January 31, 2024 • 8 mins
Self-criticism can be one of two things: beneficial or detrimental to us. Shelley Laslett joins Sally Spicer to explore how to take control of self-criticism and use it to your advantage.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Mindset, a guide to getting out of your
own way and a blueprint for professional success. Today, neuroscientist
Shelley Laslett is here to talk about self-criticism and how
to stop being quite so brutal with yourself.
Yes, I have a big fear of rejection, so I'm
pretty hard on myself when I make mistakes, um, and
(00:24):
I often say things like, oh, you're such a fool,
you're so stupid, like you should have known better, you
need to work harder. I say, uh, you don't deserve
to be upset, or other people could do this job better.
You should already know this.
Shelly, can you explain the difference between constructive self-critique and
(00:47):
destructive self-criticism? Yeah, so constructive leads you somewhere, gives you
a path forward. It's a new milestone to aim at. You.
Constructive is about self-reflection, self-analysis, uses that metacognition, thinking about
your thinking to reflect on yourself, sometimes in comparison to others,
which healthy comparison is OK.
But we can look at others without reducing ourselves or
creating us, uh, creating really an us and them divide
(01:10):
where they're this and I'm that, you know, there's no negative,
judgmental or harsh critique elements that come into constructive self-reflection.
Whereas in destructive, we hear criticism, we hear, you know, dejection,
we hear judgement. I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough,
or I couldn't do that job, or he and she,
or they are so much more than this or that.
(01:32):
You know, we, we hear comparison as a deductionist point,
a reductionist point for, for myself. Whereas, when we talk
about wanting to be in that constructive place, what we're
kind of asking ourselves is, OK, where am I now?
What do I need to hear?
You know, what do I need to be doing to
get to where I wanna go? What maybe happened there
that led to this outcome? OK, well, maybe I didn't
(01:53):
listen enough. Maybe I actually cut the person off a
little bit too much. What do I need to do?
I need to, I need to learn to listen. And
the easiest thing you can do there is actually just
say to somebody, Hey, I'm sorry. I get a bit
excited and I cut people off, so if I'm doing
that to you, just tell me.
And I think it's really important for any of our
folks who identify in that neurodiversity lens. This is a
really important place where you can actually talk about that
(02:14):
openly and be really honest about it. Cause often the
thing that we're so terrified of doing is our, our experience,
the way that we view the world, whether or not,
you know, we are neurodiversity that neurodiversity is something that's
gonna detract, that's something that's gonna
You know, put us at a deficit in our social relationships,
and that includes in the workplace. But actually, if you
talk about it and what you do and how it
(02:35):
presents for, for you, it's really helpful for your team
to understand that that's where it's coming from. Because if
they don't understand it, that's where the misunderstanding comes in. OK,
so part of effective self critique is communicating with others
where it's relevant or if it's a behaviour that you
might repeat.
Um, it's hard not to beat yourself up, though, if
you feel like you've made a mistake, like, I don't know,
(02:56):
talking too much in meetings or speaking over someone. So
how do we have compassion for ourselves in those moments,
even if we have actually made a mistake or we
feel like we have? We need to sit and know
it's OK. So it's actually just that self-s soothing behaviour. It's,
it's some of that labelling and saying, you know, I,
I didn't expect it to go, and I feel sad,
and it's OK to be sad.
(03:17):
It's actually like, I don't wanna fall into that happiness
trap here where we just skip over it and we're
trying to fix it immediately. Some people have that inherently
in their personality, they're like, oh, I feel bad, I
don't ever want to feel bad, quick, get into the,
get fixing that, what are we gonna do, like, and
that's fantastic, but,
Every strength of a player becomes a weakness. I sound
like a bit of a broken record, but it's really
important to acknowledge, like, we need to soothe ourselves there.
(03:39):
And I think if you just think about the way
that you talk to perhaps an 8 year old who
didn't make the swimming team that they thought they're gonna make,
maybe didn't get the lead part in a play, what
would you be telling them? Would you be saying,
OK, Priya, we're just gonna get straight back on that
bike and you get back up there, and you're gonna
go to the teacher the audition process wasn't fair. Like,
you're gonna try harder, you're gonna be the best backup
(04:00):
sunflower dancer. Like, you might tell them that to help
motivate them eventually, but in the moment when they're feeling
sad and hurt and disappointed, it's just actually about saying like, Oh, no, darling.
Like that hurts. I'm sorry. That really sucks.
And giving yourself that dialogue within yourself, just sit with
(04:22):
it and know that it's a valid emotion and it's
just as important as happiness, like.
You can't have happiness without sadness. To know what happiness is,
you actually need to know what sadness is. They coexist
as emotions. We are born into this world with both
of them.
So I, I would really say like,
Just to acknowledge what you're feeling and give yourself space
(04:43):
and permission to feel it and to process it. And
then when you feel you've had a bit of time
and distance away from it, you can do all these
other things, mindfully practise, journal, you can go for a run,
you can talk to a trusted advisor, a friend, then
make the action plan. But if we just feel the
like the shitty emotion and then make an action plan,
we're actually just doing a disservice. We're skipping over it.
We're saying it's not important, it's not valid.
(05:03):
And, and we don't want to do that. That's a
bit of a trap.
OK, so how do you actually figure out what behaviours
or situations are going to bring out your most intense
self-criticism so that you can process it or make space
for it, or even just avoid the situation altogether? Identifying
your trigger is if it feels really hot, like, if
it's a really, like you feel it in your body,
(05:23):
like you can feel the reaction, like your heartbeat goes up,
or your brow furrows, or like you're feeling sick. This
starts into something called the James Lang effect. And the
idea is, like, do I
cry because I'm upset, or am I crying because I'm upset?
So does our body reaction come first and then our
awareness and emotion separate, or vice versa? And the answer
is we don't know. Even to this day, we don't know.
(05:44):
So James Lang theory sort of was hanging around in
the 1800s. We don't know. So the, the thing is,
you will have either bodily or awareness feedback. So something
coming from your body first that you're aware of. So sometimes,
and you see people do it, they don't know that
they're gonna get upset, and suddenly someone asks them something
and you can see them. You can see
Their eyes glaze over, you can hear them choking in
their voice. And even if it's happening to you, you're like,
(06:07):
Oh God, it's happening. What do I do about it?
That is an that is a marker that there is
something else there. It cannot be necessarily the only thing. Now,
I'm talking in a normal workplace. Like, I'm talking in this, it's,
it's a relatively non-threatening environment. I'm not talking about in
an argument with a loved one or when someone says
really something hurtful to you that will instantly take you there.
(06:29):
I'm talking.
About when what would be sort of an everyday occurrence
feels really strong. So it's when it feels really strong,
or like, God, I hate it when they send me
an email like that. I hate it when they put
that thing in that email that makes me feel really small. OK.
So it can't just be this email that the first
time you've felt small. What is this reminding you of?
(06:51):
It's reminding me when, like, I wasn't heard and I
was just always spoken down to by whoever that was. OK, cool.
That person's not here now. That person's not written you
the email, that person's not in the room with you, right?
You can ask this person to exit stage left. They're
not here right now. So if that person's not here
right now and they didn't write the email, read the
(07:11):
email again. What's another way in which this could be read?
In our next episode, Helen McCabe and Jamila Risby are
back to share how they sit with their self-criticism and
cultivate self-compassion too.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
If you are objectively trying to assess your behaviour in
a situation, that's great. But if you are bringing a
whole lot of emotion to it, you're probably not considering
the full context.
Ask yourself, are you being really general in your assessment?
For example, I'm inadequate, I'm not good enough, I'm stupid.
Those are really big generalisations. There's nothing wrong with saying,
(07:47):
I didn't study very hard for that test, and I
don't think this is an area of expertise A that
I've naturally been the best at, and so I probably
should have worked a bit harder. That's a really healthy self-reflection.
Calling yourself stupid, that's a bit different.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Mindset is created by FW Jobs Academy with support from
the Australian government's Office for Women.
Welcome to Mindset, a guide to getting out of your
own way and a blueprint for professional success. Today, neuroscientist
Shelley Laslett is here to talk about self-criticism and how
to stop being quite so brutal with yourself.
Yes, I have a big fear of rejection, so I'm
pretty hard on myself when I make mistakes, um, and
(00:24):
I often say things like, oh, you're such a fool,
you're so stupid, like you should have known better, you
need to work harder. I say, uh, you don't deserve
to be upset, or other people could do this job better.
You should already know this.
Shelly, can you explain the difference between constructive self-critique and
(00:47):
destructive self-criticism? Yeah, so constructive leads you somewhere, gives you
a path forward. It's a new milestone to aim at. You.
Constructive is about self-reflection, self-analysis, uses that metacognition, thinking about
your thinking to reflect on yourself, sometimes in comparison to others,
which healthy comparison is OK.
But we can look at others without reducing ourselves or
creating us, uh, creating really an us and them divide
(01:10):
where they're this and I'm that, you know, there's no negative,
judgmental or harsh critique elements that come into constructive self-reflection.
Whereas in destructive, we hear criticism, we hear, you know, dejection,
we hear judgement. I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough,
or I couldn't do that job, or he and she,
or they are so much more than this or that.
(01:32):
You know, we, we hear comparison as a deductionist point,
a reductionist point for, for myself. Whereas, when we talk
about wanting to be in that constructive place, what we're
kind of asking ourselves is, OK, where am I now?
What do I need to hear?
You know, what do I need to be doing to
get to where I wanna go? What maybe happened there
that led to this outcome? OK, well, maybe I didn't
(01:53):
listen enough. Maybe I actually cut the person off a
little bit too much. What do I need to do?
I need to, I need to learn to listen. And
the easiest thing you can do there is actually just
say to somebody, Hey, I'm sorry. I get a bit
excited and I cut people off, so if I'm doing
that to you, just tell me.
And I think it's really important for any of our
folks who identify in that neurodiversity lens. This is a
really important place where you can actually talk about that
(02:14):
openly and be really honest about it. Cause often the
thing that we're so terrified of doing is our, our experience,
the way that we view the world, whether or not,
you know, we are neurodiversity that neurodiversity is something that's
gonna detract, that's something that's gonna
You know, put us at a deficit in our social relationships,
and that includes in the workplace. But actually, if you
talk about it and what you do and how it
(02:35):
presents for, for you, it's really helpful for your team
to understand that that's where it's coming from. Because if
they don't understand it, that's where the misunderstanding comes in. OK,
so part of effective self critique is communicating with others
where it's relevant or if it's a behaviour that you
might repeat.
Um, it's hard not to beat yourself up, though, if
you feel like you've made a mistake, like, I don't know,
(02:56):
talking too much in meetings or speaking over someone. So
how do we have compassion for ourselves in those moments,
even if we have actually made a mistake or we
feel like we have? We need to sit and know
it's OK. So it's actually just that self-s soothing behaviour. It's,
it's some of that labelling and saying, you know, I,
I didn't expect it to go, and I feel sad,
and it's OK to be sad.
(03:17):
It's actually like, I don't wanna fall into that happiness
trap here where we just skip over it and we're
trying to fix it immediately. Some people have that inherently
in their personality, they're like, oh, I feel bad, I
don't ever want to feel bad, quick, get into the,
get fixing that, what are we gonna do, like, and
that's fantastic, but,
Every strength of a player becomes a weakness. I sound
like a bit of a broken record, but it's really
important to acknowledge, like, we need to soothe ourselves there.
(03:39):
And I think if you just think about the way
that you talk to perhaps an 8 year old who
didn't make the swimming team that they thought they're gonna make,
maybe didn't get the lead part in a play, what
would you be telling them? Would you be saying,
OK, Priya, we're just gonna get straight back on that
bike and you get back up there, and you're gonna
go to the teacher the audition process wasn't fair. Like,
you're gonna try harder, you're gonna be the best backup
(04:00):
sunflower dancer. Like, you might tell them that to help
motivate them eventually, but in the moment when they're feeling
sad and hurt and disappointed, it's just actually about saying like, Oh, no, darling.
Like that hurts. I'm sorry. That really sucks.
And giving yourself that dialogue within yourself, just sit with
(04:22):
it and know that it's a valid emotion and it's
just as important as happiness, like.
You can't have happiness without sadness. To know what happiness is,
you actually need to know what sadness is. They coexist
as emotions. We are born into this world with both
of them.
So I, I would really say like,
Just to acknowledge what you're feeling and give yourself space
(04:43):
and permission to feel it and to process it. And
then when you feel you've had a bit of time
and distance away from it, you can do all these
other things, mindfully practise, journal, you can go for a run,
you can talk to a trusted advisor, a friend, then
make the action plan. But if we just feel the
like the shitty emotion and then make an action plan,
we're actually just doing a disservice. We're skipping over it.
We're saying it's not important, it's not valid.
(05:03):
And, and we don't want to do that. That's a
bit of a trap.
OK, so how do you actually figure out what behaviours
or situations are going to bring out your most intense
self-criticism so that you can process it or make space
for it, or even just avoid the situation altogether? Identifying
your trigger is if it feels really hot, like, if
it's a really, like you feel it in your body,
(05:23):
like you can feel the reaction, like your heartbeat goes up,
or your brow furrows, or like you're feeling sick. This
starts into something called the James Lang effect. And the
idea is, like, do I
cry because I'm upset, or am I crying because I'm upset?
So does our body reaction come first and then our
awareness and emotion separate, or vice versa? And the answer
is we don't know. Even to this day, we don't know.
(05:44):
So James Lang theory sort of was hanging around in
the 1800s. We don't know. So the, the thing is,
you will have either bodily or awareness feedback. So something
coming from your body first that you're aware of. So sometimes,
and you see people do it, they don't know that
they're gonna get upset, and suddenly someone asks them something
and you can see them. You can see
Their eyes glaze over, you can hear them choking in
their voice. And even if it's happening to you, you're like,
(06:07):
Oh God, it's happening. What do I do about it?
That is an that is a marker that there is
something else there. It cannot be necessarily the only thing. Now,
I'm talking in a normal workplace. Like, I'm talking in this, it's,
it's a relatively non-threatening environment. I'm not talking about in
an argument with a loved one or when someone says
really something hurtful to you that will instantly take you there.
(06:29):
I'm talking.
About when what would be sort of an everyday occurrence
feels really strong. So it's when it feels really strong,
or like, God, I hate it when they send me
an email like that. I hate it when they put
that thing in that email that makes me feel really small. OK.
So it can't just be this email that the first
time you've felt small. What is this reminding you of?
(06:51):
It's reminding me when, like, I wasn't heard and I
was just always spoken down to by whoever that was. OK, cool.
That person's not here now. That person's not written you
the email, that person's not in the room with you, right?
You can ask this person to exit stage left. They're
not here right now. So if that person's not here
right now and they didn't write the email, read the
(07:11):
email again. What's another way in which this could be read?
In our next episode, Helen McCabe and Jamila Risby are
back to share how they sit with their self-criticism and
cultivate self-compassion too.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
If you are objectively trying to assess your behaviour in
a situation, that's great. But if you are bringing a
whole lot of emotion to it, you're probably not considering
the full context.
Ask yourself, are you being really general in your assessment?
For example, I'm inadequate, I'm not good enough, I'm stupid.
Those are really big generalisations. There's nothing wrong with saying,
(07:47):
I didn't study very hard for that test, and I
don't think this is an area of expertise A that
I've naturally been the best at, and so I probably
should have worked a bit harder. That's a really healthy self-reflection.
Calling yourself stupid, that's a bit different.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Mindset is created by FW Jobs Academy with support from
the Australian government's Office for Women.
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