I have a coaching client who’s working on reducing her wine consumption. She had a little bit more than what she had planned one night this week, and the next day, she chose to be nice to herself. She chose not to beat herself up for overindulging in the wine, and guess what?
Her next day of eating was phenomenal.
Why did this happen?
Because being nasty and negative to yourself is not going to promote the outcome you think it’s going to.
I’ve been both with myself. I’ve been the nasty, demanding, authoritative boss, and I’ve been the really nice, supportive, “let’s look at the good that you’re doing and find the areas that we can improve upon” boss.
I will tell you now, the one that is kinder, the one that recognizes my accomplishments, the one that encourages me — and this is all within me, by the way — I work harder for. I do better. I let go of the slip-ups and the mistakes because we’re all going to have them.
You’re going to have days when you overindulge in wine. You’re going to have days when you overindulge in candy or chocolate. That’s going to happen, and to pretend otherwise would be naïve at this point. Those things are going to happen. The way that you choose to handle those moments, and what you do immediately following, greatly dictates the outcome that you can expect from your input.
When the negative, nasty boss kicks in and says, “You shouldn’t have drunk all that wine. Oh, you’re pathetic. Oh, you’ll never get to your goals,” or whatever that guy or girl says, shut them up and remind yourself that everybody has days like this.
Tell yourself, “You know what, here are the couple of things I did really well this last week; I’m going to focus on those and then I’m going to make a plan to improve on what I didn’t do so well, or I’m going to let it go and continue to move forward.”
You have to begin to be nice to yourself. On the surface you might think, “But, the meaner and more demanding I am, the more sure I am that I will get my results.” Has that been working for you? For me, it never worked.
Honestly, it never worked. I had to change the tune in my thinking about my behaviors, and I let go of mistakes and slip-ups. I learned from them and made a plan of action, but I didn’t beat myself up.
Don’t beat yourself up. You deserve better than that. If it was anybody else — say, your child made a mistake, or your husband or wife made a mistake, your brother, sister, anyone you care about — would you want someone to talk to them the way you’re talking to yourself?
That’s the really simple way to see how you’re coming across. If the words you’re saying in your mind to yourself would not be acceptable for someone you love who made a mistake, you have to stop. That is the indicator.
Be loving and kind to yourself. That will get you so much farther in this journey. How will you be kinder to yourself? Comment below or on Facebook and tell us how you’ll become a “good boss.”