02 How to Stop Talking to Yourself Like Your Worst Critic

Welcome to the Great Leader Great Mom podcast, where we trade in mom guilt and burnout for courage, calm, and a whole lot more joy. I'm your host, Liz Jolly, engineer turned life coach, mom of three, and founder of the School of Courage. Here we talk about leading at work and at home without losing your sanity, your sense of humor, or yourself. If you're ready to drop the guilt and grow your courage, you're in the right place. This is episode two, and today we're going to talk all about what really happens when you make a mistake The real problem isn't the actual mistake we make. It's what we make the mistake mean about ourselves. I coach women all the time who are beating themselves up over a decision that didn't get the result they actually wanted It starts out harmlessly like, I made a mistake, that didn't work, but very quickly turns into, I am a mistake, I am a failure, I am a bad mom. And then we proceed to absolutely tear ourselves apart. This is the moment where we need to slow down because something important is happening in our brain. Once you notice yourself talking this way, it's time to unpack what's really going on. There's this thought error happening. Yeah, a thought error. When your brain moves from a neutral fact to a painful identity and full of judgment. Where your brain moves from a neutral fact and it makes up a story, a judgment about this. Let me give you a real example I had a client share with me that she recommended a job opportunity in her area and it didn't work out. So let's slow this down. Here's the actual facts of what happened. She made a decision to try something and she didn't get the outcome she wanted. That is the circumstance and that is neutral. Her brain though, which is what we all do, classically catastrophized it into, this is all my fault. I don't deserve to be in this role. I should have known better Notice the word should. This is when the flag should be waving in our brain and we need to slow down. When we think the thought, I should have known better, we feel shame every single time Shame is that feeling that we're not good enough. Here's what shame does to us. Once my client felt shame, everything shifted. She withdrew. She stopped engaging with her team. She stopped trying. She beat herself up all day long. And her brain, like all of our brains, went on a hunt for confirming evidence. A smarter person would have known how to get this job. I should have prevented this. This never should have happened. Something has gone very wrong. The result she got If you look at how she showed up every day thinking this thought was she didn't deserve to be in this role. She was showing up as a person that shouldn't have gotten the role. She wasn't giving her best to herself or her team. We all do this. We should all over ourselves. We tell ourselves, I should have known, I shouldn't have done that. I should be better than this But here's the truth. When we argue with what already happened, we're arguing with reality. And as Byron Cady says, when you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time. Reality already happened. Beating yourself up won't change anything. It just makes you miserable. Our brain lies to us and says, but I need to beat myself up. It'll help me be better. But our brains, even though they genuinely think this, it's a total lie. Being yourself up doesn't help you improve. It helps you shut down What actually helps you do better the next time is self-compassion, is learning, is staying engaged. Let me ask you this If your child or some small child in your family, if you don't have children, made a mistake, or if your coworker had a project that didn't work out, would you go to them and say you don't deserve to be in this role? You should have known better? Of course not. Yet many of us say these exact words to ourselves, and sometimes even to our kids, because that's how we speak to ourselves. Shaming language never creates growth. It creates fear and disconnection. Another client was leading a massive project. There was lots of stakeholders, there was no clear vision, and she said, we're not gonna get to where we need to by the end of the year. This is a neutral fact. Her brain made this fact mean I'm not good at this. I should have known sooner. I should have been able to address it so we would have never been in this place. And when I asked her, did anyone else know sooner? She said, no, they didn't. This was the process. This was part of the journey. She had to go through that to get to here. Very few large projects are really that clean or perfect. Let's all be honest. Many of us grew up believing if I do things right, I'm good. If I mess them up, I'm bad. This creates conditional love for others and for ourselves, and it leads to people pleasing, perfectionism, living for approval, and that is not freedom. That is exhaustion and burnout. So here's a better way. Let's replay the mistake, but with a different thought. If the old thought was I should have known better, then let's try on a new thought like I know this didn't work now. Let's try something else That creates the feeling of groundedness and it leads to the actions of we show up wanting to learn, wanting to adjust, wanting to document. We keep going and the result we get is growth and confidence and leadership. We show up with the chance to make things right and to perform even better. So here's the practical tools. How do you catch this in real time? When you hear the word should in your head, you need to pause. The flag should be waving. Ask yourself, is this actually helping me? Would I say this to someone I love? Should I have actually known? Most of the time, when I ask that to myself, the answer is no, I shouldn't have known Try and spend at least 50% of your mental energy looking for the evidence that you are capable, that you're learning, you're growing, the opposite of all that catastrophizing your brain goes to on default So here's the thing, you are lovable right now, not because of what you do, not because of what you get right or be perfect at. But because you are you, you will make mistakes. You are human. We all make them. And that's exactly what teaches your kids resilience, courage, and self-trust. Start talking to yourself like someone you love. If you like what you're hearing and you want more, go to lizjolly. com and look around at different resources and opportunities to join us on this journey. to be both a great leader and a great mom. With that, I'll see you guys next time. Take care everybody