When Self-Criticism Becomes Self-Sabotage
- Brooke Shoup
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
The Problem With "Working On Yourself"
Self-improvement culture tells us to identify our weaknesses and fix them. Journal our way to better habits. Regulate our emotions. Shrink the parts that cause friction.
But here's what nobody is talking about: if you are working on yourself so you can get away from yourself, you've lost something important.
When self-improvement becomes a project to eliminate pieces of yourself, it stops being healing and starts becoming self-sabotage. You're not building a better relationship with yourself. You're damaging it.
We Learn Self-Criticism to Get Rid of "Bad Parts"
This starts young.
As children, we run experiments. We show up as ourselves, messy, loud, needy, expressive, and we watch what happens. We learn quickly which versions of us get rewarded with warmth and connection, and which versions cause people to pull away, and then we learn self-criticism to help us remember which expressions helped us get access to love.
For me, it looked like this:
When I was helpful, I was seen as good. When I was independent, people approved. When I was emotional or needy, I became a problem. When I took up space, people wanted to be around me , but when I took more space, they pulled away.
So I built a story. Two versions of myself:
"Good" Brooke: helpful, independent, needs little, quiet, polite
"Bad" Brooke: unprepared, needy, talks too much, chaotic, messy, asks for too much
We all do this. We internalize the feedback we get from the world, and it becomes the architecture of how we see ourselves.
What We Miss in That Process
Here's what our child brain couldn't understand: the "bad" qualities can also be good.
Unprepared might be carefree
Needy might be self-connected
Talkative might be charismatic
Messy might be creative
Now, these qualities still benefit from wisdom and development. I'm not saying there's no growth to do. But we cannot get there if we're approaching ourselves as broken. If we're so caught up in the labels placed on us that we can't even see the strengths hiding inside them.
When Your Needs Get Labeled "Too Much"
Maybe you were an expressive kid born into a family that didn't know how to receive that. Maybe your emotions were called dramatic. Maybe your curiosity was called exhausting.
That didn't make those things bad. It meant you didn't have people around who could hold them.
For me, my needs were labeled as "too much" so I learned to hide them. I made myself smaller, quieter, less. Because being chosen felt like it required being less.
But here's what I'm still learning: those needs were never the problem. The labeling was the problem.
The Story Underneath It All
When I reflect on my own history, I think about moments of feeling rejected or unimportant. Times when it felt like I wasn't the priority. And specifically, I think about my mom.
When she was overwhelmed, she dealt with it by telling me I needed to take up less space instead of saying "I need some time so I can be a better mom." She made it about me. About me being too much.
And my little girl internalized that. She started asking a question she probably couldn't even put words to at the time:
Will this help me matter?
That question drove so much of how I showed up — trying to dress differently, talk quieter, need less, be less messy, be more helpful. All of it was an attempt to be chosen.
Maybe you know that feeling.
The Real First Step (It's Not What You Think)
If you've spent your life trying to regulate yourself into being someone more acceptable — quieter, smaller, less needy — I want to offer you this reframe:
You don't need to be fixed. You need to be understood.
The first step isn't changing. It's learning to be with yourself without judgment. To get curious about what your so-called "bad" qualities are actually trying to tell you. To understand them instead of exile them.
The parts you've been trying to fix? They might be your greatest gifts waiting to be understood.
Ready to Understand Your Patterns?
If this resonated, I created a free Skills for Resilience Assessment to help you identify where you're stuck and start building a more compassionate relationship with yourself.
It's not about changing who you are. It's about finally understanding yourself — without judgment.
I'm still learning this. I'm still untangling the labels. I'm still discovering who I am underneath all the stories I was told about who I should be. And if you're on this journey too I see you.
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