“Being self-critical is good; being self-hating is destructive. There’s a very fine line there somewhere, and I walk it carefully.” – Daniel Radcliffe
It can be useful to constructively criticize yourself as long as your realize that you’re human and are not, and will not ever be, perfect. You can then use the self-criticism to try to improve, not become perfect, but a little better. But, when self-criticism becomes extreme it can lead to perfectionistic thinking where you are never happy with yourself. This can lead to great unhappiness and psychological distress.
Mindfulness has been thought to help prevent perfectionism from producing distress. In support of this mindfulness has been found to improve self-esteem (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/why-dont-we-like-ourselves-mindfulness-as-an-antidote/) and a healthy self-esteem is counter to perfectionism. It’s difficult to be happy with oneself and critical of yourself as less than ideal at the same time. There is clearly a need to better understand the relationships between theses variables.
In today’s Research News article “Self-criticism as a mediator in the relationship between unhealthy perfectionism and distress”
James and colleagues obtained measures of self-criticism, perfectionism, mindfulness and psychological distress with an on-line questionnaire. They found that self-criticism and unhealthy perfectionism were positively related to psychological distress. In other words the higher the level of self-criticism and unhealthy perfectionism the greater the distress.
In addition, they found that unhealthy perfectionism was positively related to self-criticism which in turn increased psychological distress. So unhealthy perfectionism increased psychological distress both by directly increasing distress and also indirectly through increased self-criticism which in turn increased distress. Present moment awareness was negatively related to unhealthy perfectionism; that is the higher the level of mindfulness the lower the level of unhealthy perfectionism.
Mindfulness appears to help the individual by reducing unhealthy perfectionism. This doesn’t mean that the mindful individual does not strive to excel. Rather, it suggests that the mindful individual can work toward excellence but does so in a psychologically healthy way.
So, practice mindfulness and overcome unhealthy perfectionism.
“Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” ― Louise L. Hay
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies