I notice that you being hard on yourself doesn’t help you get more done. You criticizing yourself doesn’t help you learn and grow. You dwelling on your perceived failures, shortcomings, faults, weaknesses and screw-ups doesn’t help you be a creative person.

In fact, it makes everything worse.

Being hard on yourself depletes your energy.
Being hard on yourself discourages you from taking action.
Being hard on yourself makes every idea an opportunity for punishment. (“Why didn’t you think of that sooner?” “You should have done that already!” “What’s this – another idea that you won’t finish?”)

Treating yourself as though you are some unreliable and troublesome child who must be constantly watched (“Heaven knows WHAT she’ll do if we take our eyes off her for even just one second”) is completely counter-productive.

I might also point out that you being hard on other people (criticizing, dwelling on their perceived failures, shortcomings, faults, weaknesses and screw-ups doesn’t help anything either. In fact, it makes things worse.

So just for today, be tender with yourself.

Give yourself a sincere compliment and don’t then immediately talk yourself out of it.

Look around your life and notice all the parts of it that are truly, truly wonderful.

Being gentle with yourself and others is not a cop-out: rather, it is the only way out of the destructive spirals of procrastination, perfectionism and self-loathing.