Every time we criticize we prevent ourselves from moving forward and being the person we want to be. We tell ourselves we aren’t good enough, we don’t know what we are doing, we are unable to succeed. Lashing ourselves in this way is just as harmful as using a physical whip.

When you notice yourself criticizing, change that criticism to curiosity. Rather than getting down on yourself, be curious about what happened, why it happened, how you might have encouraged something else to happen instead. Rather than telling yourself everything you did wrong, be curious about why you did what you did and what you might do differently next time.

When we change criticism to curiosity, we move ourselves out of what was into the reasons behind our experience. We allow ourselves to explore reality as it is. We open ourselves to the possibilities and options which are always present.

And, by the way, we tend to move from anger and frustration to joy and excitement 😎