Women Put Themselves Down Eight Times a Day

Ladies!  We need to stop the madness. The negative self-talk starts as soon as we wake up in the morning, and we tell ourselves we're not good enough off and on throughout the day.  Anyone else tired of that routine?  How can we stop it?

Most of the worries happen before 9am, which probably means we shut the alarm off, brush our teeth and head to the shower, weigh ourselves on the way, and that starts the self-shaming for eating pizza the day before.  Then we might have a bad hair day and we put ourselves down again over the frizz.  That leads to stress and anxiety, which can lead to a hormonal imbalance over time.  Yikes!

How often do you weigh yourself?  I do it every day so I'll stay in my 4 pound window, and I will be the first to admit if that number is higher than I'm expecting, it can launch a string of negative talk.  And it has an effect on what clothes I wear!  If I've busted out of my 4-pound window I'm wearing yoga pants that day.

Weight is only one thing we beat ourselves up over.  We can say the wrong thing to a friend, miss a deadline at work, forget a birthday, feel guilty over our work-family balance, and all sorts of things. It all sets off the voice in our head that tells us we're not measuring up.

To get around the negative self-talk and the guilt, the experts say we should focus more on joy and gratitude.  We may be carrying an extra pound or two, but we've got great families.  We may have missed a deadline, but we rock that workplace overall.  We can do this.

Life is full of possibility, and we'll find joy when we focus on that.  I'm gonna do my best to improve on that in 2016.