As life would have it, as I'm starting this piece, Kelis' music video for "Bossy" is playing on the tube. Something that I've always liked about Kelis, as an artist, is she's gonna do whatever she wants to do. We don't have to get it, so long as she does. If we like it, that's merely a bonus. Yeah, Kelis would be the opposite of the kinds of folks we're gonna talk about today. She appears to be very anti-self-critical. And that's beautiful.
I recently read two articles about why so many of us are so critical of ourselves (if you want to check them out, go here and then here). The therapists who were interviewed touched on things like us fearing complacency and also us choosing to engage in tons of negative self-talk. I think that another reason has to do with our childhood. Boy, if there's ever a time when my blood boils, it's when a parent is snatching up a young child and/or worse, cussing at them. Children's minds, hearts and souls are so fragile; they must be handled with extreme care. If that doesn't happen, if the very individuals who should be nurturing their spirits are constantly breaking them, a self-critical individual is exactly what they will turn out to be.
Some of us once were those children and, unfortunately, we are so used to treating ourselves with a lack of patience, forgiveness and self-compassion, that we don't even realize how self-critical we actually are. If you're wondering if this is something that you struggle with, perhaps more than you think, here are six blaring signs that should not be ignored.
You Find a Way to Tear Down Every Compliment
GiphyThere's someone I used to be close to who was pretty difficult to be around. A part of the reason was because I could never tell if her responses to compliments were a passive-aggressive way to get more or if she was a bona fide Olympian when it came to tearing affirmations down. I mean, no matter what I said to her, she found a way to knock it. For every time I said, "You look pretty today", she would respond with, "Maybe if I lost some weight." I'd give you some other examples, but I'm already worn out, just by reminiscing over all of that toxicity.
I get that sometimes it can be challenging to receive compliments or praise because you are so focused on improving the being that you already are. But if you don't know how to simply say "thank you" when someone commends you, or there is a part of you that doesn't believe them, something is very imbalanced when it comes to your self-esteem. Yes, there is something to be said for growth, but there is also something to be said for being proud of the person you are and appreciating when other people recognize the goodness that is already in/on you.
You Are Sorry for Things That You Shouldn’t Be
I've got a girlfriend who is mad humble. But, as a wise person once said, even the excess of a virtue can be a vice, at times. In her case, she has a tendency to apologize for things that she didn't do wrong or aren't her fault. If I call her, she's busy and has to call me back, she'll say, "I'm sorry. I was doing such-and-such." Is that something to be sorry for? Or when her husband completely shows his tail (if you've got a friend with a difficult spouse, I wrote about how I handle it here), she apologizes on his behalf (I get that married folks are "one" and all but he needs to take ownership for his own actions).
She apologizes so much that I finally brought it to her attention by saying, "Do you know that you say 'I'm sorry' for things that you don't even do wrong?" After responding with yep and, you guessed it, "I'm sorry" (LOL), she then said that she thinks it's because she struggles with people-pleasing a lot. Whenever someone is unhappy or even inconvenienced, she somehow believes that she has something to do with it. When I encouraged her to go deeper into where that stems from, she said that she had a babysitter from hell who used to berate and beat her and the other kids that she watched. My friend never told her parents; she just internalized it. She said "I'm sorry" a lot then to keep the peace and she does it a lot now for the same reason (self-awareness is a miracle cure, for real, for real!).
This example is a kinda cryptic form of being self-critical, but it is one nonetheless. It's also a reminder that we must handle all children with extreme care because they grow up to be adults; sometimes with the same wounds that they had from their childhood. Including being way too hard on themselves.
You Hold Yourself to Unrealistic Standards
Along the same lines of what we just discussed, another indication that you are too self-critical is the standards that you have for yourself are super unrealistic. You are a perfectionist. You don't forgive yourself when you make mistakes. You set way too many goals in a short frame of time. You see where I'm going with this, right? The problem with this is, because we all are flawed, we all sometimes make poor decisions and we all have moments of feeling totally overwhelmed, if you don't accept this fact about your own humanity, you're constantly going to feel like you are a disappointment, if not a flat-out failure.
Cut yourself some slack on the front end by aiming to do your best, but also predetermining that when you do mess up, you can let yourself off of the hook. Doing so is not letting yourself slide. It's actually an act of self-love.
You Don’t Ask for Help
Anyone who thinks that they don't need help is someone who not only has an ego problem (whether they realize it, like it or not), they also are setting themselves up for failure. If God wanted us to live without the assistance and support of others, we wouldn't have family members and friends. We wouldn't co-exist around other human beings on a daily basis either.
How does not asking for help equate to being too self-critical? Because a lot of people are this way because don't want to come off as appearing weak or needy. Or, they want to show others that they don't need anyone but themselves.
Being this type of person is typically a sign of also having some pretty serious trust issues. But here's the thing—if you constantly attempt things that would be easier for you to do if you had some back-up, then they may take a lot longer or not turn out as well as they could have. As a result, you become even more self-critical. Ugh. Doubly so.
You Are Never Ever Satisfied. Especially with Yourself.
Not too long ago, I was checking out the IG page for this site. Under a post that featured, well, go here and you can see it yourself, I appreciated what a male commenter said—"The Education us Men get following this page. I'm here for it." I took a sec to check out what the poster, @prewilliams has going on and he had a post that was so appropriate for this article—"You're over here doubting yourself while so many people are intimidated by your potential."
There's nothing wrong with being driven and ambitious. There's nothing wrong with wanting to become better on a daily basis. There's nothing wrong with going above and beyond what seems attainable. But a part of what comes with being a healthy and balanced individual is also being at peace with what you've already accomplished and just how far you've already come.
Stress, anxiety and frustration oftentimes arise out of not knowing how to be satisfied with oneself and/or how to stay in the moment. Life is too short to not know how to just be sometimes.
You’re Way Too Quiet
Some of y'all might remember the episode of A Different World when Tisha Campbell played a student who had HIV. Her professor was played by Whoopi Goldberg and the assignment that she gave the class to write their own obituary (a clip of the episode is right here). Something that Whoopi's character said, more than once, that has remained with me all this time is, "You are a voice in this world."
It's one thing to use timing and tact in delivering a message. It's another matter entirely when you have a desire to speak, but you don't, because you're worried about how people will react or respond. Your insight, your perspectives and your experiences are just as valid as anyone else's. Don't let your critical nature try and convince you otherwise.
A very wise person once said, "It's better to speak your mind and tell the truth, than to stay quiet and lie to yourself." If after reading this, you know that you are way too self-critical, start making some changes today by speaking up more, always remembering, that yes—YOU ARE A VOICE IN THIS WORLD. A voice that deserves to be heard, received and respected. With as little criticism from you as possible.
Want more stories like this? Sign up for our newsletter here and check out the related reads below:
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Chalk it up to naivety, or simply the hopeful romantic in me, but love never seemed like a distant concept to me. Sure there were tough lessons I had to learn and breakups that I needed healing from, but the hope of finding that special someone still remained. Yet, in my reflections, I couldn’t help but wonder why I kept meeting men who seemed good enough for the moment but would be better had we met at another time.
That is, until I considered one fated component of my dating life that was simply out of my control: and that was time.
When you can’t make sense of things on your own, the TikTok algorithm has a way of leading you to the answers you’re seeking. And during a recent scroll, I stumbled upon a thread of women echoing the sentiment that “men marry the woman in front of them, at the time they are ready to be married” — but could this be the root of my dilemma?
This notion, known as the "Cab Light Theory" is a concept that was introduced in the hit TV series Sex and the City. In the scene, lawyer Miranda Hobbes suggested that men are like taxis - when they're available, their "cab light" is on, and when they're not, it's off. “When they’re available, their light goes on. They wake up one day and decide they’re ready to settle down, have babies, whatever, and they turn their light on. The next woman they pick up — boom! That’s the woman they marry. It’s not fate. It’s dumb luck,” she tells her group of friends in the ladies' room.
GiphyThe theory is that men are ready and willing to pursue a romantic relationship when they're emotionally available and interested (light on), and if they’re not, well, it’s on to the next pick-up they go (light off). While men are not modes of transportation, there is a point to be made about how a passing notion in a TV series from the start of the millennium could still hold some truth today.
In the original video shared by creator Tay Talks, her take on the “Cab Light Theory” implied that men aren’t necessarily marrying their soulmate or even the love of their life, instead, “it was just the girl he was dating at the time he was ready to get married and settle down.” The “dumb luck” that Miranda Hobbes was referring to in the show is the chance encounter that a woman would find a man who is both financially sound and emotionally available enough to stop his dating pursuits and commit to one woman forever.
But as dating trends shift with new social and economic factors at play, how could it be that more “lights” aren’t going off for men?
In an illuminating piece by Psychology Today, men are more lonely than they’ve been in decades and their soil for choice isn’t helping. The article shared that dating apps drive new connections but have a gender imbalance, with 62% of users being men. And with women becoming increasingly more selective in preferring emotionally available men who share their values, men are now facing a relationship skills gap that can lead to fewer opportunities for long-term partnership if growth, healing, and deeper emotional intelligence are not achieved.
While it’s easy to oversimplify the headaches and frustrations that come with modern dating, we can’t forget that while timing does play a factor in us finding “the one,” we also have the power of choice within our grasp. Men and women both need time to heal, grow, and discover themselves on a deeper level — so would we really want to “jump in the cab” of someone who hasn’t gone through that process already?
Since love is one of those forces that we can’t just make happen a the snap of our fingers, it can be easy to fix a blanket theory into the reason behind our singleness, but it’s important to remember that we can choose to pursue other candidates who date with openness and desire for commitment rather than waiting until someone’s light hastily cuts on.
While love can be sublime it shouldn’t be random. And when love finds us, we shouldn’t have the question in the back of our mind whether we were the best our man could do at the time. We deserve to be sure.
So yes, the “cab light theory” is a cheeky concept that prompts us to appreciate the timing of our love life, but it should also remind us that alignment is everything.
Because the real question is: was his light not on, or was he simply not the one?
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