Striving to be your best? While not necessarily a bad thing, putting immense pressure on yourself to meet your own high expectations can take its toll on both your physical and mental/emotional health.

So how do you distinguish between aiming high and an possessing an unrealistic outlook in one’s life?

For some of us, it begins early in childhood from picking up expectations from our parents, siblings or peers and further develops throughout adolescence and into adulthood. At school, having a competitive nature in sports or academically, or in both. For others, a sense of not being quite good enough which can develop at any time, usually from an event or situation, or simply underlying feelings of feeling like a failure with no good cause or reason.

Welcome to your inner-critic. We all own one! And, yes, it can be a good thing! When in balance, your ‘inner voice’ can keep you motivated and steer you towards making healthy life decisions. However, this inner voice when not kept in check loves to put you down, compare oneself to others, looks for confirmation to remind you that you are a failure, sets you up for disappointment and generally just makes you miserable. It looks for opportunities to confirm that you aren’t enough. Ever.

How do you take the focus away from your shortcomings and mistakes? How do you turn it around so that your impossible standards can lay to rest giving way for your kinder personal standards to emerge? Allowing this to unfold can further personal opportunities, great decisions, balanced emotions and living life being gentle to yourself. Learn to recognise the tone of your own self-talk.

Do any of these resonate with you?

• When taking on a new opportunity or challenge – are you thinking of giving up for fear of not being successful? Do you tell yourself you weren’t smart enough anyway…?

• Do you muse on your perceived failures, errors and discussions long after they are over, playing things over in your mind and looking for alternative endings?

• Is your ‘self-talk’ harsh and critical – yet you wouldn’t treat your friends or family so critically?

• Do you blame yourself when situations don’t turn out as you had planned?

• Do you leave ideas or plans until the last minute for fear of ‘it not working out’ or overthinking all the details, in case you might not be able to complete it to a high enough standard?

• Do you compare yourself to others; what they look like, their lifestyle, what they own/have?

• Feel jealous or envious of others successes and put them down behind their back?

Pay attention to your behaviour!

Because we often think and behave automatically, we don’t realise that we allow our harsh inner critic and negative self-talk go unchallenged. Stop and recognise your thoughts. It is the first step to challenge this negativity in order to allow healthier thought patterns to emerge.

How to begin the process of being kinder to yourself:

• ‘Catch’ yourself being critical to yourself – then say stop and replace with a positive thought, sentence, vision or outcome

• Show yourself courtesy. Just as you would do for your friends, family or colleagues - do the same for yourself. Surely when they make a mistake you wouldn’t be berating them with how much of a loser they are, telling them that they are simply just a failure!

• Understand that there is a difference between failing and being a failure – no mistake can ever define your authentic self

• Your behaviour does not automatically reflect your character - “Be careful how you talk to yourself, because you are listening” – Lisa M. Hayes

• Learn to meditate which is extremely beneficial for pessimistic thought patterns

• Journal – scribble down all your thoughts, then ask yourself where they came from?

• Yoga – breath work balances our physical and emotional body extensively

• Talk therapy, especially cognitive behavioural therapy

In closing, your mind can be your greatest strength while you walk your journey in life. It can also become your worst enemy.

Allow yourself to become aware of your thoughts, to notice them and ask yourself how true they actually are. Catch the negative thoughts, release them and give them no recognition whatsoever – for after-all, they are just thoughts – so please, just let them go.