I tend to work hard and take my work seriously. When things aren’t working exactly as planned, I take it personally. When the work is difficult I internalize it and it becomes more difficult.
Someone much wiser said to me, “you can be ambitious and work really hard, but what if you could take the struggle out of it?”. Beating yourself up provides no advantage. Being kind to yourself doesn’t make you less ambitious. You can be high-performing without all the struggle.
See also:
- Self-compassion is one way to be kinder to yourself
- Mindfulness helps you feel less self-conscious and so much of the struggle is internalizing what you think other people will think
- Being a better judge of early work inoculates you from skepticism
- Working hard is required to do great work
- Struggle switch says pain is inevitable, but suffering is not