Are you constantly working but still feeling like you’re falling short—no matter how much you accomplish?
If your productivity feels like it's slipping through your fingers, your inner critic might be to blame. In this episode, we break down five sneaky ways self-criticism steals your time, drains your energy, and keeps you in a cycle of stress and overwhelm—especially for high-achieving working women.
In this episode, you will:
- Learn how perfectionism secretly inflates your to-do list and keeps you stuck.
- Discover practical strategies to break free from overthinking and fear of failure.
- Get mindset tools to combat unrealistic expectations and comparison traps so you can reclaim your time and mental peace.
Press play now to uncover what’s really slowing you down—and start creating a calmer, more productive day.
Featured on the podcast:
What's Causing Your Overwhelm? quiz
Wondering why you're overwhelmed? Take my "why am I overwhelmed" quiz to find out the source of your overwhelm, and what to do about it.
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Life can be overwhelming, but on this podcast, you'll discover practical strategies to overcome overwhelm, imposter syndrome, and negative self-talk, manage time effectively, set boundaries, and stay productive in high-stress jobs—all while learning how to say no and prioritize self-care on the Overwhelmed Worki...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Michelle Gauthier (00:00):
No matter how much you do or how much you
succeed, there's a voice in yourhead telling you somehow it's
not enough.
You're listening to OverwhelmedWorking Woman, the podcast that
helps you be more calm and moreproductive by doing less.
I'm your host, MichelleGauthier, a former Overwhelmed
(00:21):
Working Woman and current lifecoach.
On this show, we unpack thestress and pressure that today's
working woman experiences andin each episode you'll get a
strategy to bring more calm,ease and relaxation to your life
.
Hi friend, thanks for joiningtoday.
Today we're going to talk aboutour own worst critic, our own
(00:42):
self-criticism and the five waysthat your inner critic hijacks
your time and just makes yourproductivity take a hit.
It also steals your energy andprobably causes you to feel even
more overwhelmed.
When you listen today, you willlearn the five ways that
self-criticism is reallyimpacting what you're getting
done, not in a good way.
(01:04):
I will give you some relatableexamples and some tips, of
course, on how to stop that, soyou can gently talk back to that
inner critic and think aboutyourself in a better, more
positive way, in order to bemore productive and manage your
time better and feel lessoverwhelmed and, honestly, just
feel overall happier.
But before I do that.
(01:24):
I want to remind you that on mywebsite I have a free quiz, and
that quiz helps you get to thebottom of why you're feeling
overwhelmed.
I've been a coach for eightyears and I coach specifically
on this topic, and I noticedthat there are about four things
that are usually the main causeof overwhelm.
So when you take the quiz,you'll find out which one is
most prominent for you and whatto do about it.
(01:46):
So at the end, when you getyour result, you don't just get
your result.
You also get a tool that youcan use to make some improvement
in whatever area is causing theoverwhelm for you.
So, for example, you might beoverwhelmed because you have a
habit of people pleasingself-criticism or self-sabotage.
You might be overwhelmedbecause of time management and
productivity issues.
(02:06):
No matter what the answer is,you'll find out more about that
particular problem that'scausing your overwhelm and I
will give you some tips on howto start feeling better, no
matter what the answer is.
I made this quiz because Ifound it so fascinating that,
after talking to hundreds ofpeople, there are really just a
few things that tend to be thecause of overwhelm.
(02:27):
So I took that and I combinedthat with my previous love of
taking fun quizzes in like TeenMagazine and Cosmopolitan, etc.
This is kind of like that,except you're not going to get
your dream man.
At the end you're going tofigure out what's causing your
overwhelm and what to do aboutit.
Anyway, the link will be in theshow notes.
Check it out.
Let's dive into today's topic.
(02:48):
So what you'll learn when youlisten today is the five sneaky
ways that your inner critic istotally taking control and
wasting your time and yourenergy and probably making you
feel more overwhelmed than youalready were.
You will also learn what to doabout these.
Let's dive in and look at thetop five ways that
self-criticism is ruining yourproductivity.
(03:11):
The first one is perfectionanalysis.
If you're a perfectionist or arecovering perfectionist I'm
raising my hand you might bevery well aware that this is the
idea that you can't shareanything until it's flawless,
that everything has to beperfect, and what that means is
you would avoid something likelaunching a new business idea or
(03:33):
finishing a pitch instead ofworking on the slides for an
extra two to three hours orreally finishing anything,
because if it's not perfect,it's never finished, and that
means your to-do list just keepsgetting bigger and bigger.
You think no, I need to spend acouple more hours working on
this before it's good enough.
I think it's obvious why thisone really harms your
(03:54):
productivity because you spendso much longer than necessary,
because you're trying to get itto perfection.
And the reason why you'retrying to get it to perfection
is because you're trying tocontrol the way that other
people are thinking about youand the way that they see you.
Sometimes I'll say to my clientswhat would B minus work look
like in this particularsituation?
(04:15):
Try asking yourself thatquestion.
If you're really hesitating tocall something good enough, ask
yourself what would B minus worklook like.
Sometimes I'll say that to aclient and they look like
they're about to faint and say,no, I can't do that.
So if you can't do B minus work, can you do A minus work as a
start, b plus work as a start,and what does that look like for
(04:35):
you?
Ideally, instead of having athought like I can't share this
until it's perfect, you canthink a thought like I have done
really good work on thisproject and I'm ready to share
it.
It's okay to know that it isn'tyour absolute best work,
because you simply can't do yourabsolute best work on
everything at all times oryou're going to get like one
thing done per day.
(04:57):
Number two on the list of thingsthat sabotage your productivity
is overthinking.
Overthinking can definitelyruin your productivity because
it wastes so much time.
Let's say, for example, you'vegot a 15-minute Zoom call and
you take like 20 minutes todecide what to wear for it.
If you're a person who's anoverthinker, you probably
struggle with making decisions,and the longer you put off a
(05:20):
decision, the more time you'rewasting.
Once you make the decision andjust start going in that
direction, you're getting backto productivity.
What I would recommend that youdo instead for this particular
one is to literally set a timerfor small decisions.
Give yourself two minutes I'mnot joking.
Set a timer on your phone.
Give yourself two minutes tomake a decision and then move on
(05:42):
.
I'm not talking about thedecision to like take a new job
or move to a different state orsome big thing.
Just give yourself two minutes,make a decision and move on.
Literally, set that timer andmove on and let yourself out of
that decision jail.
Giving yourself less time tomake decisions doesn't mean
you're careless.
It frees up that mentalbandwidth to do the actual work
(06:02):
for what actually matters.
The third way that the innercritic can sabotage your
productivity is fear of failure.
When you have fear of failure,you are very likely to take no
action.
Let's just imagine that youhave heard me say over and over
that planning your week is theway to feel calm and you go to
(06:23):
plan your week and you open upyour planner and you leave it
blank because committing to aplan feels risky, because you
know you might not followthrough.
And if you write it all downand you don't do it, then you
have failed.
So your inner critic just saysforget it, it's better to be
overwhelmed than to try and fail.
So what to do instead on thisis to embrace imperfect action.
(06:45):
Make a plan, flexible plan withroom to adjust and remind
yourself I even have a stickerthat says this progress over
perfection always.
These first three that we havetalked about, all three of them
really keep you completely stuckfor perfectionism and
overthinking and fear of failure.
(07:06):
They all just keep you stuckwhere you are.
Number four is comparingyourself to others.
This is totally human nature todo this.
So if you have, let's say, theperson who has an office next to
you, for example, and does thesame job as you.
She seems super on top of it.
She does great work.
She seems like an awesome momtoo, and even though you're
doing fine at work, you kind ofassume that you're failing or
(07:29):
doing less because she's doingso much better.
Air quotes and your innercritic says that she's better
than you and that you're behindor not doing something right.
What I suggest that you do inthis situation is just to remind
yourself to stay in your ownlane.
I like to think about it as runyour own race, celebrate your
own wins.
Remind yourself that you don'tknow the full picture behind
(07:51):
everyone's highlight reel orwhat they're posting on
Instagram.
I can tell you, as a person whohears, over the course of the
week, many, many people tellingme what they're struggling with.
We all have struggles.
If there's anything that beinga coach has taught me, it's you
just never know.
Somebody who seems like theyhave it all together can really
be suffering on the inside too.
It's probably not even true.
(08:11):
Even if she seems like she'sdoing such a better job than you
, it's probably not true.
And second of all, let's assumeshe is, let's assume she's.
You know, you're making 90sales and she's making 100 sales
, or whatever the metric is thatmatters in your job.
Even if she is, it's reallyirrelevant.
It has nothing to do with yourperformance.
(08:32):
Stay in your own lane,celebrate your own wins.
Then the last one another onethat I see very often is setting
unrealistic expectations foryourself.
Let's go through an example ofsetting unrealistic expectations
and how that really sabotagesyour productivity.
Okay, so let's say today'sMonday.
Let's say that you are sittingdown to your desk in the morning
(08:55):
and you write down a list of 18things that you have to do and
by the end of the day you'vegotten through like three of
them and you feel like acomplete failure and your inner
self critic says you should beable to do it all.
Why can't you get more done?
The problem here is not thatyou got three things done, but
that you had the expectation ofgetting 18 things done.
So when you set yourself upwith unrealistic expectations,
(09:19):
you will definitely bedisappointed in what you
actually do get done, and whenthat happens, it makes you not
productive because you're notmotivated to try to keep going.
So when you are getting ready todo something, whether that be,
sit down and make your to-dolist for the day, or just about
to go on a vacation with yourfamily, be sure that you're
(09:39):
setting reasonable expectations.
Let's just use the family tripone.
So if you're going on a tripand you're like the weather's
going to be amazing, our travelshould be smooth, my children
should pack on their own and notforget anything.
All the food's going to bewonderful, everyone's going to
be happy the whole time.
You know whatever it is and Iknow that nobody listening would
actually write down those asrealistic expectations, but
(10:02):
often our brain creates those,even unconsciously sometimes.
So actually check yourexpectations.
A great way to make realisticexpectations is to think.
If I was a betting person, if Iwas betting on what would
happen, what would I predictwill happen?
So if I think about a trip withmy family, I would say probably
there will be some troubleswith the travel.
(10:24):
Maybe the flight's delayed orwe can't check into our hotel
room right away or whateverother minor inconvenience might
happen.
I definitely would predict thatof the three of us, one of us
would be unhappy at least onceon the trip, or frustrated or
bored or whatever, and thatprobably none of the three of us
(10:45):
will agree on the restaurantwhere we want to eat, etc.
Etc.
And it's not being negative,it's just being realistic.
So when I say, hey guys, whereshould we go eat dinner and I'm
the only one who wants to gosomewhere, or two of us want to
go somewhere and the thirddoesn't, I know, I'm expecting
that.
And when you have realisticexpectations and those things
happen, you don't suffer becauseyou're like yep, I thought
(11:05):
that's what was going to happen.
So, in summary, all five ofthese are common.
They happen to all of us all thetime, and self criticism might
feel like it's pushing you to dobetter, like negative self-talk
is going to motivate yousomehow, but it's really not.
It's a waste of your brain time, of your thinking time, a waste
(11:26):
of your energy.
It really slows you down andstops you from being productive.
Sometimes people think, well, Ihave to talk to myself like
that in order to speed myself upor get myself to keep working.
But it's really slowing youdown when you are overthinking,
being perfectionistic, comparingyourself to others, giving
yourself unrealisticexpectations all those things is
(11:57):
when you notice you have anegative thought about yourself.
Do the best friend check.
What would I say to my bestfriend if she were in the exact
same situation as I am now.
So let's go back to thatexample of making our list of 18
things to do on a Friday andgetting three of them done.
If your best friend told youthat would you say you're such a
loser, why can't you get moredone?
You would not say that to her,you'd be like good job you got
three important things done.
(12:18):
That's awesome.
Cheers to you.
So just check in with yourselfand see what you might say to
your very best friend if she wasin the same situation.
All right, friends, try to bekind to yourselves today and
don't forget to take thatoverwhelm quiz.
Have a great week.
Thank you for listening to theOverwhelmed Working Woman
(12:41):
podcast.
If you want to learn more aboutmy work, head over to my
website at michellegauthier.
com.
See you next week.
No matter how much you do or how much you
succeed, there's a voice in yourhead telling you somehow it's
not enough.
You're listening to OverwhelmedWorking Woman, the podcast that
helps you be more calm and moreproductive by doing less.
I'm your host, MichelleGauthier, a former Overwhelmed
(00:21):
Working Woman and current lifecoach.
On this show, we unpack thestress and pressure that today's
working woman experiences andin each episode you'll get a
strategy to bring more calm,ease and relaxation to your life
.
Hi friend, thanks for joiningtoday.
Today we're going to talk aboutour own worst critic, our own
(00:42):
self-criticism and the five waysthat your inner critic hijacks
your time and just makes yourproductivity take a hit.
It also steals your energy andprobably causes you to feel even
more overwhelmed.
When you listen today, you willlearn the five ways that
self-criticism is reallyimpacting what you're getting
done, not in a good way.
(01:04):
I will give you some relatableexamples and some tips, of
course, on how to stop that, soyou can gently talk back to that
inner critic and think aboutyourself in a better, more
positive way, in order to bemore productive and manage your
time better and feel lessoverwhelmed and, honestly, just
feel overall happier.
But before I do that.
(01:24):
I want to remind you that on mywebsite I have a free quiz, and
that quiz helps you get to thebottom of why you're feeling
overwhelmed.
I've been a coach for eightyears and I coach specifically
on this topic, and I noticedthat there are about four things
that are usually the main causeof overwhelm.
So when you take the quiz,you'll find out which one is
most prominent for you and whatto do about it.
(01:46):
So at the end, when you getyour result, you don't just get
your result.
You also get a tool that youcan use to make some improvement
in whatever area is causing theoverwhelm for you.
So, for example, you might beoverwhelmed because you have a
habit of people pleasingself-criticism or self-sabotage.
You might be overwhelmedbecause of time management and
productivity issues.
(02:06):
No matter what the answer is,you'll find out more about that
particular problem that'scausing your overwhelm and I
will give you some tips on howto start feeling better, no
matter what the answer is.
I made this quiz because Ifound it so fascinating that,
after talking to hundreds ofpeople, there are really just a
few things that tend to be thecause of overwhelm.
(02:27):
So I took that and I combinedthat with my previous love of
taking fun quizzes in like TeenMagazine and Cosmopolitan, etc.
This is kind of like that,except you're not going to get
your dream man.
At the end you're going tofigure out what's causing your
overwhelm and what to do aboutit.
Anyway, the link will be in theshow notes.
Check it out.
Let's dive into today's topic.
(02:48):
So what you'll learn when youlisten today is the five sneaky
ways that your inner critic istotally taking control and
wasting your time and yourenergy and probably making you
feel more overwhelmed than youalready were.
You will also learn what to doabout these.
Let's dive in and look at thetop five ways that
self-criticism is ruining yourproductivity.
(03:11):
The first one is perfectionanalysis.
If you're a perfectionist or arecovering perfectionist I'm
raising my hand you might bevery well aware that this is the
idea that you can't shareanything until it's flawless,
that everything has to beperfect, and what that means is
you would avoid something likelaunching a new business idea or
(03:33):
finishing a pitch instead ofworking on the slides for an
extra two to three hours orreally finishing anything,
because if it's not perfect,it's never finished, and that
means your to-do list just keepsgetting bigger and bigger.
You think no, I need to spend acouple more hours working on
this before it's good enough.
I think it's obvious why thisone really harms your
(03:54):
productivity because you spendso much longer than necessary,
because you're trying to get itto perfection.
And the reason why you'retrying to get it to perfection
is because you're trying tocontrol the way that other
people are thinking about youand the way that they see you.
Sometimes I'll say to my clientswhat would B minus work look
like in this particularsituation?
(04:15):
Try asking yourself thatquestion.
If you're really hesitating tocall something good enough, ask
yourself what would B minus worklook like.
Sometimes I'll say that to aclient and they look like
they're about to faint and say,no, I can't do that.
So if you can't do B minus work, can you do A minus work as a
start, b plus work as a start,and what does that look like for
(04:35):
you?
Ideally, instead of having athought like I can't share this
until it's perfect, you canthink a thought like I have done
really good work on thisproject and I'm ready to share
it.
It's okay to know that it isn'tyour absolute best work,
because you simply can't do yourabsolute best work on
everything at all times oryou're going to get like one
thing done per day.
(04:57):
Number two on the list of thingsthat sabotage your productivity
is overthinking.
Overthinking can definitelyruin your productivity because
it wastes so much time.
Let's say, for example, you'vegot a 15-minute Zoom call and
you take like 20 minutes todecide what to wear for it.
If you're a person who's anoverthinker, you probably
struggle with making decisions,and the longer you put off a
(05:20):
decision, the more time you'rewasting.
Once you make the decision andjust start going in that
direction, you're getting backto productivity.
What I would recommend that youdo instead for this particular
one is to literally set a timerfor small decisions.
Give yourself two minutes I'mnot joking.
Set a timer on your phone.
Give yourself two minutes tomake a decision and then move on
(05:42):
.
I'm not talking about thedecision to like take a new job
or move to a different state orsome big thing.
Just give yourself two minutes,make a decision and move on.
Literally, set that timer andmove on and let yourself out of
that decision jail.
Giving yourself less time tomake decisions doesn't mean
you're careless.
It frees up that mentalbandwidth to do the actual work
(06:02):
for what actually matters.
The third way that the innercritic can sabotage your
productivity is fear of failure.
When you have fear of failure,you are very likely to take no
action.
Let's just imagine that youhave heard me say over and over
that planning your week is theway to feel calm and you go to
(06:23):
plan your week and you open upyour planner and you leave it
blank because committing to aplan feels risky, because you
know you might not followthrough.
And if you write it all downand you don't do it, then you
have failed.
So your inner critic just saysforget it, it's better to be
overwhelmed than to try and fail.
So what to do instead on thisis to embrace imperfect action.
(06:45):
Make a plan, flexible plan withroom to adjust and remind
yourself I even have a stickerthat says this progress over
perfection always.
These first three that we havetalked about, all three of them
really keep you completely stuckfor perfectionism and
overthinking and fear of failure.
(07:06):
They all just keep you stuckwhere you are.
Number four is comparingyourself to others.
This is totally human nature todo this.
So if you have, let's say, theperson who has an office next to
you, for example, and does thesame job as you.
She seems super on top of it.
She does great work.
She seems like an awesome momtoo, and even though you're
doing fine at work, you kind ofassume that you're failing or
(07:29):
doing less because she's doingso much better.
Air quotes and your innercritic says that she's better
than you and that you're behindor not doing something right.
What I suggest that you do inthis situation is just to remind
yourself to stay in your ownlane.
I like to think about it as runyour own race, celebrate your
own wins.
Remind yourself that you don'tknow the full picture behind
(07:51):
everyone's highlight reel orwhat they're posting on
Instagram.
I can tell you, as a person whohears, over the course of the
week, many, many people tellingme what they're struggling with.
We all have struggles.
If there's anything that beinga coach has taught me, it's you
just never know.
Somebody who seems like theyhave it all together can really
be suffering on the inside too.
It's probably not even true.
(08:11):
Even if she seems like she'sdoing such a better job than you
, it's probably not true.
And second of all, let's assumeshe is, let's assume she's.
You know, you're making 90sales and she's making 100 sales
, or whatever the metric is thatmatters in your job.
Even if she is, it's reallyirrelevant.
It has nothing to do with yourperformance.
(08:32):
Stay in your own lane,celebrate your own wins.
Then the last one another onethat I see very often is setting
unrealistic expectations foryourself.
Let's go through an example ofsetting unrealistic expectations
and how that really sabotagesyour productivity.
Okay, so let's say today'sMonday.
Let's say that you are sittingdown to your desk in the morning
(08:55):
and you write down a list of 18things that you have to do and
by the end of the day you'vegotten through like three of
them and you feel like acomplete failure and your inner
self critic says you should beable to do it all.
Why can't you get more done?
The problem here is not thatyou got three things done, but
that you had the expectation ofgetting 18 things done.
So when you set yourself upwith unrealistic expectations,
(09:19):
you will definitely bedisappointed in what you
actually do get done, and whenthat happens, it makes you not
productive because you're notmotivated to try to keep going.
So when you are getting ready todo something, whether that be,
sit down and make your to-dolist for the day, or just about
to go on a vacation with yourfamily, be sure that you're
(09:39):
setting reasonable expectations.
Let's just use the family tripone.
So if you're going on a tripand you're like the weather's
going to be amazing, our travelshould be smooth, my children
should pack on their own and notforget anything.
All the food's going to bewonderful, everyone's going to
be happy the whole time.
You know whatever it is and Iknow that nobody listening would
actually write down those asrealistic expectations, but
(10:02):
often our brain creates those,even unconsciously sometimes.
So actually check yourexpectations.
A great way to make realisticexpectations is to think.
If I was a betting person, if Iwas betting on what would
happen, what would I predictwill happen?
So if I think about a trip withmy family, I would say probably
there will be some troubleswith the travel.
(10:24):
Maybe the flight's delayed orwe can't check into our hotel
room right away or whateverother minor inconvenience might
happen.
I definitely would predict thatof the three of us, one of us
would be unhappy at least onceon the trip, or frustrated or
bored or whatever, and thatprobably none of the three of us
(10:45):
will agree on the restaurantwhere we want to eat, etc.
Etc.
And it's not being negative,it's just being realistic.
So when I say, hey guys, whereshould we go eat dinner and I'm
the only one who wants to gosomewhere, or two of us want to
go somewhere and the thirddoesn't, I know, I'm expecting
that.
And when you have realisticexpectations and those things
happen, you don't suffer becauseyou're like yep, I thought
(11:05):
that's what was going to happen.
So, in summary, all five ofthese are common.
They happen to all of us all thetime, and self criticism might
feel like it's pushing you to dobetter, like negative self-talk
is going to motivate yousomehow, but it's really not.
It's a waste of your brain time, of your thinking time, a waste
(11:26):
of your energy.
It really slows you down andstops you from being productive.
Sometimes people think, well, Ihave to talk to myself like
that in order to speed myself upor get myself to keep working.
But it's really slowing youdown when you are overthinking,
being perfectionistic, comparingyourself to others, giving
yourself unrealisticexpectations all those things is
(11:57):
when you notice you have anegative thought about yourself.
Do the best friend check.
What would I say to my bestfriend if she were in the exact
same situation as I am now.
So let's go back to thatexample of making our list of 18
things to do on a Friday andgetting three of them done.
If your best friend told youthat would you say you're such a
loser, why can't you get moredone?
You would not say that to her,you'd be like good job you got
three important things done.
(12:18):
That's awesome.
Cheers to you.
So just check in with yourselfand see what you might say to
your very best friend if she wasin the same situation.
All right, friends, try to bekind to yourselves today and
don't forget to take thatoverwhelm quiz.
Have a great week.
Thank you for listening to theOverwhelmed Working Woman
(12:41):
podcast.
If you want to learn more aboutmy work, head over to my
website at michellegauthier.
com.
See you next week.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.