Making peace with your inner critic

By Sandra Siutkowska

I’ve always seen myself as an ambitious person, wanting to prove wrong those who didn’t believe in me and my abilities. What I didn’t realise, is how demanding and exhausting it is to live up to your own inner critic and the fear of not doing enough.

I graduated from Loughborough in 2018 and started applying for jobs. Rejection, after rejection, after rejection brought up my anxiety and depression that I had been managing so well. It is difficult to roll with the punches when you just don’t seem to be able to catch a break. I was applying every day and night, hoping that someone would take a chance on me. I was cursing myself for not being enough, for not ticking enough boxes on job descriptions and asking myself what did I do during those last four years, wondering whether I wasted them on going out and having fun.

And then, a break came. I managed to get a job. Full disclosure: a friend put in a word for me at a small company I worked for in the past. Fairly quickly my ambitions kicked in and I started looking for something better, with more opportunities.

It took me seven very long months of applying to land my new role. An emotional rollercoaster that was worth the wait – have you ever been excited to go to work? I didn’t believe that was even a thing, but here I am not dreading the 6.30am alarm.

I count my blessings, but the catch is that I’m already considering what my next move should be - I’m falling victim to my own self.

The lessons for me are to live more in the moment, celebrate my achievements and to be confident in that I am exactly where I should be. After all, making peace with my inner critic is only going to benefit me and my mental health.