Why Are You Being So Hard on Yourself?

I was chatting to a high-performing woman recently who told me she’d been up since 5am.

She wouldn’t get home until after 8 that evening.

Then it was dinner, helping the kids with whatever they needed, getting everyone organised for the next day and finally collapsing into bed.

She was on her way to a meeting she hadn’t had time to prepare for because, quite simply, life had got in the way.

As we talked, I mentioned a mistake I’d made earlier that day.

How I’d replayed it in my head.

Questioned myself.

Wondered whether I should have known better.

She looked at me and said:

“Why are you being so hard on yourself?”

I smiled.

Because all I could think was…

You should probably ask yourself the same question, especially as a high-performing woman.

Because women are often brilliant at extending compassion to everyone else.

We reassure our children.

Encourage our friends.

Support our colleagues.

Lead our teams.

Tell other women they’re doing better than they think they are.

Yet when it comes to ourselves?

The voice in our head sounds very different.

I wrote about why high-performing women are often exhausted also, here

You should have done more.

You should have known better.

You should be coping.

You should have it figured out by now.

You should be grateful.

We’ve become so used to carrying the load, pushing through and holding it all together that being hard on ourselves feels normal.

Necessary, even.

For many women I work with, particularly during midlife, self-criticism has become the fuel that drives performance.

It’s the thing that helped them build successful careers, raise families, manage households and keep everything moving.

Until it doesn’t.

Because eventually, the strategy that got us here stops serving us.

The constant pressure.

The impossible standards.

The belief that we’re only as good as our last success.

What if success didn’t have to come at the expense of self-compassion?

What if we could maintain high standards without punishing ourselves for being human?

What if the next chapter wasn’t about pushing harder, but leading ourselves differently?

And if nobody has asked you this recently…

Why are you being so hard on yourself?

Maybe the answer to that question is where everything starts to change.

If this resonated with you, you’re not alone.

Many of the women I work with are still performing, still delivering and still carrying enormous responsibility.

And you can too – click here to book a private consultation

They simply don’t want success to come at the expense of themselves anymore.

You haven’t lost your edge.

Sometimes, you just need a different way of accessing it.