Harsh self-criticism can be detrimental to mental health. People who are self-critical are more predispositioned to a number of negative mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety and eating disorders.
To help people develop more self-compassion and acceptance, psychotherapist Garth Breathnach explained on TikTok the 5 things you can do to accept yourself more and criticize yourself less.
After one follower commented that it is “so difficult to unlearn”, he responded with encouragement:
“Yes, it is! But if you want to learn to reframe things, you can at any time!” he wrote. “Sometimes it takes make the active decision to be that person every day and to remind yourself and hopefully with enough time it just ends up becoming the default.”
5 hacks to stop self-criticizing
Hack #1: Accept that not every feeling needs to become a fact
“You can feel unwanted without actually being unwanted. You can feel behind without actually being behind,” he says. “Feelings are information, but they’re not always instructions. Sometimes a feeling is something that simply needs to be felt, rather than something that needs to be acted on. You don’t have to build a whole story around every feeling that passes through you.
In the video’s comments, Breathnach reiterated: “FEELINGS 🗣️ARENT 🗣️FACTS 🗣️”.
Hack #2: Sometimes the lesson isn’t trust people less—it’s trust yourself more
The goal is to reframe the focus on yourself and feel more self-secure.
“You can’t control whether someone disappoints you, but you can control how you handle it,” Breathnach explains. “You don’t need to become hypervigilant just to avoid ever being hurt again. The goal isn’t never to be let down. It’s to know that you’ll be okay if you are.”
Hack #3: You don’t need to turn every mistake into a personality trait
Perfectionism is detrimental to people who a self-critical.
“You made a bad decision—that doesn’t mean you’re a bad decision maker,” says Breathnach. “You handle something badly—that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. A mistake is something that you can do, but it’s not a definition of who you are. You’re allowed to make them, you’re allowed to learn from them, and you don’t need to make them your identity.”
Hack #4: You need to start being more careful about what you are repeating to yourself
Breathnach encourages you to pay attention to how you talk to yourself, and the power it can have.
“For example: ‘I’m awkward’, ‘I’m bad at relationships, ‘I always mess things up’. The brain is very good at finding evidence for the stories that we give it,” notes Breathnach. “Sometimes the story that you keep repeating starts to become the lens that you see your life through. We need to work on changing that lens. Make sure that it’s a story that you actually want to be a part of.
Hack #5: Know that you’re allowed to be proud of yourself before anybody else notices
The key is to stop looking to others for validation.
“External recognition can be great, but it shouldn’t be the only evidence of something that you are doing well,” adds Breathnach. “Not everything in your life is going to be visible to everyone in it. You don’t need an audience for your progress to count. Some of the most important things that you’re ever going to experience will come and go very quietly with you on your own. Know that the validation that you give to yourself is the most important. Anything else is just a bonus.”
