July 4, 2025

The Real Reason Self-Criticism Isn't Helping You in Midlife (Ep. 35)

Do you believe being hard on yourself keeps you motivated? That self-criticism somehow equals discipline? In this episode, we’re throwing that belief overboard. Because tough self-talk isn’t keeping you on track… it’s dragging you down.

Join me as I walk through how negative self-talk acts like rocks in a wagon or cannonballs in your boat, and what to do instead. You’ll learn how to swap self-criticism for compassion, so you can create more confidence, energy, and clarity—especially in midlife.

🎧 BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL KNOW:

✔ Why self-criticism shuts down motivation, learning, and creativity
✔ The difference between self-discipline and self-compassion
✔ How to stop dragging a wagon full of emotional “rocks” through your life

💡 OMG Moment: Self-criticism doesn’t make you better—it shuts you down.

🛠️ Take Action
Notice your thoughts. When you hear that inner voice criticizing your body, your choices, your progress—pause. Ask yourself, “Would I say this to a friend?” Then reframe it with self-compassion. Every time you do, you’re lifting a weight and making space to move forward.

🌱 Why This Episode Matters
Midlife brings a lot of changes—career shifts, relationship dynamics, aging parents, evolving identity. In the midst of all that, we need more kindness, not less. Speaking to yourself with compassion is not weakness. It’s a strength that helps you stay grounded, focused, and energized for whatever comes next.

👉 Ready to shift your inner dialogue?
Take my Inner Voice Quiz at cherylpfischer.com/innervoicequiz to find out who’s doing the talking in your head—and get your next step to move forward with more ease.

🎯 Want to dive deeper into tools like tapping and affirmations?
Join us in the Midlife Pivot community on Patreon—free all summer at patreon.com/mindyourmidlife.

❤️ If this episode helped you, leave a 5-star rating and review. It helps new midlife women find us—and helps me keep creating content for you.

🎧 Follow the podcast so you don’t miss next week’s conversation about midlife transformation and the limiting beliefs that keep us from stepping into it.

Find all podcast and coaching resources at cherylpfischer.com.

Ask a question - I'll answer on the podcast!

Join the community at patreon.com/mindyourmidlife and have a say in podcast episodes!

00:00 - Why Self-Criticism Backfires

05:32 - Don't Shoot Holes in Your Boat

11:03 - Self-Compassion Over Self-Criticism

17:55 - Unloading Rocks from Your Wagon

23:15 - Midlife Pressure and Kindness Practice

26:19 - Episode Wrap and Resources

WEBVTT

00:00:01.401 --> 00:00:19.844
I wonder if you subscribe to the theory that you got to be tough on people to motivate them, and showing mercy and making it too easy or just allowing people to give up too quickly that means they're never going to do anything.

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Have you ever had a coach that was kind of that sort of motivator?

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Here's the problem.

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While in some situations, maybe a bit of toughness in coaching is not a bad idea, in most situations it's not a good idea, and especially when we are dealing with the thoughts in our brains that are talking to us all day long.

00:00:50.002 --> 00:00:55.790
No mercy, tough criticize that's a big nope.

00:00:55.790 --> 00:01:04.560
So let's talk about why this self criticism backfires and how to actually do something totally different.

00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:06.222
And how to actually do something totally different.

00:01:06.322 --> 00:01:18.781
Welcome to Mind your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time.

00:01:18.781 --> 00:01:26.474
Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body.

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Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and oh my goodness powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife.

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This is the Mind your Midlife podcast, so let's see if you identify with a piece of my story.

00:01:54.504 --> 00:02:04.134
I knew for a long time that I tended to be very critical of myself and kind of a worrier, you know, thinking of all the worst case scenarios and thinking of what I should have said in the conversation.

00:02:04.134 --> 00:02:11.009
Or I can't believe I did that silly thing and I never really paid that much attention to it.

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I just said that's my personality.

00:02:12.592 --> 00:02:15.786
I know where it comes from, I know who I'm related to.

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That's my personality.

00:02:17.531 --> 00:02:43.780
And then one day you may have heard me tell this story I was standing in my kitchen and I don't think I was cooking or anything, I was just doing whatever I was doing, and my husband was there as well and I was telling him about the online business that I was doing and I, as I recall, thought I was just having a conversation.

00:02:43.780 --> 00:02:49.212
We could have been, you know, emptying the dishwasher or getting snack out, who knows.

00:02:49.212 --> 00:02:52.669
We're just having conversation, is what I thought.

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And at one point he paused and he said to me why don't you just stop doing that business?

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And I said what?

00:03:06.745 --> 00:03:09.431
Where did you get that from?

00:03:09.431 --> 00:03:14.909
And he said well, all you do is complain about it.

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So if you're not happy, then don't do it, do something else and the cartoon version of me is head exploded.

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I had no idea, no idea that what I was doing there in the kitchen and in his perspective a lot more than that, I guess was complaining about how hard it was and the difficulties and the worries and the concerns.

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I thought it was just making conversation and the fact that he heard that in such a different way really made me pause, and I tell this story pretty regularly because it was the turning point that made me go oh, maybe the stuff I'm thinking and the stuff I'm saying does matter, even when I'm talking to myself, and that absolutely is the first time I paid any attention to mindset, personal development, anything which is now something that I focus on Crazy huh.

00:04:27.261 --> 00:04:50.745
So what I realized is that the words I was using and they were coming out of me in that particular situation, but they were in my head all the time the words I was using were focusing on what had gone wrong, what I should do differently, what I wasn't doing but I should be doing.

00:04:50.745 --> 00:04:54.312
I was trying to maybe toughen myself up.

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I was trying to not get my hopes up, which is a saying that I can't stand.

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I maybe was telling myself I will not get anything done if I'm just sitting around enjoying myself all day.

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This should be hard and difficult.

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Hard work, focus, tough.

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We don't actually have to speak to ourselves that way and in fact I will argue it's detrimental.

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It's detrimental.

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So Dr Kristen Neff is someone who's studied this extensively, has written about this extensively, and she says with self-criticism we are both the attacker and the attacked.

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It's like slapping ourselves when we fall down, thinking that will help us stand up faster.

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That's her quote.

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So imagine you trip over something out on your sidewalk and then you smack yourself in the head and say get up.

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Obviously that's not going to help.

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That's not going to help.

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So self-criticism maybe isn't the big motivator that we thought it was.

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It is a false belief to say if I'm not hard on myself, then I will insert thing you don't want.

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Get lazy, not get it done.

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Lay on the couch all day, not work hard enough.

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If you are saying any form of that statement to yourself, if I'm not hard on myself, if I don't catch all these things, then I'll never do it.

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Get lazy.

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That's not true.

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It is a false belief and there's no way.

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It's true.

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First of all because when we say these always and never kind of statements.

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They're never, always true, can I use that?

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But what we found psychologically is that self-criticism triggers and you've heard me say this before our fight or flight response and that response is a nervous system response.

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We are triggering our nervous system to go into the sympathetic nervous system and it's actually not just fight or flight, it's fight, flight, freeze or fawn.

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Our bodies are either revving up with adrenaline to fight, they are revving up with adrenaline to run flight, they are just frozen in place.

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That's freeze or they are just kind of we're making ourselves so small and tiny, that's fun.

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We're letting everyone else be in charge and when that happens it shuts down any learning we could do.

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It shuts our brains down from taking in new information.

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It 100% shuts our brains down from problem solving, from solving any issue that you might be in the middle of, and thinking creatively, and it shuts down our motivation.

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And if that's not enough for you, it also shuts down our digestive system.

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That's why you may have heard the term rest and digest.

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But anyway, we're talking about self-criticism and self-talk today.

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We're talking about self-criticism and self-talk today.

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So let me give you a visual example to remember.

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One of my mentors always used the saying don't shoot holes in your own boat, and I love this saying, and so let's make a picture out of it.

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So let's say that your life is a boat.

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You maybe let's call it a houseboat, shall we?

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You have this houseboat and it's your first houseboat and you've done a bit of work on it.

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It's not perfect.

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You wish it was a little more sleek, you wish it was a little bit bigger, you wish it looked more successful.

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You see what I'm doing.

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You wish it could go a bit faster or had already gone a bit faster, but it's your boat and you're proud of this boat.

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Overall in general, it looks good, it floats, you're in there, it's your boat.

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And when you start criticizing this boat, it's the equivalent of taking out a cannon and shooting a cannonball into the side of your boat.

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You're telling yourself that you look dumpy and you look a Cannonball into the side of your boat.

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You're telling yourself that you should be really a lot farther along in your career than you are now.

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Cannonball into the side of your boat.

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You're telling yourself that you are, I don't know, uncoordinated and you can't move around well because you're getting old and everything hurts.

00:10:03.423 --> 00:10:06.166
Cannonball into the side of your boat.

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You're looking at your body and you're going and telling yourself it's not attractive or whatever.

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Your critique of the day is Cannonball into your boat.

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How do you think that boat's doing on the water?

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I'm pretty sure there's not much of that boat left at this point.

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It's gonna sink.

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There's no benefit to shooting holes in your own boat Zero.

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So when mean to yourself and it often sounds like should have this or looking at something about your life and thinking I thought I was better than this, this is terrible, this is not appealing, it's not attractive.

00:10:59.370 --> 00:11:09.767
One, something like that that is shooting a hole in your own boat, that's what we mean by negative self-talk or self-criticism.

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Let's flip it the other way.

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Is there another way that you could talk to yourself?

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Now I don't want you to spiral and say I can't believe I talked to myself like this.

00:11:19.601 --> 00:11:20.344
Oh my goodness.

00:11:20.965 --> 00:11:44.691
Our brains are wired to keep us safe and so when you get yourself into any situation that has just a little bit of uncertainty to it, or you feel a little bit of nervousness or a little bit of embarrassment, your brain may emphasize that to you so that you pull back and get safe out of that situation.

00:11:44.691 --> 00:11:54.907
Now, probably the situation that gave you a little bit of nervousness or a little bit of embarrassment or a little bit of concern was totally safe and maybe even where you wanted to be.

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But our brains don't always know that, so it's not your fault.

00:12:00.768 --> 00:12:09.347
You've not done something wrong if you've got all this negative self-talk going on, and let's figure out what we can do instead.

00:12:09.347 --> 00:12:33.153
So I want you to focus on self-compassion, and, while maybe it wouldn't make sense to coach a sports team by just telling them all day to relax and enjoy how great they are, the good coaches use a lot of compassion, and we need to do that with ourselves as well.

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And hear me when I say this this is not a personality trait.

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It's not true that some people can be kind to themselves and compassionate toward themselves, and some people just aren't that way.

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Aren't that way needs air quotes?

00:12:49.447 --> 00:12:50.890
That's not true.

00:12:50.890 --> 00:13:05.451
This is a skill you can learn to be more compassionate, more kind toward yourself, and it has nothing to do with, again, air quotes letting yourself off the hook.

00:13:06.460 --> 00:13:08.808
Remember the quote from Dr Kristen Neff.

00:13:08.808 --> 00:13:11.320
Remember the shooting holes in your own boat.

00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:18.114
It is not about going easy on myself and thus I'm not going to hit my goal.

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It's not about that at all, and maybe this will help as well.

00:13:24.924 --> 00:13:30.322
Another quote from Dr Neff self-criticism asks what's wrong with you.

00:13:30.322 --> 00:13:35.773
Self-compassion asks what's happened to you.

00:13:35.773 --> 00:13:41.926
So it's okay when we're trying to be compassionate and kind to ourselves.

00:13:41.926 --> 00:13:49.160
It's okay to think about something difficult that we've gone through.

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I'm going through difficult things right now.

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We're all going through difficult things.

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I'm not saying we forget that and we never feel it.

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I would never say that we want to be kind about it to ourselves.

00:14:08.113 --> 00:14:26.620
And my visual for you about self compassion is you are a person and I dare say you are the most important person in your own life, because if you didn't have you, you have nothing.

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So talk to yourself like you'd talk to your best friend and boy, do we not do that a lot of the time.

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Imagine the stuff going on in your head and imagine you picking up the phone or going out to dinner with your best friend and saying those things out loud to them.

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Wow, wow.

00:15:01.458 --> 00:15:13.471
If you're listening to this podcast, I'm betting that you're not the type that would just tear down your best friend with all the critical stuff that you may have been saying to yourself in your head.

00:15:13.471 --> 00:15:21.345
So self-compassion is speaking to yourself like you would to your best friend.

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I know you've been going through something.

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I'm here for you.

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I know you can do it.

00:15:26.875 --> 00:15:28.274
You look great today.

00:15:28.274 --> 00:15:32.379
I don't know All the different things you might say to someone in your life.

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You can say those things to yourself.

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That's good.

00:15:37.315 --> 00:16:02.364
It helps and it often motivates, in fact, because when you are in a good place in terms of what's going on in your head, you can be more creative, you can come up with ideas, you can smile more, you probably are prone to get out of the house or move more, and all those things are going to lead down the path to our success.

00:16:03.169 --> 00:16:04.154
Okay, so what should we do?

00:16:04.154 --> 00:16:09.721
Dr Shad Homesteader says you will become what you think about most.

00:16:09.721 --> 00:16:21.419
Your success or failure in anything large or small will depend on your programming, what you accept from others and what you say when you talk to yourself.

00:16:21.419 --> 00:16:25.293
And he has a book with that name as well.

00:16:25.293 --> 00:16:29.791
I'll put it at Cheryl P Fishercom slash read really interesting book about self talk.

00:16:29.791 --> 00:16:31.134
So what are we going to do?

00:16:31.134 --> 00:16:32.336
You're hearing me.

00:16:32.336 --> 00:16:35.182
You're thinking yeah, I do it, I do it, I do it.

00:16:35.182 --> 00:16:41.630
I speak so badly to myself sometimes, and you're hearing, hearing me say it's not you, it happens to everyone.

00:16:41.630 --> 00:16:43.335
That's part of self-compassion.

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What are we going to do?

00:16:45.318 --> 00:16:54.240
The first thing is to catch that critic, just being aware when that voice starts going.

00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:56.144
What'd you wear that for?

00:16:56.144 --> 00:16:57.331
Why are you wearing these shoes?

00:16:57.331 --> 00:16:58.693
Oh, you look terrible today.

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What is going on with your skin?

00:17:00.236 --> 00:17:01.599
Why are you still in this job?

00:17:01.599 --> 00:17:10.174
To yourself, catch it, even just being aware, is going to make a difference.

00:17:11.037 --> 00:17:17.513
And then I want to ask, I want you to ask yourself would I say this to my friend?

00:17:17.513 --> 00:17:19.738
And here's another way to think about it.

00:17:19.738 --> 00:17:26.532
Imagine you are walking down the street and you're pulling I guess we'll say a wagon behind you.

00:17:26.532 --> 00:17:30.182
Or you're trying to push a grocery cart.

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Are you pushing that down the street?

00:17:32.577 --> 00:17:36.135
We'll pull a wagon, we're going to pull a wagon down the street.

00:17:36.135 --> 00:17:46.895
And here's what's happening as you're walking down the street, you're looking at the trees, you're thinking about your day, you're thinking about your week, you're thinking about your outfit, you're thinking about where you're going.

00:17:47.917 --> 00:17:51.792
Every time you say to yourself I look dumpy today.

00:17:51.792 --> 00:17:55.380
You're basically throwing a rock into that wagon.

00:17:55.380 --> 00:17:58.717
And then you say to yourself I can't believe I said that thing in the meeting today.

00:17:58.717 --> 00:18:00.930
Rock in the wagon oh, I can't believe I said that thing in the meeting today.

00:18:00.930 --> 00:18:06.065
Rock in the wagon oh I can't believe Joe said that thing to me.

00:18:06.065 --> 00:18:07.288
Why didn't I react?

00:18:07.288 --> 00:18:10.395
I never think of anything to say at the right time.

00:18:10.576 --> 00:18:13.502
Rock in the wagon there's so many things.

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What happens when you pile rock after rock after rock in the wagon?

00:18:19.020 --> 00:18:21.767
It gets harder and harder to pull it.

00:18:21.767 --> 00:18:27.839
You're dragging it, you're leaned over, you're shuffling.

00:18:27.839 --> 00:18:33.637
Now you can barely get down the street, and maybe that is the best visual to show you.

00:18:33.637 --> 00:18:44.230
If you're trying to move forward in life and yet you keep throwing these rocks in your wagon, moving forward becomes a huge, huge challenge.

00:18:44.230 --> 00:18:59.423
Whereas if we could take those out and maybe it takes time to be aware that they're there and to switch them, but if we could take them out, wow, we can move forward faster and more comfortably and standing up straight and walking ahead.

00:18:59.423 --> 00:19:01.852
So how are we going to get the rocks out?

00:19:01.852 --> 00:19:04.135
Now that we're aware of them?

00:19:05.298 --> 00:19:07.161
Let's kind of reframe.

00:19:07.161 --> 00:19:11.414
Every time you reframe those thoughts, you get to take a rock out.

00:19:11.414 --> 00:19:15.604
So if you're thinking to yourself oh, you blew it again.

00:19:15.604 --> 00:19:17.593
I can't believe you did that in the meeting today.

00:19:17.593 --> 00:19:23.625
Maybe you can say that was hard and I'm learning.

00:19:23.625 --> 00:19:30.560
Or you're really like, oh, I can't believe I'm I'm gaining weight.

00:19:30.560 --> 00:19:34.233
Or I don't like how I look, I can't believe I've let this happen.

00:19:34.233 --> 00:19:38.222
You can say sometimes it's hard to look in the mirror.

00:19:38.222 --> 00:19:43.832
Sometimes it's hard to look in the mirror, but every day is getting better.

00:19:43.872 --> 00:19:50.477
Whatever you put after that but negates the first part, see if there's a way you can shift what's going on in your head.

00:19:50.477 --> 00:20:08.151
Now I'm not trying to tell you that this is something you can just flip a switch and say reframe, reframe, no problem, reframe Again.

00:20:08.151 --> 00:20:11.176
Your brain is trying to keep you safe and we may have very ingrained habits of thinking here that we're dealing with.

00:20:11.176 --> 00:20:15.391
So it takes time and you have to be kind to yourself as you're learning to make this shift.

00:20:15.391 --> 00:20:19.739
It took me a while and I still fall into this trap regularly.

00:20:19.739 --> 00:20:31.818
You want to be aware when you throw in those rocks in the wagon, you want to see if there's a way you can shift the words, reframe the message, get that rock back out of the wagon, keep moving forward.

00:20:31.818 --> 00:20:47.359
And so what you typically need, as you're taking time to adjust to something, is a practice that you can kind of regularly do, because when you're in a mood me saying reframe, you're going to go, whatever.

00:20:48.182 --> 00:20:55.598
So my two favorites are affirmations, and you heard me say something with a but in the middle is one of my favorites.

00:20:55.598 --> 00:21:03.053
If we say things over and over to ourselves and write them and we add a positive emotion, we feel really good about them.

00:21:03.053 --> 00:21:07.063
They will start to become part of us.

00:21:07.063 --> 00:21:20.061
And then my other favorite is tapping, which is using acupressure points to allow emotions to flow through our bodies and heal and move forward.

00:21:20.061 --> 00:21:24.770
So powerful.

00:21:24.770 --> 00:21:27.796
And the idea is repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition.

00:21:27.796 --> 00:21:35.953
So this month in Patreon, we are talking about affirmations and tapping.

00:21:35.953 --> 00:21:42.444
So come hang out with us, because I think you're going to learn exactly what you need.

00:21:43.069 --> 00:21:47.820
Patreoncom slash mind your midlife, Just click, join for free over the summer.

00:21:47.820 --> 00:21:49.951
Everything is free, totally cool.

00:21:49.951 --> 00:21:51.454
I think you'll love it.

00:21:51.454 --> 00:21:54.701
Okay, so this is mind your midlife.

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So you've got that.

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We're talking about mindset.

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This is one of the key basic principles, honestly, of mindset and self-talk is speaking to yourself in a kind way.

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Why does it matter so much?

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In midlife?

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We have extra pressure on ourselves during this period of life.

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We have extra change, our careers are changing and even if they're not changing right now, they will at some point that seems to be approaching.

00:22:24.604 --> 00:22:28.921
Our bodies are changing and that could be good heavens a million things.

00:22:28.921 --> 00:22:35.103
We have parents whose age and, potentially, living situation is changing.

00:22:35.103 --> 00:22:38.580
We have kids who are growing up and living situation is changing.

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We might be thinking about reinventing ourselves.

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That's a lot.

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That's a lot of change at a time.

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It's a lot of people involved and we don't get to control other people right.

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So there's a lot of pressure to that, and if you can be kind to yourself and stop throwing rocks in your wagon, it will give you energy to move through that.

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It will give you the ability to think more creatively when you're solving problems.

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And if you are being just cruel constantly to yourself, it's more rocks in the wagon and it's draining your energy.

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Being gentle and kind to yourself is discipline.

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Discipline is not about berating yourself and just making yourself feel bad.

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It's being gentle and being kind, even when your brain strays away from that, sometimes pulling it back, because that's what keeps us going.

00:23:37.635 --> 00:23:51.260
Your OMG moment today that I want you to really, really remember is criticism doesn't make us better, it shuts us down when you are self criticizing all the time in your mind.

00:23:51.260 --> 00:23:55.792
It doesn't even matter whether these words are said out loud, even just in your mind.

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If you're criticizing yourself, it will shut you down.

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It doesn't make you better.

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Being kind to ourselves, finding things to appreciate about ourselves, giving ourselves room to grow and learn from our mistakes is what keeps us going.

00:24:12.069 --> 00:24:18.443
So what would you shift about the way you talk to yourself if you're actually talking to your best friend?

00:24:18.443 --> 00:24:24.012
To yourself, if you're actually talking to your best friend?

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Okay, if this episode resonated with you, I want you to take my inner voice quiz.

00:24:26.778 --> 00:24:30.750
You want to find out what inner voice is talking to you.

00:24:30.750 --> 00:24:32.753
Is it the coach?

00:24:32.753 --> 00:24:34.237
Is it the cheerleader?

00:24:34.237 --> 00:24:35.759
Is it the critic?

00:24:35.759 --> 00:24:36.480
Who is it?

00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:39.815
And I'll give you a tip for how to grow through that as well.

00:24:39.815 --> 00:24:43.594
So go to CherylPFishercom slash inner voice quiz.

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You'll see that link in the show notes and, of course, come hang with us in Patreon.

00:24:47.912 --> 00:24:50.979
As I said, that link is in the show notes as well.

00:24:51.941 --> 00:25:00.840
If you're listening on Apple, make sure you tap the five stars, if you wouldn't mind, and take just a minute and leave a quick review.

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You would be shocked at how much it helps to get this podcast out to more people, and I'm so grateful to you for doing that.

00:25:10.784 --> 00:25:16.762
And, of course, make sure you hit the follow button, because next week I have a guest joining me.

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We're going to talk about transformation during this period of life and the limiting beliefs that make it difficult sometimes.

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And in the meantime, remember midlife is our time to slow down, to notice what's going on around us, what's going on inside our heads, and create something amazing.