I was telling to myself: You loser, why are you not more productive?

For many years

I was my own worst enemy.

I thought this is the way it had to be.

Punishing myself in order to be productive.

How else would I get motivated?

It wasn’t really effective but I didn’t know anything else.

I used to be productive for short periods of time.

But then I had my down periods.

Hours, days, weeks go by with me getting barely anything done.

This happened again and again.

It was really painful to see myself being stuck in the same loop for so long.

I always thought there is something wrong with me or that I am just inherently lazy.

Until a mentor of mine pointed something out to me.

Whenever I put myself down like this.

It actually makes me weaker.

Because it just confirms the idea that I am an inherently bad/lazy person.

Making myself feel bad and guilty only makes me procrastinate more, he said.

I had never thought about this but it made total sense upon reflecting on it.

And then I realized the real reason why I was doing this.

My mother often said to me:

“You are so bad because I didn’t punish you more as a child”

I had come to believe this without even knowing it.

I was punishing myself because I felt this is the way it has to be.

Needless to say.

This way of “motivating” myself was highly destructive.

Even when I was productive it was:

Tension and stress-producing.

Aswell as exhausting and demotivating.

I was never able to consistently perform at a high level that way.

However everything changed when I started to consciously silence my inner critic.

I started observing it as soon as it appeared.

And started seeing it as a voice that doesn’t belong to me.

A voice that belongs to someone who just imposed her will on me.

Once my inner critic died off.

Things started to flow.

I was able to be at peak performance for many hours every day.

Without burning out.

And even when my concentration was going down and my energy left me I could just be with myself without judging it

Which actually allowed me to truly relax

And recover and rejuvenate much quicker.

I realized the greatest stress wasn’t coming from the work I was doing.

It came from myself.

I was making the work painful, miserable and tiring for myself by the way I spoke to myself.

Don’t do that to yourself.

Silence your inner critic at the root.

Your business results and sense of well being will change rapidly for the better.