Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #293| Why Criticising Yourself After a Small Mistake Is Costing You Hours of Productivity You'll NEVER Get Back
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn why criticizing yourself after even a small mistake is costing you hours of productivity that you will never get back.
- 0:08Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:20Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:25Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:30Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:37Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend, thanks for joining today.
- 0:42Michelle Gauthier: Let's imagine that it's like 11 p.m.
- 0:45Michelle Gauthier: and you made a mistake at work today, just a small one.
- 0:48Michelle Gauthier: You already fixed it and you apologized, and it's not that big of a deal, intellectually speaking, but you're still lying in bed, replaying it and beating yourself up for that mistake that you made.
- 0:58Michelle Gauthier: This is the problem that we're going to be talking about today.
- 1:01Michelle Gauthier: What happens when that negative self-talk or that inner critic speaks so loudly that even if you make an inconsequential error that all humans make, you end up wasting tons of time thinking about it.
- 1:15Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn why noticing that you're having this negative thought and that your inner critic is speaking loudly is a very important skill to have.
- 1:25Michelle Gauthier: The actual amount of time that negative self-talk is taking out of your day in actual minutes or hours in some cases, and how to flip a thought like you're so stupid into let's figure this out.
- 1:36Michelle Gauthier: Okay, let's jump in.
- 1:37Michelle Gauthier: You make a mistake, I make mistakes.
- 1:39Michelle Gauthier: Everyone knows intellectually that every human makes mistakes, nobody's perfect, and you're probably even great at fixing mistakes.
- 1:46Michelle Gauthier: I would imagine if you're the kind of person listening to this podcast, you are and have been successful, and you're a great problem solver.
- 1:53Michelle Gauthier: When there's a problem, you're probably one who catches the air and you get to work on fixing it and problem solve every possible outcome before anyone even asks you to.
- 2:03Michelle Gauthier: So on paper, you're doing everything right, but there is a problem.
- 2:06Michelle Gauthier: And that problem is when you make a mistake, a voice inside your head shows up and says something like, You're so stupid.
- 2:12Michelle Gauthier: Why did you do that?
- 2:13Michelle Gauthier: Or why do you always mess things up?
- 2:15Michelle Gauthier: Not just like, that was a mistake, let's fix it and move on.
- 2:19Michelle Gauthier: And if you're like I used to be, that voice doesn't leave when the problem gets solved.
- 2:23Michelle Gauthier: So even after you've fixed it, it just moves into your head for the rest of the day, sometimes into the night, sometimes for days after that.
- 2:30Michelle Gauthier: And when that happens, a feeling isn't just guilt about making a mistake or having an oversight.
- 2:36Michelle Gauthier: It's closer to disgust at yourself, a private, low-grade contempt that you'd really never let anyone else see and that you certainly wouldn't give to anyone else.
- 2:45Michelle Gauthier: You know, if someone on your team made a mistake, you'd probably skip right past all that, you're so stupid, and go straight to let's figure this out, because the only person who you have those super negative thoughts about is yourself.
- 2:56Michelle Gauthier: And if you experience this, you know this isn't just an unpleasant feeling that passes, it has a real cost.
- 3:02Michelle Gauthier: It's the 10 or 15 minutes in the middle of a workday where you're just unable to do anything because you're so upset that you made a mistake.
- 3:09Michelle Gauthier: And sometimes even after you make plans to fix it or have actually fixed it, it will still stay with you, maybe through the afternoon.
- 3:17Michelle Gauthier: Again, even after it's fixed, or maybe you'll be lying awake at night thinking and rethinking about quoting a client the wrong price for something, and it wasn't even that big of a deal.
- 3:26Michelle Gauthier: With all this mental energy spent when you could be being clear and productive, spent on replaying a conversation, re-going through how you made the mistake in the first place, and listening to all that negative self-talk.
- 3:39Michelle Gauthier: And we all make mistakes.
- 3:41Michelle Gauthier: I would bet we all make a small mistake several times a week, if not every day.
- 3:45Michelle Gauthier: If every time something small happens, it's costing you an hour or two in worrying about it.
- 3:51Michelle Gauthier: That time is just gone and wasted.
- 3:54Michelle Gauthier: You might be thinking, well, I just have high standards for myself.
- 3:57Michelle Gauthier: This is what makes me really good at my job.
- 4:00Michelle Gauthier: And that is the lie that keeps this whole thing going.
- 4:02Michelle Gauthier: Holding yourself to a high standard is totally fine, but that looks like fixing the mistake and asking yourself, how could I prevent that error next time?
- 4:10Michelle Gauthier: What you're describing isn't a standard, it's a double standard because you really have one set of rules for everyone else and a much harsher one reserved only for you.
- 4:19Michelle Gauthier: And that's not really accountability, that's punishment.
- 4:22Michelle Gauthier: And that punishment has no purpose because talking to yourself or believing those thoughts that your brain is offering of you're so stupid or you effed this up again, it doesn't work to make you better at your job.
- 4:32Michelle Gauthier: We feel like negative self-talk is going to motivate us or make us better, but it does not work.
- 4:38Michelle Gauthier: It just makes your day longer and less productive.
- 4:41Michelle Gauthier: If you're aware that you're having these thoughts, maybe you've already tried to tell yourself, okay, it's not life or death.
- 4:47Michelle Gauthier: Maybe you've even gotten good at noticing the thought when it shows up.
- 4:50Michelle Gauthier: That's real progress.
- 4:52Michelle Gauthier: If you can even see that the thought is there, but noticing that thought and stopping it or just letting it go are two different skills.
- 5:00Michelle Gauthier: So when the thought shows up, let's just take an example thought of you always mess everything up.
- 5:06Michelle Gauthier: Let's just say that's the thought that your brain offers and you notice it and you're like, okay, it's not the end of the world, just stop.
- 5:12Michelle Gauthier: And then you try to move on, but it just keeps coming up.
- 5:15Michelle Gauthier: You know you need to change that thought, but you just don't know exactly how to do it.
- 5:19Michelle Gauthier: If you don't learn to quiet that self-talk, this is not the kind of thing that gets better on its own.
- 5:25Michelle Gauthier: In fact, negative self-talk is the number one response on the quiz that I have that asks, why are you overwhelmed?
- 5:32Michelle Gauthier: If you haven't taken that quiz and you want to take that quiz, go to my homepage, Michelgothier.com, and you will find that quiz.
- 5:38Michelle Gauthier: But the result that comes up most often is I'm overwhelmed because I have so much negative self-talk.
- 5:44Michelle Gauthier: If you have negative self-talk, that's taking up space in your brain and taking up your productivity.
- 5:49Michelle Gauthier: This is not something that will just go away over time.
- 5:53Michelle Gauthier: It just adds up to years spent narrating your own worst moments back to yourself.
- 5:58Michelle Gauthier: In one-on-one coaching, I will teach you how to actually catch that thought and swap that thought in real time.
- 6:05Michelle Gauthier: My work is showing you how to redirect that thought on purpose in the moment it matters until it becomes automatic instead of something that you have to remember to do.
- 6:15Michelle Gauthier: We will work on this together, then you practice it during sessions, and eventually after practice, it becomes your new way of thinking.
- 6:23Michelle Gauthier: I used to beat myself up so badly when I would make a mistake.
- 6:27Michelle Gauthier: I told a story on the podcast before where I completely forgot that my son had tutoring and he was homesick, and the tutor went to school to meet with him in a snowstorm.
- 6:36Michelle Gauthier: She got a babysitter for her own kids to do it, and I had just completely forgotten.
- 6:41Michelle Gauthier: I could not let that go for days and weeks and months.
- 6:45Michelle Gauthier: She's like, it's fine, it's okay.
- 6:47Michelle Gauthier: I obviously still paid her, so it was no worse for the wear from her perspective.
- 6:51Michelle Gauthier: But I beat myself up for that for weeks and weeks.
- 6:55Michelle Gauthier: Just this week, I hurt the handsome man friend's feelings.
- 6:58Michelle Gauthier: I did not mean to, and I realized, oh my gosh, I made a mistake.
- 7:02Michelle Gauthier: Why did I say that?
- 7:03Michelle Gauthier: That was so stupid.
- 7:03Michelle Gauthier: But I can so easily now, with practice, say, okay, how do I own up to this?
- 7:08Michelle Gauthier: How do I try to fix this?
- 7:09Michelle Gauthier: And how can I move on?
- 7:11Michelle Gauthier: And it's almost automatic in my mind that I immediately apologized.
- 7:16Michelle Gauthier: I immediately offered ways that I could potentially fix it.
- 7:19Michelle Gauthier: And then I thought to myself, okay, I've done.
- 7:21Michelle Gauthier: I've done everything that I can do.
- 7:23Michelle Gauthier: I'm just gonna let this go.
- 7:24Michelle Gauthier: That was not a five-minute job in the past that would have eaten me up inside.
- 7:29Michelle Gauthier: And this time it was literally like a two-minute process, and then I can move on with my day.
- 7:34Michelle Gauthier: I've watched this same shift happen for clients over and over.
- 7:38Michelle Gauthier: Picture making a mistake at work, catching the negative thought before it even fully forms, and just moving straight to, okay, let's figure this out the way you already would for anybody else.
- 7:47Michelle Gauthier: No lying abed at 11 p.m., replaying the story, no hours of productivity lost at work because you're worried about this thing.
- 7:54Michelle Gauthier: You just fix the mistake and then get your day back.
- 7:56Michelle Gauthier: I'm sure people have told you over time, stop being so hard on yourself.
- 8:01Michelle Gauthier: And I agree with that.
- 8:03Michelle Gauthier: Stop being so hard on yourself, but that's not the solution because it's like, okay, how?
- 8:07Michelle Gauthier: How do I do that?
- 8:08Michelle Gauthier: So it's really about learning this skill to catch those negative thoughts and what to do about them before it eats up your whole entire day.
- 8:16Michelle Gauthier: And if this is a pattern you recognize, again, negative self-talk is the single most common thing that shows up when people take my free overwhelm quiz.
- 8:24Michelle Gauthier: You're not the only one lying awake over something that is already fixed.
- 8:27Michelle Gauthier: If you want to actually build the skill of catching that voice instead of just white knuckling through it, that's exactly what we work on in coaching.
- 8:34Michelle Gauthier: You can book a free consultation with me.
- 8:36Michelle Gauthier: The link is in the show notes at the very top, and let's talk about your situation and what we would do inside my one-on-one coaching program to help you release this inner critic, release this negative self-talk.
- 8:49Michelle Gauthier: Imagine your day if you literally had nothing negative stuck in your brain.
- 8:54Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 9:01Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com.
- 9:07Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.