October 24, 2025 • 28 mins
Do you ever get stuck in your thoughts?
What do you usually overthink about?
Today, Jay explores one of the most powerful, yet regularly overlooked, conversations we have every day: the one we have with ourselves. Too often, we become our own harshest critics, speaking to ourselves in ways we’d never speak to a friend. Jay reveals how self-criticism can disguise itself as control or accountability, when in truth, it’s a subtle form of self-sabotage that quietly erodes our confidence, creativity, and motivation.
Jay reminds us that rest and reflection aren’t signs of weakness, they’re essential parts of real growth. He explains that progress is never a straight line, and that falling back, slowing down, or taking a break doesn’t mean you’ve failed, it simply means you’re human. His message is a gentle yet powerful invitation to stop tearing yourself down and start lifting yourself up, to trade shame for accountability, criticism for compassion, and restlessness for stillness. Through his words, Jay offers more than advice, he shares a roadmap for healing your relationship with yourself, embracing imperfection with grace, and finding peace in the quiet strength of self-acceptance.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How to Silence Your Inner Critic
How to Talk to Yourself Like a Friend
How to Rewire Your Brain for Positivity
How to Rest Without Feeling Guilty
How to Stop Letting Negativity Control You
Healing begins the moment you choose kindness over criticism. Every mistake, setback, or pause is not the end of the journey, it’s part of becoming who you’re meant to be.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
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What We Discuss:
01:02 Is Your inner Voice Blocking You?
02:16 #1: Self Criticism is Self Sabotage
06:32 #2: Negative Self Talk is Counterproductive
10:08 #3: Shaming Yourself Doesn't Build Accountability
13:28 #4: Your Brain is Wired to Focus on Mistakes
17:24 #5: Progress Isn't Linear
20:01 #6: Rest is Essential for Progress
22:35 #7: Self Kindness Builds Resilience
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We all talk to ourselves like our worst enemy. We
talk to ourselves like someone we hate. We talk to
ourselves like someone we don't believe in. You never talk
to your friend like that. Now, I'm not saying that
you want to falsely cheer yourself up either. I'm not
saying you just want to look at yourself and be like, no,
I'm amazing and they were wrong. But you want to
have an honest assessment. So saying no, you're the best
(00:23):
isn't true, and saying you're the worst also isn't true.
The number one health and wellness podcast Jay Setty Jay Shetty,
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I'm Jay Shetty,
the author of New York Times best selling books Think
Like a Monk and Eight Rules of Love. And I'm
(00:45):
so glad you're here today because i think one of
the biggest challenges that I'm hearing so many of you
dealing with right now is not the voices outside. It's
not the voice of your friends, it's not the voice
of your families. It's the voice in side your head.
If you've ever felt that you've got a critic sitting
in your head. Twenty four to seven, Finding a way
(01:08):
to overanalyze, criticize, complain about every move you make, every
thought you have, every decision you're about to make, and
you find that that critical voice is blocking you from
living your best life, is blocking you from unleashing your potential,
is blocking you from making that idea happen. Maybe you
(01:29):
have an idea for a podcast, but the voice in
your head always says, don't do it. Maybe you have
an idea about how to impact the world positively, and
you've a voice in your head saying you're not good enough.
Maybe you have the desire to build your own business,
to start your own company, and the voice in your
head says it's a stupid idea. Whatever it is, we
all go through moments in life where we keep beating
(01:52):
ourselves up. If you're someone who wants to silence that
critic in your head, this episode is for you. If
you're someone who wants to break through that negative spiral
in your mind, this episode is for you. And if
you're someone who wants to stop beating yourself up and
start lifting yourself up, this episode is for you. Let's
(02:15):
dive in. The first thing I want to talk about
is that self criticism feels like control, but it's actually sabotaged.
Right when we criticize ourself, we think we're in control,
we think we know everything, We think we're correcting ourselves.
What we don't realize is we're actually sabotaging ourselves. Imagine
(02:37):
a top tennis player keeps berating themselves after every missed shot.
Instead of focusing, they actually are just beating themselves up
about the last point. That self criticism that they thought
would motivate them actually destroys their rhythm. There's an incredible
(02:57):
speech that was given by Roger Federer at Dartmouth University,
and he said that in his career he has missed
so many points, He has lost so many points, but
he said the biggest skill he had is that he
never focused on the last point he missed. He said,
if I'm focused on the last point that I missed,
(03:18):
or if I'm focused on the future point that I
might miss, then guess what I miss the present shot.
I miss the present moment. So many of us are
beating ourselves up for the past. So many of ourselves
are beating ourselves up for not having the future we
thought we were going to build. What does that do?
It makes the present, lose time, money, energy, everything. Ask
(03:43):
yourself to stop seeing self criticism as motivating in control.
Kristin Nef's research on self compassion from two thousand and
five shows that students who forgave themselves for procrastinating studied
more effectively for the next exam, while harsh self critics
(04:04):
repeated the same cycle. Imagine that forgiving yourself makes you
more focused. Forgiving yourself allows you to move forward. Resenting
yourself holds you back. Criticizing yourself demotivates you. And think
about it when you're talking to someone else or when
(04:25):
someone speaking to you. If someone criticizes your every move.
I remember I've not played golf very often, but I
took a lesson once and I had a coach who
criticized me every quarter of a swing. So even before
I swung and hit the ball, he would criticize every
single time, and every time I was about to hit
the ball, he'd have another criticism. It demotivated me. Think
(04:50):
about yourself. If every time you share an idea with
the friend, they just pull it apart, even if they're
well intentioned, it demotivates you. How many of you have
called yourself stupid after making a mistake at work, and
instead of fixing it quickly, you spiral into self doubt,
which means you make more errors. And what's really interesting
(05:10):
to me about this is that it's not just about performance,
it's not just about focus. It's even in relationships. Maybe
you're beating yourself up for staying in a relationship for
too long. Maybe you're beating yourself up for allowing someone
to walk all over you. Maybe you're beating yourself up
for allowing someone to mistreat you. When you beat yourself
(05:32):
up for someone already treating you badly, it only gets worse.
Forgive yourself for confusing attention with love. Forgive yourself for
ignoring red flags because you wanted it to work. Forgive
yourself for chasing validation instead of connection. Forgive yourself for
(05:56):
being loyal to people who weren't loyal to you. Forgive
yourself so that you can move on. Because we don't
forgive ourselves, we don't heal. Healing is not just about
forgiving others, about letting go of what side side of ourselves.
It's about saying, you know that mistake I made, that's
(06:17):
all I knew, then, that's all the information I had then,
and maybe I even knew better. But guess what I'm
now learning that lesson, I'm now applying it. That will
free you from actually blocking yourself from growth. The second
thing I want to talk about is you wouldn't talk
to a friend like that, So why talk to yourself
(06:39):
like that? Imagine your best friend failed a job interview.
Would you say you're useless? You should have prepared better,
You never get hired. Now, you would never say that
to a friend ever. Yet that's how we all talk
to ourselves. We all talk to ourselves like our worst enemy.
(07:00):
We talk to ourselves like someone we hate. We talk
to ourselves like someone we don't believe in. You never
talk to your friend like that. Now, I'm not saying
that you want to falsely cheer yourself up either. I'm
not saying you just want to look at yourself and
be like, no, I'm amazing and they were wrong. But
you want to have an honest assessment, So saying no,
you're the best isn't true, and saying you're the worst
(07:23):
also isn't true. In The Bug with Gheeto, one of
the books I studied as a monk, it talks about
how attachment and aversion are two sides of the same coin.
The feeling of I'm the best or I'm the worst
are two sides of the same coin. It's just the
ego playing games with you. When the ego makes you
believe you're the best, well, you become complacent, infallible. When
(07:47):
the ego makes you believe you're the worst, guess what,
it doesn't help you grow. It's the honest introspection, the
honest assessment that we all need. Hey, this is what
I got right in the interview. But you know what,
I didn't really nail these three things. You're now not
assessing it as you, you're assessing it as something you
(08:07):
took part in. There's research on self talk that found
athletes who used positive instructional self talk improved performance, while
negative self talk led to choking under pressure. Think about that.
So we all have self talk. You can't stop the
self talk, but those that were constructive, those that were positive,
(08:30):
those that were focused forward, made a difference. Imagine before
a date, you tell yourself, I'm boring, I'm not sure
they're going to like me. So what happens You walk
in nervous and awkward. It's a prophecy you help fulfill,
and what happens in that scenario you end up being boring.
(08:50):
You end up feeling more boring. Now I'm not saying
you walk in there and think you're the most interesting
person on the planet, but you think, hey, you know what,
I've got a couple of things that are interesting to
talk about, got a couple of thing in my life
that are important to talk about. Encourage yourself when no
one else is clapping. Validate yourself when no one else
(09:11):
is noticing. Challenge yourself when no one else is pushing
forgive yourself when no one else understands. Believe in yourself
before anyone else does. Push yourself without punishing yourself, because
(09:31):
if you don't do it, you'll always be waiting for
someone else. Strong people did the difficult thing when no
one was watching. Strong people did the challenging thing when
no one was clapping. Strong people did the hardest thing
when it was just in private. Do the hard thing,
(09:57):
do the right thing when no one's there to know,
and you will be able to do it brilliantly when
they're all watching on the sidelines. The third thing I
wanted to talk about is how beating yourself up. Doesn't
build accountability, but it does build shame. Right when you
(10:18):
keep beating yourself up, you think and by the way,
we do this to other people as well. Sometimes will
be mean to someone or will criticize them, hoping that
helps them improve, but it just keeps beating them down.
You can't beat someone down and lift them up at
the same time, which is what we're trying to do, right.
We're trying to beat ourselves up so that we do more,
are more productive, and more effective. Doesn't work that way.
(10:41):
Imagine a teenager court cheating an exam. They feel so
much shame and they think I'm a terrible person. Instead
of changing, they hide their mistakes and cheat again. Brene
Brown's work distinguishes guilt I did something bad from shame
I am bad. Guilt drives corrective action, Shame feel secrecy,
(11:07):
and withdrawal. Notice the difference I did something bad, I
am bad. Every time you say I am and follow
it up with a negative word, you start believing that
is your identity. Every time you say I did something bad,
you're able to recognize it as a habit or a
(11:29):
pattern that you can change. It's a lot harder to
feel we can change ourselves than change something we did.
Let me give you a real life example. Imagine you
snap at your partner and then afterwards you feel shame.
You think I'm a horrible partner. What happens Instead of apologizing,
(11:49):
you avoid them because you feel so bad about yourself.
What does that do? It only makes things worse. When
you just shame yourself as a bad person, you actually
want to spend less time doing the good. It's almost
like you get so comfortable in the dark that the
light kind of exposes you, so you move away from
the light. We don't want to move away from the light.
(12:12):
When the light comes on, you see things for what
they are, and shame blocks us from seeing the way
things they are because it's too scary, it's too hard.
I'll give you a really interesting example. I remember the
first time I went to Vegas at night there was
all this glitz and glam and all the rest of it.
In the morning, I remember with the lights on the
casino floor, seeing people glued to the slot machine, seeing
(12:37):
vomit or drinks and popcorn all over the floor, and
seeing people passed out like it just wasn't the same
sight because the light shows us what's actually there, so
we move away from the light when it shows us
what's actually there. But if we cannot let shame take over,
we can actually look at things for what they are.
(13:00):
Shame yourself. It won't change you. Compassion will. Don't blame yourself.
It won't change you. Accountability will. Don't criticize yourself. It
won't change you. Action will. Don't beat yourself up. It
won't change you. Challenges will. You don't grow because of guilt.
(13:26):
It just slows you down. I've come to realize that
food is never just food. It's a memory. I love language,
a way we express who we are without saying a word.
(13:47):
Some of the most meaningful conversations I've ever had happened
around a table. That moment when someone passes you a
dish that's been in their family for generations, or when
a flavor takes you back to childhood. That's connection, that's presence.
That's why I love what Chase Sapphire Reserve is doing.
They're not just creating dining experiences, They're creating opportunities to
(14:09):
feel something deeper through food. When we look back on
our lives, we rarely remember what we had for lunch.
On a random Tuesday. But we do remember the meals
that made us feel seen, the ones where we lost
track of time with the food was just the beginning
of something more. A moment with someone we love, a
conversation that opened our heart, a reminder of where we
(14:33):
came from. With Chase Sapphire Reserve, card members get access
to those kinds of moments, the ones where food becomes
a story. Imagine sitting at a dinner where the chef
doesn't just cook, they share. They tell you where the
dish came from, what it means to them, and how
it shaped their journey. That's what it's really about, not
just tasting something new, but stepping into someone else's world
(14:57):
for a moment, and maybe understanding you're your own a
little better too. If you want to experience dining that's
more than just a meal, something that nourishes your mind,
your body, and your connection to others, visit Chase dot
Com forward Slash Sapphire Reserve. Food connects us not just
to each other, but to a part of ourselves. We
(15:18):
sometimes forget the part that slows down, that listens, that feels.
With Chase Sapphire Reserve, you're not just making a reservation.
You're creating a memory, a moment of presence, a moment
of purpose. The four point today is your brain is
(15:46):
wired to focus on mistakes. How many times have you
had this? You do something right and your brain will
barely notice it. You do something wrong and your brain
will think about it all day. Let's say you were
great in a meeting today. At work, you'll forget about
it in the next meeting. You say something sloppy or
made a mistake at a meeting, and work you're now
thinking about for the rest of the rest of the week,
(16:08):
thinking that's all anyone can think about. Your brain is
wired to focus on mistakes. Imagine this, a musician finishes
their concert. Hundreds of thousands of people are clapping. One
person frowns, one person isn't happy. One person posts on
social media that they want their money back. Guess what
(16:28):
the mind obsesses over. It obsesses over the negative comments.
You may even see this on your social media. You'll
have ten of your friends respond. One of them doesn't
in the group chat, and you're thinking about that one friend.
Why didn't they respond? Don't they like me? You're forgetting
about the ten people over here who responded immediately. It's
your birthday. Seven people show up to the party that
(16:50):
you wanted to see, three people don't show up, whereas
your mind go to the three people who didn't show up.
One study showed that negative events wag three to five
times more heavily in our minds than positive ones. This
is known as the negativity bias. So what do we
do with that? Here's what I've learned. You remember the
(17:10):
bad times more than the good times because when things
go well, you celebrate for a night, but when things
go bad, you cry for a month. We're used to
going deeper into our harder emotions than we are into
our happier emotions. We've got to learn to rewire our mind.
(17:31):
How do we do this? When something good happens to you,
share it. When something good happens to you, or someone
does something good to you, share it, talk about it.
You're training your mind to spot what will change it positively.
I could look around this room and I can think
about all the mistakes in how the furniture is placed
(17:54):
and what I need to change. That's important. But at
the same time, I can look around and see how
beautiful it is. That's also important. It's valuable to know
what needs to change in your life. It's valuable to
know what's not going in the direction you want it
to go in your life. But if that's all you have,
then you'll just create more of it. There's something known
(18:15):
as the frequency illusion. How many terms have you said
to yourself, I really like that color, or I really
like that shirt or pants or whatever it is, and
now you see them everywhere. Everyone's wearing them. Everyone's wearing
that color. Or you want to get a car and
you want to get a black car, and now you
see black cars everywhere. It's not like there's more black
cars on the road, or more people are wearing those
skirts or shirts or whatever it may be. It's just
(18:37):
that you have a heightened awareness of it. This is
why gratitude works so well. Gratitude doesn't work because it's magic.
It's that when you become grateful for something, you notice
more things to be grateful for. Right now, your brain
is wired to spot negative things, So you spot more
negative things than you do positive, not because there are
more negative things in the world, just because you're trained
(19:00):
to notice it. One of my favorite quotes from Wayne
Dyer is this, you don't see things as they are.
You see things as you are. When you are focused
on the negative, you see more negative. When you focus
on the positive, you notice more positive. This isn't positive thinking.
(19:21):
Positive thinking is pretending like the negative doesn't exist. Noticing
good things is learning to tune yourself in to higher
vibration and frequency. Point number five is that progress is
not linear. Thomas Edison tested over one thousand prototypes before
the light bulb worked. If he saw setbacks his failure,
(19:45):
he'd have quit after attempt number ten. There's an amazing
study that talks about the stages of change. Model shows
that relapse i e. Slipping back into smoking, for example,
isn't failure. It's part of how lasting behavior change happens.
Think about this for a second. You commit to running
three times a week. One week, you only manage once,
(20:09):
and what usually happens is you quit. You got I
messed up this week. Next week I won't run it all.
But what happens you actually lose track. Whereas when you
recognize that that's part of the process of change. When
you set a new goal, when you set a new habit,
you are going to have days that you fall back.
When you break up with someone. You might feel healed
(20:30):
in a month, and then in seven months you're going
to be sitting there thinking about your ex. That's part
of the healing journey. When you realize that healing is
three steps forward, two steps back, four steps forward, three
steps back, sometimes one step forward, four steps back. When
(20:50):
you realize that's what healing looks like, you're actually free
to heal when you want it all to happen today,
When you want healing to all happen tomorrow, it will
last forever. So when we fall off track, we beat
ourselves up. Oh I did three times last week, but
this time only went to the gym once. I was
eating really really healthy, but last night I just crash.
(21:11):
Guess what, the week doesn't matter, right, How many times
have you done that? And it all happens because you
beat yourself up. You don't fall back into bad habits
because you're lazy. You fall back into bad habits because
you beat yourself up. When you have a bad day.
Don't turn a bad day into a bad week. Don't
turn a bad week into a bad month, and don't
(21:35):
turn a bad month into a bad year. Let it
be a bad day that's okay, But tomorrow pick yourself
up and make it a great one. It's when you
don't beat yourself up that you keep the power of
turning a bad day into a good month, a bad
(21:55):
day into a good week. I hope that resonates with you.
Next time you set a goal, a change, or whatever
you want to do and you fall off, know that
that's part of it. Give yourself grace and you'll be
able to get back on track much quicker. The sixth
thing I wanted to share with you today is that
rest is part of progress, not the opposite of it.
(22:18):
So many of us think that rest means we're not
moving forward. My monk teacher used to say, if you
want to move three steps forward, you have to go
three steps deep. So if you're struggling to move forward,
ask yourself if you've gone inward already. Elite athletes schedule
(22:39):
recovery days as strictly as training days. Serena Williams even
naps before matches because rest is strategy, not laziness. For
most of us, though, rest isn't something we plan. It's
something we end up doing when we're exhausted. When you're
resting when you're exhausted, that's not rest. That's survival, that's recovery.
(23:02):
That's why it's so stressful. Whereas the highest performers in
the world have scheduled rest, that scheduled rest is what
helps them perform at their best in all the other times.
On the podcast, I've into Matthew Walker, who has done
a lot of research on sleep, and his study on
why We Sleep from twenty seventeen shows deep sleep consolidates
(23:26):
learning and strengthens memory. Without it, performance and creativity drop.
Some people think, oh, oh sleep when I'm dead, Oh
our sleep when I'm tired. That sleep is the reason
you can be so productive. That sleep is the reason
you can be proactive. That sleep is the reason you
can be so effective. So no, don't beat yourself up
(23:49):
for wanting to rest, don't beat yourself up for wanting
to take a break, don't beat yourself up for wanting
to slow down, And don't beat yourself up for wanting
to have your own time. Allow yourself to slow down,
give yourself permission to be still. That's where your power is.
(24:12):
Let me give you an example. You work late every
night to get ahead, but you're so burned out you're
starting to make sloppy mistakes. A rested version of you
would finish faster with fewer errors. Working more doesn't achieve more.
Losing sleep doesn't achieve more. Trying to do everything doesn't
(24:35):
achieve more. Sometimes you achieve more by more rest, more stillness,
and more calm. Point number seven is that self kindness
builds resilience more than self criticism ever will. Navy seals
in training who used encouraging self talk were far more
(24:59):
likely to complete Hell Week than those who tore themselves down. Now,
for those of you who don't know, Hell Week is
the most grueling training that a Navy seal goes through.
I interviewed David Goggins, and if you want to know
more about it, you can go back to that episode
and watch and listen to what that week actually entails.
(25:20):
It's a five and a half day period during the
first phase of seal training. Candidates average about four hours
of sleep for the entire week, less than one hour
per night. They're constantly exposed to cold water, mud, sand,
physical drills, and team challenges. Training goes day and night,
(25:41):
running information, carrying boats and logs, swimming in the Pacific
obstacle courses. The goal isn't just to push the body.
It's to test the mind and spirit under exhaustion. Instructors
want to see who breaks under stress, who stays calm
when freezing, exhausted and in pain, Who can lead and
support teammates when everyone is suffering. About seventy to eighty
(26:05):
percent of candidates quit during hell week. Those who survive
don't necessarily have the strongest bodies. They have the strongest
mental resilience because their self talk is not negative. They
found that breaking down the week into moments to get
through the next meal not survive five days. Nephan Jermer
(26:29):
in twenty thirteen found people who practice self compassion meditation
increased resilience, life satisfaction, and reduced anxiety. Imagine, after bombing
a presentation, you tell yourself it's one talk, not my
whole career. Next time, I'll be sharper. That mindset keeps
you moving forward instead of giving up. You don't get
(26:51):
stronger by beating yourself down. You get stronger by giving
yourself the same kindness you'd give to any one you love.
I really hope that this episode is able to help
you quiet that inner critic. It's not going anywhere, it's
not going away. We're not trying to get rid of it.
What we're trying to do is that we make sure
(27:13):
we have the new scripts in our mind that have
positive self talk, that focus on what we can be
grateful for, that look for opportunities more than problems, and
that when they look for problems, they look for systems
and solutions, not criticism, not shame. Thank you so much
(27:33):
for listening. I hope you'll share this with a friend
who struggles with this too. I hope you'll discuss it
with them, and I'll see you on the next episode.
Thanks for being here. I'm forever in your corner and
I'm always rooting for you. If you love this episode,
you love my conversation with doctor Joe Dispenser on why
stress and overthinking negatively impacts your brain and heart and
(27:55):
how to change your habits that are on autopilot. Listen
to it right now. How many times do we have
to forget until we stop forgetting and start remembering. That's
the moment of change. No one cares how many times
you fell off the bicycle if you ride the bicycle,
now you ride the bike.
We all talk to ourselves like our worst enemy. We
talk to ourselves like someone we hate. We talk to
ourselves like someone we don't believe in. You never talk
to your friend like that. Now, I'm not saying that
you want to falsely cheer yourself up either. I'm not
saying you just want to look at yourself and be like, no,
I'm amazing and they were wrong. But you want to
have an honest assessment. So saying no, you're the best
(00:23):
isn't true, and saying you're the worst also isn't true.
The number one health and wellness podcast Jay Setty Jay Shetty,
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I'm Jay Shetty,
the author of New York Times best selling books Think
Like a Monk and Eight Rules of Love. And I'm
(00:45):
so glad you're here today because i think one of
the biggest challenges that I'm hearing so many of you
dealing with right now is not the voices outside. It's
not the voice of your friends, it's not the voice
of your families. It's the voice in side your head.
If you've ever felt that you've got a critic sitting
in your head. Twenty four to seven, Finding a way
(01:08):
to overanalyze, criticize, complain about every move you make, every
thought you have, every decision you're about to make, and
you find that that critical voice is blocking you from
living your best life, is blocking you from unleashing your potential,
is blocking you from making that idea happen. Maybe you
(01:29):
have an idea for a podcast, but the voice in
your head always says, don't do it. Maybe you have
an idea about how to impact the world positively, and
you've a voice in your head saying you're not good enough.
Maybe you have the desire to build your own business,
to start your own company, and the voice in your
head says it's a stupid idea. Whatever it is, we
all go through moments in life where we keep beating
(01:52):
ourselves up. If you're someone who wants to silence that
critic in your head, this episode is for you. If
you're someone who wants to break through that negative spiral
in your mind, this episode is for you. And if
you're someone who wants to stop beating yourself up and
start lifting yourself up, this episode is for you. Let's
(02:15):
dive in. The first thing I want to talk about
is that self criticism feels like control, but it's actually sabotaged.
Right when we criticize ourself, we think we're in control,
we think we know everything, We think we're correcting ourselves.
What we don't realize is we're actually sabotaging ourselves. Imagine
(02:37):
a top tennis player keeps berating themselves after every missed shot.
Instead of focusing, they actually are just beating themselves up
about the last point. That self criticism that they thought
would motivate them actually destroys their rhythm. There's an incredible
(02:57):
speech that was given by Roger Federer at Dartmouth University,
and he said that in his career he has missed
so many points, He has lost so many points, but
he said the biggest skill he had is that he
never focused on the last point he missed. He said,
if I'm focused on the last point that I missed,
(03:18):
or if I'm focused on the future point that I
might miss, then guess what I miss the present shot.
I miss the present moment. So many of us are
beating ourselves up for the past. So many of ourselves
are beating ourselves up for not having the future we
thought we were going to build. What does that do?
It makes the present, lose time, money, energy, everything. Ask
(03:43):
yourself to stop seeing self criticism as motivating in control.
Kristin Nef's research on self compassion from two thousand and
five shows that students who forgave themselves for procrastinating studied
more effectively for the next exam, while harsh self critics
(04:04):
repeated the same cycle. Imagine that forgiving yourself makes you
more focused. Forgiving yourself allows you to move forward. Resenting
yourself holds you back. Criticizing yourself demotivates you. And think
about it when you're talking to someone else or when
(04:25):
someone speaking to you. If someone criticizes your every move.
I remember I've not played golf very often, but I
took a lesson once and I had a coach who
criticized me every quarter of a swing. So even before
I swung and hit the ball, he would criticize every
single time, and every time I was about to hit
the ball, he'd have another criticism. It demotivated me. Think
(04:50):
about yourself. If every time you share an idea with
the friend, they just pull it apart, even if they're
well intentioned, it demotivates you. How many of you have
called yourself stupid after making a mistake at work, and
instead of fixing it quickly, you spiral into self doubt,
which means you make more errors. And what's really interesting
(05:10):
to me about this is that it's not just about performance,
it's not just about focus. It's even in relationships. Maybe
you're beating yourself up for staying in a relationship for
too long. Maybe you're beating yourself up for allowing someone
to walk all over you. Maybe you're beating yourself up
for allowing someone to mistreat you. When you beat yourself
(05:32):
up for someone already treating you badly, it only gets worse.
Forgive yourself for confusing attention with love. Forgive yourself for
ignoring red flags because you wanted it to work. Forgive
yourself for chasing validation instead of connection. Forgive yourself for
(05:56):
being loyal to people who weren't loyal to you. Forgive
yourself so that you can move on. Because we don't
forgive ourselves, we don't heal. Healing is not just about
forgiving others, about letting go of what side side of ourselves.
It's about saying, you know that mistake I made, that's
(06:17):
all I knew, then, that's all the information I had then,
and maybe I even knew better. But guess what I'm
now learning that lesson, I'm now applying it. That will
free you from actually blocking yourself from growth. The second
thing I want to talk about is you wouldn't talk
to a friend like that, So why talk to yourself
(06:39):
like that? Imagine your best friend failed a job interview.
Would you say you're useless? You should have prepared better,
You never get hired. Now, you would never say that
to a friend ever. Yet that's how we all talk
to ourselves. We all talk to ourselves like our worst enemy.
(07:00):
We talk to ourselves like someone we hate. We talk
to ourselves like someone we don't believe in. You never
talk to your friend like that. Now, I'm not saying
that you want to falsely cheer yourself up either. I'm
not saying you just want to look at yourself and
be like, no, I'm amazing and they were wrong. But
you want to have an honest assessment, So saying no,
you're the best isn't true, and saying you're the worst
(07:23):
also isn't true. In The Bug with Gheeto, one of
the books I studied as a monk, it talks about
how attachment and aversion are two sides of the same coin.
The feeling of I'm the best or I'm the worst
are two sides of the same coin. It's just the
ego playing games with you. When the ego makes you
believe you're the best, well, you become complacent, infallible. When
(07:47):
the ego makes you believe you're the worst, guess what,
it doesn't help you grow. It's the honest introspection, the
honest assessment that we all need. Hey, this is what
I got right in the interview. But you know what,
I didn't really nail these three things. You're now not
assessing it as you, you're assessing it as something you
(08:07):
took part in. There's research on self talk that found
athletes who used positive instructional self talk improved performance, while
negative self talk led to choking under pressure. Think about that.
So we all have self talk. You can't stop the
self talk, but those that were constructive, those that were positive,
(08:30):
those that were focused forward, made a difference. Imagine before
a date, you tell yourself, I'm boring, I'm not sure
they're going to like me. So what happens You walk
in nervous and awkward. It's a prophecy you help fulfill,
and what happens in that scenario you end up being boring.
(08:50):
You end up feeling more boring. Now I'm not saying
you walk in there and think you're the most interesting
person on the planet, but you think, hey, you know what,
I've got a couple of things that are interesting to
talk about, got a couple of thing in my life
that are important to talk about. Encourage yourself when no
one else is clapping. Validate yourself when no one else
(09:11):
is noticing. Challenge yourself when no one else is pushing
forgive yourself when no one else understands. Believe in yourself
before anyone else does. Push yourself without punishing yourself, because
(09:31):
if you don't do it, you'll always be waiting for
someone else. Strong people did the difficult thing when no
one was watching. Strong people did the challenging thing when
no one was clapping. Strong people did the hardest thing
when it was just in private. Do the hard thing,
(09:57):
do the right thing when no one's there to know,
and you will be able to do it brilliantly when
they're all watching on the sidelines. The third thing I
wanted to talk about is how beating yourself up. Doesn't
build accountability, but it does build shame. Right when you
(10:18):
keep beating yourself up, you think and by the way,
we do this to other people as well. Sometimes will
be mean to someone or will criticize them, hoping that
helps them improve, but it just keeps beating them down.
You can't beat someone down and lift them up at
the same time, which is what we're trying to do, right.
We're trying to beat ourselves up so that we do more,
are more productive, and more effective. Doesn't work that way.
(10:41):
Imagine a teenager court cheating an exam. They feel so
much shame and they think I'm a terrible person. Instead
of changing, they hide their mistakes and cheat again. Brene
Brown's work distinguishes guilt I did something bad from shame
I am bad. Guilt drives corrective action, Shame feel secrecy,
(11:07):
and withdrawal. Notice the difference I did something bad, I
am bad. Every time you say I am and follow
it up with a negative word, you start believing that
is your identity. Every time you say I did something bad,
you're able to recognize it as a habit or a
(11:29):
pattern that you can change. It's a lot harder to
feel we can change ourselves than change something we did.
Let me give you a real life example. Imagine you
snap at your partner and then afterwards you feel shame.
You think I'm a horrible partner. What happens Instead of apologizing,
(11:49):
you avoid them because you feel so bad about yourself.
What does that do? It only makes things worse. When
you just shame yourself as a bad person, you actually
want to spend less time doing the good. It's almost
like you get so comfortable in the dark that the
light kind of exposes you, so you move away from
the light. We don't want to move away from the light.
(12:12):
When the light comes on, you see things for what
they are, and shame blocks us from seeing the way
things they are because it's too scary, it's too hard.
I'll give you a really interesting example. I remember the
first time I went to Vegas at night there was
all this glitz and glam and all the rest of it.
In the morning, I remember with the lights on the
casino floor, seeing people glued to the slot machine, seeing
(12:37):
vomit or drinks and popcorn all over the floor, and
seeing people passed out like it just wasn't the same
sight because the light shows us what's actually there, so
we move away from the light when it shows us
what's actually there. But if we cannot let shame take over,
we can actually look at things for what they are.
(13:00):
Shame yourself. It won't change you. Compassion will. Don't blame yourself.
It won't change you. Accountability will. Don't criticize yourself. It
won't change you. Action will. Don't beat yourself up. It
won't change you. Challenges will. You don't grow because of guilt.
(13:26):
It just slows you down. I've come to realize that
food is never just food. It's a memory. I love language,
a way we express who we are without saying a word.
(13:47):
Some of the most meaningful conversations I've ever had happened
around a table. That moment when someone passes you a
dish that's been in their family for generations, or when
a flavor takes you back to childhood. That's connection, that's presence.
That's why I love what Chase Sapphire Reserve is doing.
They're not just creating dining experiences, They're creating opportunities to
(14:09):
feel something deeper through food. When we look back on
our lives, we rarely remember what we had for lunch.
On a random Tuesday. But we do remember the meals
that made us feel seen, the ones where we lost
track of time with the food was just the beginning
of something more. A moment with someone we love, a
conversation that opened our heart, a reminder of where we
(14:33):
came from. With Chase Sapphire Reserve, card members get access
to those kinds of moments, the ones where food becomes
a story. Imagine sitting at a dinner where the chef
doesn't just cook, they share. They tell you where the
dish came from, what it means to them, and how
it shaped their journey. That's what it's really about, not
just tasting something new, but stepping into someone else's world
(14:57):
for a moment, and maybe understanding you're your own a
little better too. If you want to experience dining that's
more than just a meal, something that nourishes your mind,
your body, and your connection to others, visit Chase dot
Com forward Slash Sapphire Reserve. Food connects us not just
to each other, but to a part of ourselves. We
(15:18):
sometimes forget the part that slows down, that listens, that feels.
With Chase Sapphire Reserve, you're not just making a reservation.
You're creating a memory, a moment of presence, a moment
of purpose. The four point today is your brain is
(15:46):
wired to focus on mistakes. How many times have you
had this? You do something right and your brain will
barely notice it. You do something wrong and your brain
will think about it all day. Let's say you were
great in a meeting today. At work, you'll forget about
it in the next meeting. You say something sloppy or
made a mistake at a meeting, and work you're now
thinking about for the rest of the rest of the week,
(16:08):
thinking that's all anyone can think about. Your brain is
wired to focus on mistakes. Imagine this, a musician finishes
their concert. Hundreds of thousands of people are clapping. One
person frowns, one person isn't happy. One person posts on
social media that they want their money back. Guess what
(16:28):
the mind obsesses over. It obsesses over the negative comments.
You may even see this on your social media. You'll
have ten of your friends respond. One of them doesn't
in the group chat, and you're thinking about that one friend.
Why didn't they respond? Don't they like me? You're forgetting
about the ten people over here who responded immediately. It's
your birthday. Seven people show up to the party that
(16:50):
you wanted to see, three people don't show up, whereas
your mind go to the three people who didn't show up.
One study showed that negative events wag three to five
times more heavily in our minds than positive ones. This
is known as the negativity bias. So what do we
do with that? Here's what I've learned. You remember the
(17:10):
bad times more than the good times because when things
go well, you celebrate for a night, but when things
go bad, you cry for a month. We're used to
going deeper into our harder emotions than we are into
our happier emotions. We've got to learn to rewire our mind.
(17:31):
How do we do this? When something good happens to you,
share it. When something good happens to you, or someone
does something good to you, share it, talk about it.
You're training your mind to spot what will change it positively.
I could look around this room and I can think
about all the mistakes in how the furniture is placed
(17:54):
and what I need to change. That's important. But at
the same time, I can look around and see how
beautiful it is. That's also important. It's valuable to know
what needs to change in your life. It's valuable to
know what's not going in the direction you want it
to go in your life. But if that's all you have,
then you'll just create more of it. There's something known
(18:15):
as the frequency illusion. How many terms have you said
to yourself, I really like that color, or I really
like that shirt or pants or whatever it is, and
now you see them everywhere. Everyone's wearing them. Everyone's wearing
that color. Or you want to get a car and
you want to get a black car, and now you
see black cars everywhere. It's not like there's more black
cars on the road, or more people are wearing those
skirts or shirts or whatever it may be. It's just
(18:37):
that you have a heightened awareness of it. This is
why gratitude works so well. Gratitude doesn't work because it's magic.
It's that when you become grateful for something, you notice
more things to be grateful for. Right now, your brain
is wired to spot negative things, So you spot more
negative things than you do positive, not because there are
more negative things in the world, just because you're trained
(19:00):
to notice it. One of my favorite quotes from Wayne
Dyer is this, you don't see things as they are.
You see things as you are. When you are focused
on the negative, you see more negative. When you focus
on the positive, you notice more positive. This isn't positive thinking.
(19:21):
Positive thinking is pretending like the negative doesn't exist. Noticing
good things is learning to tune yourself in to higher
vibration and frequency. Point number five is that progress is
not linear. Thomas Edison tested over one thousand prototypes before
the light bulb worked. If he saw setbacks his failure,
(19:45):
he'd have quit after attempt number ten. There's an amazing
study that talks about the stages of change. Model shows
that relapse i e. Slipping back into smoking, for example,
isn't failure. It's part of how lasting behavior change happens.
Think about this for a second. You commit to running
three times a week. One week, you only manage once,
(20:09):
and what usually happens is you quit. You got I
messed up this week. Next week I won't run it all.
But what happens you actually lose track. Whereas when you
recognize that that's part of the process of change. When
you set a new goal, when you set a new habit,
you are going to have days that you fall back.
When you break up with someone. You might feel healed
(20:30):
in a month, and then in seven months you're going
to be sitting there thinking about your ex. That's part
of the healing journey. When you realize that healing is
three steps forward, two steps back, four steps forward, three
steps back, sometimes one step forward, four steps back. When
(20:50):
you realize that's what healing looks like, you're actually free
to heal when you want it all to happen today,
When you want healing to all happen tomorrow, it will
last forever. So when we fall off track, we beat
ourselves up. Oh I did three times last week, but
this time only went to the gym once. I was
eating really really healthy, but last night I just crash.
(21:11):
Guess what, the week doesn't matter, right, How many times
have you done that? And it all happens because you
beat yourself up. You don't fall back into bad habits
because you're lazy. You fall back into bad habits because
you beat yourself up. When you have a bad day.
Don't turn a bad day into a bad week. Don't
turn a bad week into a bad month, and don't
(21:35):
turn a bad month into a bad year. Let it
be a bad day that's okay, But tomorrow pick yourself
up and make it a great one. It's when you
don't beat yourself up that you keep the power of
turning a bad day into a good month, a bad
(21:55):
day into a good week. I hope that resonates with you.
Next time you set a goal, a change, or whatever
you want to do and you fall off, know that
that's part of it. Give yourself grace and you'll be
able to get back on track much quicker. The sixth
thing I wanted to share with you today is that
rest is part of progress, not the opposite of it.
(22:18):
So many of us think that rest means we're not
moving forward. My monk teacher used to say, if you
want to move three steps forward, you have to go
three steps deep. So if you're struggling to move forward,
ask yourself if you've gone inward already. Elite athletes schedule
(22:39):
recovery days as strictly as training days. Serena Williams even
naps before matches because rest is strategy, not laziness. For
most of us, though, rest isn't something we plan. It's
something we end up doing when we're exhausted. When you're
resting when you're exhausted, that's not rest. That's survival, that's recovery.
(23:02):
That's why it's so stressful. Whereas the highest performers in
the world have scheduled rest, that scheduled rest is what
helps them perform at their best in all the other times.
On the podcast, I've into Matthew Walker, who has done
a lot of research on sleep, and his study on
why We Sleep from twenty seventeen shows deep sleep consolidates
(23:26):
learning and strengthens memory. Without it, performance and creativity drop.
Some people think, oh, oh sleep when I'm dead, Oh
our sleep when I'm tired. That sleep is the reason
you can be so productive. That sleep is the reason
you can be proactive. That sleep is the reason you
can be so effective. So no, don't beat yourself up
(23:49):
for wanting to rest, don't beat yourself up for wanting
to take a break, don't beat yourself up for wanting
to slow down, And don't beat yourself up for wanting
to have your own time. Allow yourself to slow down,
give yourself permission to be still. That's where your power is.
(24:12):
Let me give you an example. You work late every
night to get ahead, but you're so burned out you're
starting to make sloppy mistakes. A rested version of you
would finish faster with fewer errors. Working more doesn't achieve more.
Losing sleep doesn't achieve more. Trying to do everything doesn't
(24:35):
achieve more. Sometimes you achieve more by more rest, more stillness,
and more calm. Point number seven is that self kindness
builds resilience more than self criticism ever will. Navy seals
in training who used encouraging self talk were far more
(24:59):
likely to complete Hell Week than those who tore themselves down. Now,
for those of you who don't know, Hell Week is
the most grueling training that a Navy seal goes through.
I interviewed David Goggins, and if you want to know
more about it, you can go back to that episode
and watch and listen to what that week actually entails.
(25:20):
It's a five and a half day period during the
first phase of seal training. Candidates average about four hours
of sleep for the entire week, less than one hour
per night. They're constantly exposed to cold water, mud, sand,
physical drills, and team challenges. Training goes day and night,
(25:41):
running information, carrying boats and logs, swimming in the Pacific
obstacle courses. The goal isn't just to push the body.
It's to test the mind and spirit under exhaustion. Instructors
want to see who breaks under stress, who stays calm
when freezing, exhausted and in pain, Who can lead and
support teammates when everyone is suffering. About seventy to eighty
(26:05):
percent of candidates quit during hell week. Those who survive
don't necessarily have the strongest bodies. They have the strongest
mental resilience because their self talk is not negative. They
found that breaking down the week into moments to get
through the next meal not survive five days. Nephan Jermer
(26:29):
in twenty thirteen found people who practice self compassion meditation
increased resilience, life satisfaction, and reduced anxiety. Imagine, after bombing
a presentation, you tell yourself it's one talk, not my
whole career. Next time, I'll be sharper. That mindset keeps
you moving forward instead of giving up. You don't get
(26:51):
stronger by beating yourself down. You get stronger by giving
yourself the same kindness you'd give to any one you love.
I really hope that this episode is able to help
you quiet that inner critic. It's not going anywhere, it's
not going away. We're not trying to get rid of it.
What we're trying to do is that we make sure
(27:13):
we have the new scripts in our mind that have
positive self talk, that focus on what we can be
grateful for, that look for opportunities more than problems, and
that when they look for problems, they look for systems
and solutions, not criticism, not shame. Thank you so much
(27:33):
for listening. I hope you'll share this with a friend
who struggles with this too. I hope you'll discuss it
with them, and I'll see you on the next episode.
Thanks for being here. I'm forever in your corner and
I'm always rooting for you. If you love this episode,
you love my conversation with doctor Joe Dispenser on why
stress and overthinking negatively impacts your brain and heart and
(27:55):
how to change your habits that are on autopilot. Listen
to it right now. How many times do we have
to forget until we stop forgetting and start remembering. That's
the moment of change. No one cares how many times
you fell off the bicycle if you ride the bicycle,
now you ride the bike.
Host
Jay Shetty
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