The Inner Critic: Why We’re So Hard on Ourselves

You make a mistake at work and, before anyone else has even reacted, something inside you has already started: That was stupid. You should have known better. Everyone else seems to manage this. Why can't you?

For some people, this voice is obviously harsh. For others, it sounds much more reasonable: You could have done better. You should be further ahead by now. You need to get yourself together.

Because it has been there for so long, we may not even recognize it as self-criticism. It simply sounds like the way we think. This is what people often mean by the inner critic: the part of us that constantly monitors, judges and compares us against some idea of who we think we should be.

And strangely, many of us are reluctant to let it go.

We tell ourselves, I'm hard on myself because I have high standards. Or, If I weren't this critical, I wouldn't achieve anything. But there is an important difference between wanting to grow and needing to attack yourself in order to do it.

The tyranny of who you think you should be

Psychoanalyst Karen Horney had a particularly good phrase for this: the “tyranny of the shoulds.” We create an image of the person we believe we should be. More confident. More successful. More disciplined. Less anxious. Less sensitive. Better looking. Further ahead in life.

There is nothing wrong with having ideals. Ideals can give us direction. The problem begins when the ideal stops being something we aspire toward and becomes a standard we use to judge the person we actually are.

I should be more confident by now.

I shouldn't care this much about what people think.

I should have achieved more at my age.

I shouldn't need reassurance.

The real person has very little chance of winning against this imagined version. The ideal can always become smarter, calmer, thinner, richer, more productive or more impressive. And so the distance between who I am and who I should be becomes evidence against us. A healthy ideal says, I'd like to become better at this. The inner tyrant says, You should already be better, and the fact that you're not means something is wrong with you.

When protection becomes persecution

But why would we develop a voice that treats us this way? One interesting explanation comes from Jungian psychoanalyst Donald Kalsched, particularly in his work on early trauma and overwhelming childhood experiences.

Kalsched described an internal defensive system that can begin by trying to protect vulnerable parts of the person. If being spontaneous, making mistakes, expressing needs or showing vulnerability once felt unsafe, the mind may develop ways of keeping those vulnerable parts under control.

The underlying logic might become something like: If I criticize you first, control you enough and prevent you from doing the wrong thing, perhaps nothing bad will happen. In that sense, the critic begins as a protector.

But protection can become extreme. The voice that once tried to prevent pain can eventually create pain of its own. What began as guidance becomes constant surveillance: don't embarrass yourself, don't fail, don't be needy, don't relax too much, don't get it wrong. The protector has become a persecutor.

This doesn't mean that everyone's inner critic comes from childhood trauma. There are many paths to becoming self-critical, and Kalsched's theory is one way of understanding a particularly harsh internal world. But his idea gives us an interesting question: What if the part of you that attacks you is, in its own distorted way, trying to protect you from something?

Why we defend our inner critic

This may also explain why people often resist the idea of becoming less self-critical.

If I'm not hard on myself, I'll become lazy.

If I notice my weaknesses before anyone else does, I can fix them.

If I criticize myself first, other people's criticism won't hurt as much.

If I stop pushing myself, I'll become complacent.

The critic can therefore feel useful. Sometimes it even produces results. Fear of failure may make you prepare more. Feeling inadequate may make you work harder. But there is a cost.

If your motivation is repeatedly built on you are not good enough yet, achievement doesn't necessarily remove the feeling. The standard simply moves. You get the promotion, and now you need the next one. You do something well, but somebody else did it better. You improve one part of yourself, and the critic finds another.

Over time, the voice that supposedly keeps you improving can also feed self-doubt, shame and a persistent sense of inferiority.

Research on self-compassion also challenges the idea that we need harsh self-criticism to stay motivated. Treating ourselves with less hostility after failure does not necessarily make us passive; studies have found that self-compassion can coexist with — and sometimes even strengthen — the motivation to improve. Perhaps we don't need to hate ourselves into becoming better.

The inner critic confuses correction with contempt

This may be the most important distinction. You can recognize that you made a mistake without attacking yourself for making it.

I handled that conversation badly is different from I'm terrible with people.

I should prepare more carefully next time is different from I'm incompetent.

I wish I hadn't said that is different from Why am I always like this?

The first version contains information. The second turns the information into a judgment about who you are. The inner critic often confuses correction with contempt. You don't have to.

What do you actually do with this voice?

The first step is simply to hear it. Notice the shoulds. Notice the absolute statements: I always do this. I can never get anything right. Everyone else is better at this.

Then create a little distance between yourself and the thought. Instead of I'm not good enough, try noticing: I'm having the thought that I'm not good enough. It sounds like a tiny change, but it reminds you that a thought is something happening in your mind, not necessarily an objective description of reality.

You also don't have to enter into a long debate with the critic. If it says, Everyone must think you're stupid, you don't necessarily need to answer, No, everybody thinks I'm brilliant. You can simply say:

There is the critic again.

Or:

Maybe I could have handled that differently. But I don't need to attack myself over it. Think of it a little like dealing with a bully. You don't have to convince the bully that you are worthy enough for them to stop. You can refuse to accept the way they are speaking to you. Take the information if there is useful information there. Leave the contempt.

You are probably not the only one

One reason the inner critic can feel so powerful is that we hear ours and rarely hear anyone else's.

The person who seems completely confident may have one. The colleague who appears successful may have one. The person you think is beautiful, composed or effortlessly comfortable in themselves may also be comparing themselves to an impossible version of who they think they should be.

We can't know what is happening in another person's mind, and the intensity of self-criticism differs enormously from person to person. But having an inner critic is not an unusual human experience.

Sometimes simply recognizing that can take away some of its authority. The goal may not be to eliminate the voice completely. It may be to notice it sooner, understand what it is trying to do, and stop automatically treating everything it says as the truth.

Because wanting to grow is not the same as believing that who you are today deserves contempt.

And the next time the voice says, You're still not good enough, perhaps you can hear it for what it is: not a verdict, but a familiar voice.