Meeting up with a friend over a cup of coffee (also read as a glass of wine)  after office or during a weekend can sometimes be the best therapy. Talking about some of our nagging concerns and realizing it is not “just-me”, is such a relief. 

This is an excerpt from a discussion with a friend. I echo every word of hers. 

“When I finish any job in hand, I feel I could have done a better job. I always feel I did not do justice to the task. I always feel I should have worked more on it before I clicked the publish button ( Or submitted the job).” 

I have felt this for as long as I can remember. My journal entry every day has at least one mention to my laziness and my inability to give my hundred percent. Even when someone tells me I have done a good job, I know I could have done better with a little more effort. 

If only I had not done a last minute job….

If only I had not been lazy to read up a little more about the topic…

If only I had done one more edit…

If only I had taken up my job a little more seriously…. 

“Am I right to think I have not done my job well? Am I over expecting from myself? Am I putting myself at a pedestal and thinking I am worth much more than I actually am? “

We called it the “could have done it better” syndrome.

I initially thought we were being self critical. Whatever I wrote about how judging others can negatively impact a person by eventually ending up as a person who overly judges oneself, made me uncomfortable. I read up articles about the characteristics of self critiques. 

In an article in Psychology Today, Loretta G. Breuning identifies 20 characteristics to check if a person is too self criticising. 

Both of us took this test and were glad that we did not fall into the category of people who are too self criticizing. Then, why do we not meet our own expectations? 

My friend and me parted ways with a determination to think more about this problem and try to find a solution. After a couple of deep inhalations and exhalations, things started getting a little clearer in my head. 

What do we wake up to every day? 

Most of us have one of these self motivating and positive messages that greet us every morning:

Your Limitation, it’s only your imagination. 

Push yourself, because no one is going to do it for you. 

Only “I” can defeat me.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

Some of us begin and end our day listening to motivational videos and podcasts. A lot of times, we feel  we know exactly what has to be done. Anything short of a perfectly productive day makes us feel incompetent. 

Reading up about this full-on-motivation but not-much-action state of being, I came across an interesting article, written by Scott. H. Young, called You Probably Have Too Much Motivation 

In this article, Scott dwells on the reason behind overly motivated ideation and under motivated  execution. I could identify with the reasons behind the lack of action or the delay in action in spite of the highly motivated state of being.

 Being over motivated can actually complicate things. Planning a project in a highly motivated state and then being able to sustain that motivation to see through that project are equally important. Hence, like Scott suggests, the ideal way out would be to (as much as possible) indulge only in one major project (in a particular domain) at a time. The distractions to it could be a motivation to do another interesting project. But that will have to stay in the ideation stage until the first one can be closed. 

Both of us (my friend and me )  have decided to try out this strategy for some time to see if it can help us improve the quality of our journal entries vis-a-vis our analysis of our own work. I say this because a lot of times, we get over critical of our work when we know we could have spent a little more time and effort on it. 

Will the motivated self do justice to the action taken and the analysis of the final product? This is something we both have decided to wait and watch. 

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