10 Things You Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’re Way Too Hard On Yourself

1. Having trouble sleeping. 

Even if you try to take care of yourself by going to bed early, you usually spend the first couple hours tossing and turning as you overthink everything that happened that day and worry about the future – your job, your boss, your relationships, your social life, your bills, your responsibilities, and everything else you can think of.

2. Refusing to celebrate or acknowledge your success in any way whatsoever. 

Whether it’s a huge accomplishment or just a little ‘win’ for the day, you have a hard time sitting back, taking a breath, and allowing yourself to feel proud for a moment or two. To you, there’s always a million more things to do before you can actually feel okay with yourself and what you’ve accomplished thus far.

3. Staying connected to your work responsibilities at all hours of the day, even on weekends. 

Even though your time off is well-deserved and definitely earned, you have a hard time alleviating yourself of guilt over actually having some relaxation time. While most people can receive an email and decide that they’ll ‘deal with it tomorrow’ because right now is their personal time, you’re the one who feels the need to answer emails and handle any other work responsibilities at all hours, even if it’s midnight on a Friday or two a.m. on a Tuesday.

4. Having a difficult time forgiving yourself for your mistakes. 

You have no problem taking responsibility for your actions and owning up to your decisions. You always fix any wrongdoings and correct your missteps. The problem is that you don’t know how to forgive yourself afterwards – how to acknowledge the mistake, learn from it, and then move on and let go.

5. Critiquing yourself consistently. 

Because as long as you criticize yourself first, then no one else will even have to bother, right?

6. Focusing on what you haven’t yet accomplished. 

Instead of letting yourself sit back for a second and reflect on what successes you have had so far, it feels way easier for you to dwell on what you still have not done, no matter how much your loved ones – or even your coworkers or bosses – try to tell you you’re being too strict with yourself.

7. Obsessing over ‘what-ifs.’ 

You have a hard time letting go of the past, and of not fixating on every single one of your actions and what you could have done better and what you should have done differently.

8. Confusing business and stress with happiness.

Having no time for vacation, working your butt off, getting up early and going to bed late, moving up the ladder but having no time for socializing or relaxation time. You constantly mix up having an insanely busy life with having a good life, even though they are two very different things.

9. Eating poorly and mistreating your body. 

You forgive yourself for getting takeout every night, having more drinks then you should, not giving your mind some time to rest, and/or failing to ever give your body the exercise it needs, because you think it’s way more important to save that time for getting stuff done, done, done – instead of reminding yourself that it’s about having a healthy balance between work and relaxation time.

10. Comparing yourself to others regularly. 

It’s very difficult for you to not measure your life against others – whether it’s your career or your love life or your financial situation or anything else, your main way of measuring your success thus far is by holding it up next to others. Even though you’re constantly reminded that everyone is on their own timeline, it’s har