Being Too Hard on Yourself? Here Are 6 Best Ways to Stop It

This has been one of my major problems since like, forever.

It’s not even like I’m a perfectionist or something, some days I just feel like I’m not doing enough in life and things that I do on a daily basis don’t make much progress — at least, that’s what I thought.

So that results in me having a pile of to-do lists that I can’t seem to tick off and before I knew it, I’d feel mentally exhausted and depressed at the end of the day. And I’ll pick up those slacks again when I feel like I’m back to ‘normal’.

However, what’s the point of staying in the same cycle over and over again right? I learned my lessons and if you’ve ever felt the same way, here are things that might work for you too if you give it a try:

1. Acknowledge the Wins and Track Our Journey

How often do we forget to give ourselves a pat in the back from achieving a goal or even making a little progress? It’s understandable that we don’t do it as much as we should.

This happens because once we cross that one to-do list we tend to put another one right away. We want to stay productive.

However, in the long run, this is going to affect our mental health and how we see ourselves. No matter how many wins we got, it would never be enough.

To avoid such things to happen, it’s recommended to track our journey and take a pause to celebrate when we reached our goals.

There shouldn’t be big celebrations every time but enough to acknowledge how far you’ve come.

I personally like to dedicate some time for me to just take a little break, be it; do nothing for a day, get myself my favourite snacks, or binge-watch some series.

Whatever it is, I make sure it has nothing to do with my next goal or project.

2. Remind Ourselves That Comparing Yourself with Others Doesn’t Serve Any Good Purpose

If you stumble into those girls on Instagram then feeling bad about yourself then don’t worry, I definitely know that feeling.

It’s normal to have those thoughts sometimes especially nowadays when the media mostly just portray the best version of things.

However, it’s really important to remind ourselves when the thought occurs that there’s nothing good comes from it. Why choose being miserable and feeling like you aren’t good enough? It’s mentally exhausting and creating more resentment towards yourself.

If stopping the thought of comparing yourself with others doesn’t work, you probably need to put more work in that case. Cutting off or at least reducing your time on social media usually works best.

I’m fully aware of what triggers me into the over-thinking zone and starting to compare myself with others. I would have a lot of junk in my head and once I take a break from social media, I redirect my energy and focus on my own life.

3. Try to Care Less About What Other People Think and Their Expectations from You

It’s indeed easier said than done, especially our own family openly express their expectations from us.

Growing up from a family whose background always values more of what ‘society’ thinks about whatever we are doing in life, it’s really hard to differentiate between what will make you happy and what will make other people happy instead.

But at some point, where all you do is to please others and fulfil their expectations, you will be left with feeling burnout and depressed. So what’s the point right?

Practice to care less about what other people think will be hard at first but after long enough, you’ll feel better about making decisions for yourself and know fully things to do that makes you happy.

4. Start Daily Journaling

I dearly think that journaling can help you improve your life in general. I’m saying this because when you write down your thoughts in a piece of paper, you let out lots of unnecessary thoughts and make a room for something that really matters to you.

Aside from that, you tend to think back about what have you done, how you’ve been feeling and etc, this will give you a break from constantly thinking what’s next and track what you’ve achieved so far.

So if you haven’t had a journal yet, you might want to get one for a clearer mind.

5. Surround Yourself with Good People

I used to ignore this matter for so many years and as a result, there was so much unnecessary drama that can be avoided only if I chose my friends wisely.

But now when I get older, I can’t stress how important it is to be selective about who you surround yourself with on a daily basis because it affects you more than you thought it would.

Surround yourselves with people that genuinely care about you means a lot especially when you go through tough times because we are all needing a reminder that everything is gonna be alright and we don’t have to be so hard on ourselves.

6. It’s Okay to Slow Down

Trust me, you still have time. You are still gonna have time to do all the things you wanna do.

Slowing down to recharge your energy once in a while is necessary so you won’t rush out and try hard to do it all at once.

While we notice more and more people say ‘hustle harder’ every single time, there’s no point in forcing yourself to be productive all the time.

So slow down, put fewer things in your to-do lists, and take a break.

Those are the 6 main ways to stop you from being so hard on yourself. While they all might not be working for you, it’s still recommended to try at least one of them and stick with it for some time so you’ll be able to see the results.

This story has originally appeared on Medium.