How Being 'Hard On Ourselves' Sabotages Long-Term Discipline (And What To Do Instead)

hey guys I'm Heidi PRI welcome back to my Channel or welcome if you're new here this month on this channel we're talking about self-esteem and today in particular we're going to talk about the concept of discipline specifically through the lens of being hard on ourselves or trying to essentially bully ourselves into being more disciplined and what we're going to go over is why this model does not work why you cannot simply bully yourself into performing more effectively long term and what's going to work instead that might currently be in your blind spot especially if you

identify as someone who tends to be too hard on themselves now this phrase is one that I really want to spend some time unpacking today because I think that there are two ways to be too hard on yourself so to speak the first way is to speak negatively to yourself so to have this really strong internal critic constantly telling you that you should be doing more you should be trying hard harder that you should be actualizing on more of your goals that's often what you hear people referring to when they talk about being too hard

on themselves what they're essentially saying is that I'm lower in discipline than I would like to be and I am higher in self-criticism than I would like to be so we're going to start forming a quadrant here and this is the kind of stereotypical heart ony yourself quadrant the low discipline low empathy side of things where you have this idea that if only you could force yourself to get more done then you would be successful so essentially the aspiration of people who find themselves in this quadrant is to move up to the high discipline low

empathy quadrant where they're still berating themselves and telling themselves negative things about themselves but those thoughts that inner critic is being used in service of keeping you disciplined and getting things done now the problem with this quadrant is that well it might seem more attractive than being in the lower one it is a fast track to burnout because when we are forcing ourselves to stay on track with goals that we don't actually feel aligned with what we are doing is resisting our Natural Energy and when we are consistantly resisting our Natural Energy we always end

up crashing at some point so this part of the quadrant where we're forcing ourselves to be rigid in our habits eventually knocks us right back to where we started from which is full of procrastination and self-hatred so what we're going to talk about today is how we can add some additional options into this equation and doing that is going to require you going into a blind spot if you're someone who grew up thinking that the only way to get things done was to force yourself to do what you hate this is likely to have been

the case if you grew up with something like complex PTSD toxic shame very low self-awareness or minimal mirroring so you didn't actually get to learn what it is that that you like to do and what it is that naturally motivates you to act as opposed to fighting your own energy the whole way through so one thing that I want to make clear is that when I say the term empathy in this video or when I use self-empathy as a term that I encourage us to move towards what I'm really talking about here is self Attunement

so it doesn't mean feeling sorry for yourself all of the time what it means is noticing and deeply understanding your own energy and how it works and the better we get at this the better we get at forming habits that we're actually able to consistently maintain so now we're going to look at the other side of this quadrant that those of us who have only learned to motivate ourselves through bullying ourselves might be completely unaware of the other side of this quadrant looks like this on the bottom right hand we have low discipline High empathy

or self atunement and then in the top Corner we have high discipline High empathy or self-attunement and this is the area we want to start getting ourselves to we do not want to end up in the burnout Zone where forcing oursel to act leads to collapse what we want to start doing is getting attuned enough to ourselves that we understand how to form habits that work for us and that will allow us to naturally stay disciplined because we're working with our energy as we move towards our goals not away from it so the counterintuitive route

to go going from this bottom quadrant where we have low discipline low empathy or self-attunement into this place where we have high discipline and high self-attunement is actually to make a lateral move first rather than a vertical one in this top quadrant that we're all trying to get to we have a sense of purpose and meaning and that sense of purpose and meaning is what gets us up in the mornings on the days when we really don't want to go to work it's what makes us manage our energy intentionally around the things that we want

to get done in life so that we're not fighting ourselves we're actually prioritizing our health and well-being because we see ourselves as instrumental to the things that we want to do with our lives so taking care of ourselves becomes an important part of a greater whole and in order to get there we have to learn who we are and what that purpose is so in this bottom quadrant down here we have desire and exploration when we start to get to know ourselves and get in tune with ourselves and start learning The rhythms of our unique

Energy System what happens is we start to get ideas about which directions we might want to move it and it actually doesn't make sense to become super disciplined right away before we know what path we ought to be walking down so it's actually going to be really important to go through a period of exploration of getting to know ourselves noticing what feels like a yes for us versus what feels like a no for us and then testing out different habits or routines or roots to moving towards those things that feel purposeful and meaningful for us

without having a super strong attachment to the outcome from the get-go because in this process of exploration we learn not just where we want to get to but how we like to travel there so which types of work do I enjoy getting up in the morning and doing the grunt work of not just where do I want to end up in my career in a big shiny exciting way what problems do I most enjoy struggling with even on the days where I'm feeling exhausted what naturally excites me and motivates me and makes me want to

enthusiastically wrestle with the problems that come up on Route these are all of the questions that we start examining when we move into the desire and exploration part of this process so we're going to talk a little bit about how we make these moves especially if we're in that low discipline low low empathy side of the quadrant how do we get to that place where we are highly disciplined and highly attuned to ourselves so to make that initial lateral move from low discipline low empathy to low discipline High empathy what we want to do is

start getting in touch with what we actually love and want versus what we want to want so what our ego wants that we are authentic embodied selves actually don't and this is a surprisingly hard thing to do but when you master it it's also a skill that you need to take with you for the rest of your life because no matter how many times you start getting it right in life and moving into that high discipline High Attunement head space you are going to have to continuously use refine and rely upon this skill this skill

of checking in with yourself and going is this something that I authentically want or is it something that maybe I once authentically wanted that is now expired or that I think I want or I really really want to want but that if I'm being completely honest with myself I just don't some major part of me is resisting it and of course sometimes resistance will come up on root to our goals in a way that it's quite fruitful to work through so we also have to learn to identify what's kind of nervousness or fear on the

way to what I want versus what is a no in my body and one of the things that's going to help us start to attune to this is to start being present with the parts of ourselves that we are currently just bullying the parts of ourselves that are feeling drained and uncreative and uninspired the parts of ourselves that procrastinate that are lazy that don't rile up to get the job done when we want to instead of bullying those parts we have to learn to go sit down on the couch next to them and get to

know them instead of asking why can't I get this thing done try asking yourself what is my resistance wanting me to know why is it that I seem to need so much rest right now why is it that I seem to need so much distraction right now why is it that my brain doesn't want to focus and be in the present moment what is the most compassionate possible interpretation of the way that I'm currently behaving because when we start that conversation with ourselves when we welcome in the parts of ourselves that are resisting discipline often

what we learn is that those parts of ourselves are actually Desperately Seeking out discipline of a much higher order so discipline that is aligned with our energy and that brings out the parts of ourselves that we actually want to have brought out in the world and those parts of ourselves that are craving that higher level more authentic discipline will resist any authoritarian influence we try to place on ourselves that inhibits that Creative Energy so one way to start getting in touch with yourself in this way could be as simple as journaling out on the days

when you're feeling stuck or resistant or undisciplined what is it that I'm wanting that I think I'm not allowed to want or that I judge myself for wanting what is that thing and can I be present with it for a moment without judgment if I want tons of rest can I just acknowledge that even if I think consciously I've had enough if I want a big huge dose of social support and of comfort and love can I acknowledge that even if I think that I shouldn't need it because our needs are there whether we want

them to be or not whether the judge and jury inside of our conscious Minds has decided that they should be there or not those needs will persist and the way to True discipline is through listening to our needs incorporating them into the structure of our overall life and then acting in a way where our disciplined actions actually meet our needs so designing a life where the amount of rest that we need is baked into it where the amount of social support that we need is baked into it because our unconscious mind will find the time

and support we need if we do not do it consciously so personally my entire life and workflow changed when I accepted that the 15ish hours per week that I tended to spend sitting at my desk procrastinating would be better devoted to just going out and walking around the city and getting lost in my thoughts for 15 hours a week deliberately intentionally in a way that I baked into my routine because my brain needed 15 hours on average of unstructured thinking time per week in order to perform well at my job so I could either bake

that into every day and intentionally take a couple hours to do that processing time or my mind would take that time for me and I would sit at my desk and waste time and of course you're going to have to figure out here what works for your schedule not everyone has a high degree of flexibility but the cool thing is that when we're listening to our energy and to what we actually need from ourselves our brains tend to become very creative in the problem solving and this is a kind of magic trick that I feel

like I've stumbled on over the years it's true in our relationship with ourselves and it happens to also be true in our relationships with other people when all of the needs we have are put on the table in a raw authentic non-distorted way magic happens we start to suddenly find Creative Solutions that were not there when we were resisting reality so in this quadrant down here we get in touch with what we authentically want what the needs that we have been bullying are actually trying to fulfill for us and then we start to move into

that exploration phase where we start trying out different habits different routines different jobs different projects whatever it is that start to get us unstuck and at this point you probably don't have a lot of discipline and you probably shouldn't discipline is is the product of finding something that authentically works for us and choosing to engage with that thing that works over and over again in a way that leads us somewhere we want to go with a high degree of intentionality but before we know what works for us getting really disciplined about pretty much anything is

just going to be a direct path to burnout so when we're at this part of the process what we're doing is spending a lot of quality time with ourselves and this might be a point where it's really helpful to do something like coaching in particular the type of coaching that helps us get in touch with our values and our desires and what we want from ourselves and our relationships and our life it might be helpful to read different books and explore different concepts and see what resonates for us what energizes us what we authentically want

to move toward love and curiosity and Alignment are natural motivators and so the more we get tuned into what do I feel really interested in even if it's it's not what I wish I was interested in and what makes me feel really aligned and Alive what allows me to show up the most authentically and how can I keep taking steps slowly in that direction even if let's say the type of work that really excites me is not the type of work that I can do at an entrylevel position is there a way I can take

that energy around the thing that excites me and start applying it to whatever entry level position is going to take me up the ranks so which beginner steps towards the type of job that I want are going to feel really good while I am taking them or if I want a long-term romantic relationship which types of people do I just enjoy connecting with when the pressure is totally off or if I want to start a new fitness regime or work on some other personal goal what do I just really enjoy in the process of that

and how can I just start taking more steps in creative ways in that Direction well noticing the whole time what's working for me what's feeling like a yes and an expansion of my natural energy and what's feeling like a hard no and a contraction of it and how do I get really honest with myself the entire way through on what I actually want desire and love versus what I just want to want or what my ego would like me to do and the clearer we get on this and the more we start moving towards the

things that we love the more discipline starts to naturally form so now we start looking at making that vertical move we start noticing the intersection between the things that we enjoy doing and the things that get us the results we want in the world or that move us towards a goal that feels exciting for us we start noticing the patterns of when our resistance and exhaustion show up and we make a practice out of figuring out how to tend to those without shutting down and burning out we work out this unique dance around how we

can stay both action oriented and connected to ourselves because again this is a skill you are going to need the entire way through you can be working your dream job for years and be in flow and be aligned with it and be getting things done and feeling great about it and then something will inevitably change even if it's just boredom creeping in because the thing that once worked for so long has now become R and maybe part of why it once felt so exciting was because you loved the challenge and so we're going to need

to stay sharp in that self-attunement piece so the idea is that by the time we get here to this upper right part of the quadrant where we have high discipline and high self-attunement working towards our goals feels like a kindness to ourselves instead of having to bully ourselves into action we can authentically cheerlead ourselves into action because the action does not require us to self abandon on Route and the framing I like to take around all of this is that authentic acts of discipline feel a lot more like devotion like genuinely opening ourselves up to

being tuned into whatever parts of ourselves are already wanting to express themselves and already wanting to be actualized and devotion even on the hard days feels more enticing than in action because it's part of a bigger hole that keeps us feeling feeling proud of ourselves and aligned with ourselves and when we have that as an option that's available to us it's generally a much more attractive option than giving up hanging back and phoning it in is because we also understand that we need to give ourselves rest breaks time to recharge when we have baked all

of that into our strategy that we stay disciplined about we find ourselves falling off the wagon a lot less because the discipline system we created for ourselves is Not Fragile now this of course is a lifelong process it never ends this process of learning to be attuned with ourselves and honest with ourselves and to take steps in the direction of those authentic wants is a dance that we will be doing for the rest of our lives so it's very worthwhile to learn the steps as best you can but the most important thing to keep in

mind is that if you find yourself bullying yourself speaking down to yourself about what you think you should be doing what might be most helpful is actually to slow that process down and to go before I move into discipline can I spend a little bit more time with empathy and Attunement and self-standing so that when discipline naturally arises I know that I will not just be setting myself up for Burnout down the road I will be setting myself up for an increasingly generative experience all right that's all I'm going to say for today on this

topic as always I'm very curious any thoughts feelings responses questions that are coming up for you please leave them in the comment section of this video I love you guys I hope you're taking care of yourselves and each other and I will see you back here again really soon [Music]