bits that confirm the old conclusion stand out, while evidence that doesn't fit is easier to dismiss.

That distinction isn't always neat. But it's worth noticing when reflection repeatedly turns into putting yourself on trial.

When nothing quite counts

One of the strange things about being very self-critical is that doing well doesn't necessarily settle the doubt for long.

You achieve something and feel relief rather than satisfaction. You receive praise and focus on the part the other person didn't see, or question whether they really meant it.

You meet the standard you'd set and, almost without noticing, it moves. There's always another version that would've been better.

It’s often the accumulation that matters. One compliment brushed aside, one success quickly qualified, one mistake held onto and revisited. None of those moments has to feel particularly significant on its own.

But when what goes well is repeatedly discounted while mistakes are given more weight, the picture can gradually become one-sided. “I’m not good enough” can start to feel increasingly convincing when the evidence you keep returning to points mostly in one direction.

Over time, that way of talking to yourself may not even sound especially harsh. It can simply sound like you.

Why being hard on yourself can feel necessary

If self-criticism were completely useless, it'd probably be much easier to give up.

You might worry that without it you'd become lazy or complacent. Perhaps finding your own mistakes first feels safer than waiting for somebody else to point them out. Maybe dissatisfaction seems to be what keeps you improving.

For some people, blaming themselves also creates a kind of certainty: if something went wrong because of something you'd done, perhaps you can make sure it doesn't happen again.

None of these explanations will fit everybody. A more useful question may be:

What does being hard on myself seem to be doing for me?

If this has been your way of staying on track for years, it may not feel like one option among many. It can feel like the only responsible way to be: push harder when you slip, minimise success in case you get complacent, stay alert for the next mistake.

Easing that pressure can then feel risky rather than relieving. Something can have served a purpose and still be making life harder now.

What if you already know you're too hard on yourself?

You might read all of this and think:

Yes. I know.

Perhaps you've recognised the pattern for years. You may know you're perfectionistic, know your standards can be unrealistic, or understand where some of these expectations came from.

But knowing the pattern doesn't necessarily turn down its volume.

Self-criticism can act like an internal supervisor that's always on duty. It doesn't only arrive when something big goes wrong. It can show up after an email, while you're resting, when you're making a small choice, or even when something goes well: Don't get complacent.

You can understand the rules it's enforcing and still find yourself obeying them before you've had much say.

That's the frustrating gap. Sometimes the work isn't about discovering one more reason. It's about having another way to respond when the old supervisor starts issuing instructions.

Separating what happened from what it means about you

One useful place to begin is to notice whether two things have become tangled together.

The first is: What actually happened?

Perhaps you forgot something, handled a conversation badly or missed a deadline. There may be room for growth there.

The second is: What have I decided this says about me?

I'm useless. I always mess things up. I'm not good enough.

Those conclusions can arrive so quickly that they feel like part of the event.

It's a bit like finding one spelling mistake in a book and deciding the whole book is terrible. A missed deadline becomes I'm unreliable. An awkward conversation becomes I'm bad with people.

The mistake may be real. The size of the conclusion is the part worth noticing.

Getting some separation doesn't mean pretending the spelling mistake isn't there. It means letting a spelling mistake be a spelling mistake, rather than using it to review the whole book.

You can learn from something without making it a verdict on your worth. Sometimes the first shift is simply allowing the conclusion to shrink back to the size of the event.

How this might show up in therapy

Being hard on yourself doesn't disappear when you walk into a therapy room. It can show up there quite clearly.

You might worry that you're explaining something badly, that what you're talking about isn't important enough, or that you're somehow doing therapy wrong. You might apologise for becoming upset, judge yourself for still struggling with something you think you should've sorted out, or wonder whether I've been disappointed by something you've said.

For some people, that pressure starts before the first session. If you're used to feeling that there's a right way to do things, even beginning therapy can bring worries about what you're supposed to say, whether your problems are serious enough, or whether you'll somehow get it wrong.

If that happens, we don't have to treat it as a distraction from the "real" work. It can be part of the work.

I might notice that you've been quick to blame yourself, or that you're assuming I see you in the same critical way that you're seeing yourself. I may invite you to look at that with me, share what I'm noticing or gently challenge the standard you're applying to yourself.

That lets us look at the pattern while it's actually happening. What happens if you don't immediately apologise? What's it like to let something be unfinished or uncertain? What happens if I don't respond in the way you were expecting?

At other times, talking can get us only so far. You may know logically that nothing disastrous will happen if you stop pushing yourself, while another part of you still expects that it will. Imagery, metaphor or a more creative way of working can sometimes help us get closer to that felt fear - the part that doesn't necessarily respond to another logical argument.

That doesn't make the fear silly or false. If harshness has become part of how you've kept yourself on track, it makes sense that loosening it may feel risky.

Therapy can give us somewhere to meet that response in real time - in words, in the relationship between us, or through a more creative route - and see whether another response can become possible.

You don't have to stop caring about doing things well

Being less hard on yourself doesn't have to mean becoming less ambitious, lowering every standard or deciding that nothing matters.

You can care about the quality of what you do, notice mistakes and want to grow.

If harshness has been the way you've kept yourself in check, loosening it may feel risky. That's different from becoming careless.

A mistake can stay a mistake rather than expanding into a verdict on your whole self. Success can be allowed to count before the next demand arrives.

You can still be accountable, ambitious and thoughtful without needing self-attack to do all the motivating.

That gives success a chance to count, and mistakes a chance to be learned from, without either one having to decide your worth.

Owen Shiels is a BACP-registered counsellor offering therapy in Morpeth, Berwick-upon-Tweed and online across the UK.