Last week I did not release an episode of this podcast.

Over the 93 episodes that I've released so far, there's only been a couple of times that I've missed a week and previously they've been through.

My choice this week was different and it was due to a mistake that I made and not pre planning far enough ahead.

And it led to a interesting reaction internally where I started to berate myself a bit.

And I wanted to find out why, because ironically, only days earlier I'd posted a reel on Instagram talking about this exact thing and how we talk so badly to ourselves but not to other people.

And if we spoke to the people we loved the way we speak to ourselves, it wouldn't be acceptable.

If hearing that is something that resonates with you, then stick around and hopefully some of the things I learned will be of use to you and help us together not make these mistakes.

Again, let's get into it.

So the first thing that I learned when I was looking into this was about how our brain reacts to these sort of things.

So our brain responds more to negativity and threat than it does to good things.

So when I've done numbers and numbers of months with absolutely no interruptions and consistent uploads, consistent social media posts, that all goes out the window when one week goes wrong.

Because our brains are meant to spot negative things and this threat, and it's a evolutionary thing where they look at what went wrong.

Because ultimately your brain's trying to keep you alive.

And when I say it like that, it seems a bit far stretched that that relates to what's happened here.

Cause I missed a podcast episode.

Big deal.

But the feelings that you feel inside are real and your brain responds to those.

Another thing that I learn about, and I suppose these ones are more outwardly facing, these are things that we're taught by society.

So we have this learned belief that being hard on yourself is the same thing as discipline.

It's not.

Discipline is doing the thing when you didn't want to do the thing.

Being hard on yourself is a completely different thing.

And yeah, sure, there's probably crossover.

And sometimes you've got to be hard on yourself to get through the thing and have the discipline to do the thing.

But not always.

And when you make a mistake, you've got to have the discipline to get back on the horse and go again, not just sit there and do nothing and berate yourself.

All you're doing then is just fueling shame and avoidance of moving forward and procrastination that Big word that everyone knows.

And you don't end up moving forward and fixing what went wrong.

You end up stewing on it for so much longer.

So firstly, realizing that taking those two things apart is massively useful.

Another thing is perfectionism.

So perfectionism is something that a lot of people strive for, whether they know it or not.

And we compare ourselves to these people online who look like they're doing everything perfectly.

So we want to try and get to that.

And the reality is that we're human beings.

It's not possible to be perfect 100% of the time.

And in a way, that's a nice thing because it makes us human.

The problem is that when we do slip up, it becomes that again, that reinforcing thing that we look at ourselves and we go see, that person's better than me.

I'm not perfect.

I'm unreliable, I'm lazy.

I didn't do the thing that I said I was going to do.

I'm not serious about this thing.

And then there comes the social comparison.

And again, I sort of mentioned it there and I've mentioned it so many times on this podcast where we see the highlights of other people's lives.

We don't see the stuff behind the screen, we don't see what's really going on and the stresses they're facing and maybe how unhappy they really are.

So even though I speak about that so often, it's still so hard to pull myself out of that moment when it happens, because it's so natural to us.

It's what the brain's trained to do.

Obviously not with social media, but over the years it's there to protect us.

So we look at all this stuff and we look at the hustle culture and no excuses and all these things that tell us we just have to work like non stop.

And I think it's changing, actually.

I think we are getting to a place now where hustle culture might be.

There's a middle ground somewhere between being mindful and sort of grinding yourself to like the bone just to get stuff done.

But that's a separate topic.

The thing is, we're told these things, so we're fed this information.

And this starts actually from school.

So I was speaking to Dr. Wendy O' Connor on episode 93 and she was explaining how this sort of hustle culture work hard mentality is trained into us from the day we go to school.

We get homework, we get rewarded for doing good homework, we get penalized for not doing good for not doing it.

So we're taught from an early age to be rewarded for doing hard work.

And the problem is that as we get older and older, that work gets harder and harder, and we probably don't regulate ourselves as well as we should.

So another thing I learned about was this thing called the golden rule.

Now, the golden rule is that you treat others as you would like to be treated.

Now, to put a twist on that, I think we also need to treat ourselves how we would like to be treated.

How would you like to be treated by other people?

Let that be the benchmark for how you treat yourself.

Jordan Peterson's one of his rules is about treating yourself as someone you love.

Look after yourself the same way you would look after your pet or a loved one.

Why do we have double standards?

We're all hypocrites when we do that.

So, yeah, that's the golden rule.

And that's a few of the things quickly that I've learned.

I'm now going to go into sort of what the week I had was like.

So obviously I mentioned that I missed the episode.

So I tend to try and be a couple of weeks ahead on the podcast, and for whatever reason, I was well inside that, and I just decided not to book any further ones ahead.

And I just elapsed, truthfully.

So I made this mistake and then the week comes round.

So I can either force out an episode which isn't going to be good, it's not going to be genuine, or I accept I made a mistake and I go again.

And that's the one that I chose.

But it took me a few days to get there.

Originally, I was thinking, I need to get an episode set for this week.

I've got nothing.

And then I'd go, yeah, but that's stressful to think about, so don't think about it yet.

We'll push that back.

And so I kept pushing it back until it was too late to.

To deal with.

And then it got to the point where I had to accept I didn't have an episode.

And then when I finally got to that realization, my mindset, the way I was talking to myself internally, was that a failure, that of, how could you do this?

No one else does this.

Everyone else who has a podcast uploads weekly without fail.

And obviously in this situation, I'm comparing myself to these major, major podcasts who have massive teams behind them and not the small startup indie podcast like myself, where people do miss weeks.

And that's not me making an excuse and saying that I want to miss weeks, but it's Also a level of realization and being real in outer, outside of the podcast, in my other aspects of life.

It was draining things there because when I'm out with, like, my girlfriend or friends, all I can think about is how I'm this failing podcaster because I didn't get an episode out.

And then when I'm in the gym, I'm like, I need to work out.

I love working out.

And it's something I've always done.

But maybe I should be going and do this because you're.

You're a failure, whatever it was.

And yeah, it took me a few days to sort of reframe it from being a failure into, I just messed up.

I messed up.

I misjudged the capacity that I had and the planning that I had in place.

I didn't build enough of a buffer.

What can I learn from it?

What can I change next time?

And let's move on, because there's no point in dwelling in that moment.

There isn't.

The next section I want to look at is looking more into what self kindness actually is.

Because we say that word and we hear that word and maybe we don't fully understand it and we think it's sort of giving ourselves a hug and making ourselves a hot chocolate and getting under the duvet and just pretending that everything's going to be okay because we did nothing.

That's not right.

So to start off with the word self kindness, it's about keeping the honesty but taking away the abuse.

We abuse ourselves, let's use that word.

Because the way we talk to ourselves isn't acceptable.

And I say keep the honesty because there has to be some honesty in it.

If we're feeling this way, there's something in there that is true and that's why it hurts so much.

Because we know that we messed up.

We know that we made this mistake.

The abuse that comes with it, that can go, not a problem.

Then we look at common humanity.

And I spoke about comparing ourselves in a negative way.

This is potentially a positive way.

So look at other people and go, everyone does mess up.

This is a totally human thing to do.

This is not unusual.

This is not different to a lot of people.

And I can compare myself to the tip top people who have these massive teams, or I can compare myself to the person who does make a mistake every now and then and just cracks on with it.

And that's what I'm choosing to do.

Then you look at the word mindfulness.

So again, being aware of our emotions and not being scared to sit in them, but also not sitting them forever.

So when emotions come in, when thoughts come in, it's about looking at those objectively and working out which ones are useful, which ones have truth, which ones are abuse, which ones you can just get rid of straight away and using the ones that are still there to move you forward before letting them go or moving them to the side.

So being mindful enough to look at those.

So I looked up a few different ways to sort of deal with this.

Practical tips, practical tools.

And I want to run through a few of these because I think they'll be useful for me and I think they'll be useful for you as well.

So if you do some me sort of like reading stuff, it's because I've got these ones written down, because these are things that I've learned and I don't want to get them wrong.

So the first one is called the friend text test.

This is when you're in that moment and you're telling yourself these abusive thoughts and putting yourself down.

Think about what you would text a close friend in this exact situation.

So if I've missed this episode and I'm calling myself a failure and not a good podcaster, and everyone's going to stop listening to me now, like, that's it, it's done, I've got to start again.

If that was my best friend or my loved one who was in that situation, what would I say to them then?

What would I text them?

And further to move this forward, you could even write that down.

Write it down on your phone, text it out.

Obviously, don't send it, but read it and write it and experience sending that insight and that information and look at how that feels and then probably reassess where your mind's at.

The next one is two columns, so a nice simple one, and you probably have heard this for multiple things, is first column is what my critic says, what I'm saying in here, versus if I was fair and kind, I'd say this.

So this one's more of a direct comparison.

So you're writing down the exact phrase that you're saying to yourself and you're thinking, what could I say instead?

What would actually be useful here?

And you're just writing them next to each other and just go through every thought in your mind and write them down.

Go through them individually.

And again, I think you'll get to a point where you look at them and go, that's useless.

That's giving me no advice.

That's giving me no value to talk to myself that way.

So I'm actually going to talk to myself that way instead.

Another one, which I love is the behaviors.

So behavior, not identity.

So we often say I am a failure instead.

You could say, I failed this week.

I didn't do the thing this week.

You're talking about it differently.

If I say I am a failure, I'm labeling myself a failure.

Even though for 93 weeks I've not been a failure, I've been a success.

Like, it's so easy to quickly flip that.

And by saying indefinite, we do it so often with anxiety, depression, I am depressed, I am anxious.

And instead we should be saying, I feel depression, I currently am feeling anxiety.

Because it then gives you an opportunity to look at that and go, okay, well, this will pass.

This won't be forever.

And when you start saying things like I am, you're declaring that you're that thing.

And it's a lot harder to let go of that identity.

So, again, another thing.

When you've made a mistake and you're looking forward to the next stages and how you're going to fix it, think about it in tiny repairs.

So rather than ripping everything to shreds and going, I need a whole new system.

I need to change everything, change it, change just one small thing.

Look at, what can I tweak this week?

What small thing can I change?

What can I do differently?

That's not super difficult to implement, but will make a change going forward.

And then you can start to build on that every week.

You can make a tiny repair and start to fix what caused that issue before.

So taking this all and zooming out of it, I've done a lot of reflection myself this week.

And again, it's super ironic that I posted a video that same week talking about this exact thing.

So I felt really inclined to sort of learn more about it and speak a little bit more about it.

Because I think it's something that so many of us go through and so many of us feel.

So don't treat yourself like you're different or like you're wrong for thinking this way.

It happens.

It's just human.

It's the human condition.

So when you zoom out and you look at your relationship with yourself, think about what sort of inner voice you do want over the next few years.

Like, do I still want this voice in five years from now or two years from now, or even a few months from now?

No.

So am I going to use this experience as something to build on so that when it happens again, and it will, because I'm human.

When that thing happens again, can I look back at this and go, what didn't I like last time?

And what can I change?

What.

What.

What did I change moving forward to stop this from happening again?

If this voice in my head was my boss at work, would I want to work for them?

Absolutely not.

Who would I want to work for?

When I think about that, someone who's understanding, kind, helps me learn from my mistakes, doesn't just berate me for it.

Imagine if you made a mistake at work, and maybe this has happened to you because there are some bad managers out there and leaders and.

But if you made a mistake at work and your boss just put you down and maybe in front of other people, just told you everything that was wrong with you, how horrible would that be?

Like, you would not want to go back to work.

And if anyone has gone through that, I'm very sorry.

And hopefully you've managed to move on and find a new place of work.

And if you haven't, please do.

But if I go back to the original question, would I want to work for that person in my own head?

No.

So I need to start creating someone in my mind who I would want to work for, who's supportive.

The goal of this all is to have a relationship with yourself that's honest, accountable, and kind.

And I think people think of kindness, that word of being soft.

It's not.

It's kind to be honest, it's kind to be harsh sometimes within reason.

And you have to be in order to learn.

Because if you just told yourself after everything that went wrong, oh, this is fine.

This, it will all be all right after this.

But you never took anything away from it.

You just will not progress.

You'll keep making mistakes, and you'll keep being locked in this cycle.

So, yeah, those three things, honesty, accountability, and kindness, all work together.

It's a beautiful coming together of the three of them.

And.

Yeah.

So I hope you have taken something away from this episode.

I felt compelled to talk about it because of the irony of what I'd been through and also because of how common this is.

This is.

This is the human nature.

I would almost guarantee that everyone listening right now would resonate with this somehow.

And I just want you to ask yourself this thing now, what I said about the golden rule, so obviously how you'd you treat others, how you would like to be treated yourself, let's change that into treat yourself the same way you would like to be treated by others.

And when you're going forward, if you were to apply that golden rule internally to yourself, what would change about the tone and the language that you use towards yourself?

That is the question I'm leaving you with.

Have a think on it.

Let me know in the comments if you haven't already.

Please do follow or subscribe to the show and come together with a community of people who love learning about life and it be great to have you on board.

So thank you so much for listening.

Stay curious and I will see you in the next one.