Stop Being Critical Of Yourself And Others

Today we’re going to look at how to stop being critical of yourself and others and why we all really need to.

Now, there’s a big difference between the kind of constructive criticism that is helpful and helps you or others improve.

For example, if you complete a task and then review your performance. If there is something you could have done better or in a better way and you note that, this would be helpful.

If you notice an employee doing something that makes their work harder and you speak with them pointing this out and offer a suggestion to make this task easier or ask “What do you think you could do instead to make this task easier?” This would be constructive criticism.

The only time criticism is positive is when it’s done in a respectful way to improve.

POSITIVE – You’ve just given a speech to a room full of people about your area of expertise. This is something new to you and you were very nervous.

You might well come away from that experience feeling quite critical and that’s fine. This will help you improve but make sure you’re doing it in a positive way…

• What went well?
• What didn’t go well/what could be improved?
• What do I need to work on to improve?

So, now we know that sometimes being critical can be a positive thing to help you and others improve, let’s look at the other times when being critical is not helpful.

RECOMMENDED READING: Improve Your Confidence and AFFIRMATIONS TO RELEASE JUDGEMENT

Criticism for the sake of it

Some people just seem to criticize everyone and everything without it adding any value at all. This is not helpful, it’s hurtful and harmful.

Imagine the child who grows up with an adult constantly criticizing every little thing they do, they are likely to feel completely inadequate, feel like they have little value and that they are not good enough. There is nothing good about this scenario.

An employer who constantly criticizes their employees is almost certainly going to end up with unmotivated, unproductive staff and a high staff turnover.

Critical of others – Critical of yourself

Through my law of attraction training, I came to understand that if someone is being critical of others, that this is almost always a reflection of themselves meaning they are actually very critical of themselves.

Again, think about the way the criticism is done. Kindly, respectfully and helpfully or harshly, hurtfully and unhelpful.

Unhelpful – “For goodness sake, why did you do it like that? You’re useless at this? Move out the way and let me do it”

Helpful – Hey, I noticed the way you did that. I think you’re making this task hard work for yourself. Would it be okay if I showed you a different way that you’ll hopefully find much easier?”

The person criticizing may want to be the best they can be and they want that for others too. Or they may be harshly criticizing themselves and every time someone does something that they don’t like or feel is wrong in some way, they bark criticism. When this happens, they are probably doing the same thing to themselves.

Okay, so what can we do to stop negative criticism?

1. Stop hurtful criticism of yourself
2. If we do criticize others, check-in with yourself and ask why
3. Accept others for the way they are with compassion and don’t let their negativity hurt you

Stop hurtful criticism of yourself

If you tend to criticize others, then this will help by stopping criticizing yourself too.

Learn to be kind to yourself. I encourage you to read Feel better about yourself. and Learn to love yourself.

Make a list of all the things you like about yourself, that you’re good at and all the things you’ve achieved throughout your life.

Use positive affirmations to help you focus your mind on the positive things about yourself, the world, your life… Read How to use Affirmations.

Use EFT – Emotional Freedom Techniques – Here’s my EFT Guide if you’re new to this. It’s super easy to learn and use yourself and super effective.

Try this EFT Tapping script to stop being critical

Now, If we’re not critical of ourselves then we are accepting of ourselves, so in this EFT script I’m going to focus on releasing the critical thoughts and focusing on building accepting thoughts.

EFT SET-UP Tapping the side of your hand – I’m tapping today to release critical feelings, thoughts and beliefs that are hurtful and unhelpful to myself and others. I’m tapping to build positive feelings, beliefs and thoughts that support me and others.

• Top of the head – I release hurtful and unhelpful criticism of myself and others
• Forehead – I love and accept myself
• Eyebrow – I accept and respect others for who they are
• Side of the eye – I don’t know why I feel the need to be so critical
• Under the eye – Maybe it’s because people have been critical of me
• Under the nose – Maybe it’s an old belief I need to let go of now
• Under the mouth – I choose now to be kind and accepting of myself and others
• Collarbone – I choose now to be helpful and supportive and always respectful of my own feelings and other people’s feelings
• Under the arm – I release critical unhelpful thoughts, beliefs and feeling
• Side of the hand – I treat myself and others with kindness, respect and acceptance

You can repeat this EFT round as many times as you want, I recommend at least 3-4 rounds.

If you feel that someone is particularly critical of you, you can tap and talk. Using the same tapping points as we used above, simply talk about this person, how they make you feel when they criticize you and also tap on the things they say.

This can be really effective to release the energy connected with this person. You may well find that their comments no longer make you feel anything.

They may even just stop altogether because you’ve shifted your own energy and you’re no longer a match to receive these comments… It’s the energy shift that is most important for you and most powerful.

SPot it and Swap it

Now, this is a really important step and again, it’s about shifting your focus. And it’s very much about paying attention to what you’re saying and feeling.

Think – SPOT IT AND SWAP IT. If you catch yourself being critical of yourself or others. STOP. Acknowledge it. Swap it for something better feeling – More positive. Also, ask yourself why you were being critical.

Is it because someone’s annoying you? Perhaps you feel you could do a better job or do it quicker.

I’m going to let you into a secret, I haven’t totally mastered this not being critical thing. I’m a work in progress.

When I first started coaching many years ago, I would often get really critical of my clients. I totally wanted the best for them but sometimes I really had to have a chat with myself.

Example: Jane (my virtual client) wants to build a successful blog. She has the blog all set up and she’s ready to go.

In our coaching session, she agrees that she will write and publish 2 posts on her blog before our next call a week later.

I make sure that she knows what she’s doing. When we have our next coaching session a week later, Jane tells me that she’s got the outline done for one post and she’s written one full post but hasn’t published it as she isn’t sure about it and hasn’t added images.

Blogging comes easy to me and I can easily write a full blog post of over 1000 words in a couple of hours. It drives me mad that in a whole week, Jane hasn’t even published one post. This is me with my critical head-on.

If this happened I would quickly SPOT IT and SWAP IT for a better feeling thought. Better for me and better for Jane.

Thankfully, I rarely have these critical thoughts with clients these days as I work very differently to when I first started out coaching and I’m a different person.

With my kind and helpful head on I know that Jane needs my support and encouragement to get over this hurdle.

Look in the mirror

MIRROR, MIRROR – Remember that often when we feel critical of others it is a reflection of ourselves in some way. If you do catch yourself saying or even thinking something critical of someone else, always check in with yourself.

I tend to find people who are very critical of others are constantly fearful that others are thinking critical thoughts about them. They are critical of themselves. Shift the pattern in yourself and then you’ll ease that feeling that others are critical of you.

Accept others for the way they are with compassion and don’t let their negativity hurt you

Understand that we all have different priorities. What’s important to you may have little or no importance to someone else and that’s okay. That’s what makes us all unique and life interesting.

Jane is very houseproud and cleans her house from top to bottom daily. You’d never turn up at her house and find it anything but spotless and super tidy. Jane’s friend Julie loves the outdoors, her passion is adventure and travel.

She lives in a small apartment that’s often untidy and unorganized. There are almost always piles of clothes in prep for a weekend away or waiting to be put away from her last trip.

Jane feels very critical of her friend’s untidiness, it drives her crazy and she’s always complaining to Julie that she should keep her home tidy.

These two friends have different priorities in life. Jane puts a high priority on a tidy home – Julie couldn’t care less.

Critical comments from Jane are unhelpful, unnecessary and unwanted. A tidy home will never improve Julie’s life it will only serve to make Jane feel better.

Jane may well also feel worried that if her own home isn’t always perfect and that people will judge her.

Accept others for who they are and realize that what’s important to you may not be of any importance to them. That’s okay.

Have a read of this post – How to deal with negative people

My law of attraction trainer Michael Losier says your only job is to take care of your own vibrations (or something along those lines).

Basically what this means is no matter what, take care of how you feel, the energy you give out, what you say, what you do… What other people do or say is out of your control.

Release critical feelings – Work on acceptance

I hope you’ve found today’s post helpful to stop being critical of yourself and others. The key thing to remember is to release UNHELPFUL criticism.

Review and advise if necessary with acceptance, kindness and respect. And ALWAYS understand that other people do not have the same priorities or knowledge as you.

BE KIND – BE RESPECTFUL

Wendy Tomlinson

Finally, not everyone wants your advice. I’ve found that the best way to help is not to instantly tell people what they did wrong but ask them “How do you feel that went?”

Here’s another blog post that you may find helpful – Feel comfortable being yourself and You are enough!

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Wendy Tomlinson Coaching

Mindset Coach
EFT Master Practitioner
Law of Attraction Practitioner