How To Not Get Frustrated With Yourself When You’re Trying To Change For The Better

The problem with self-growth is that it’s a long and difficult process, and it’s tempting to throw in the towel in the middle of your journey to avoid the emotional pain and embarrassment that come along with it. However, the pain and embarrassment are inescapable elements that we all must confront to achieve the worthwhile result of growth and being happier with ourselves.

Self-Improvement Is Supposed To Be Difficult

The first step in improving yourself is recognizing your past mistakes and becoming self-aware. The problem is becoming self-aware can be difficult because it requires us to reevaluate ourselves and our habits, including habits we’ve had our entire lives. This can make introspection feel more self-critical than anything else. 

Dr. Karen Finn, author of On the Road from Heartbreak to Happiness: You Can Heal from Divorce, describes this perfectly. She writes, “The tricky thing about emotional self-awareness is that most of us are on autopilot and don’t even know it. We lock in our thoughts, beliefs, habits, and behaviors early in life. And that kind of hardwiring is tough to rewire. Think about the last time you found yourself in a conversation in which someone violated the cardinal rule of not talking politics. How much real listening went on? And how much lashing out with scripted platforms from opposite sides went on?”

Dr. Finn continues, “Interactions like that fuel the posture of reluctance to work toward self-awareness. People speak without thinking. They don’t answer questions asked because they’re on autopilot. They probably can’t even give an honest, reflective answer as to why they believe the way they do. Their goal has nothing to do with learning, growing, or doing any kind of emotional rearranging. That would be too much work and might be a display of weakness or lack of assuredness. And they have no sense of what their bodies are feeling, so they can’t connect their feelings to their behavior.”

Self-awareness is not just knowing what you think, but why you think or act the way that you do.

Self-awareness is not just knowing what you think, but why you think or act the way that you do. Self-awareness is also the ability to catch yourself in the act or right after you did or said the thing you didn’t want to. Let’s say you’ve recognized you have a habit of saying negative things about other people – which is one level of self-awareness. Self-awareness is further realizing you're about to say something unkind about Nancy from HR, and hopefully you can stop yourself. Self-awareness is also realizing after the fact that you did what you didn’t want to do. All of these versions of self-awareness are good and necessary hallmarks of the beginnings of growth.

Give Yourself Some Grace

Since I had so much downtime during the pandemic (as we all did), I decided that it was the perfect time to focus on self-improvement and healing. My relationship history could be better, and I figured that I would have to make changes within myself to achieve the type of relationship that I want. 

The first step to combatting this was talking about my past relationship issues with my therapist, and saying that I was embarrassed at some of my past behavior would be an understatement. I don’t think I’ve ever cringed so hard (except at the “Scott’s Tots” episode of The Office), and I wanted nothing more than to curl up on my couch into a ball of embarrassment. This is when I learned to give myself grace and take care of myself through self-care. 

When I talk about self-care, I’m not talking about face masks or having a glass of wine at the end of a stressful day (though a face mask never hurt everyone). I learned that feeling embarrassed of my past actions was a sign of growth, and I learned to forgive myself by discovering why I behaved the way I did (this is where my therapist came in handy) and to correct that type of behavior.

I learned to forgive myself by discovering why I behaved the way I did.

Another thing that helped me was learning to laugh at myself. It might not be for everyone, but I’ve always used humor as a coping mechanism, and I know that I’ve forgiven myself if I can laugh about it. So, talk to a therapist about ways to forgive yourself and be gentle with your healing because you won’t grow if you're constantly beating yourself up about your past. Giving yourself grace can be difficult, but it’s an essential step in the healing process.

Recognize This Is Going To Take Time

Self-growth is difficult. If it weren’t, everyone in the world would be perfect, and we all know that couldn’t be further from the truth. The hardest part about self-growth is often that it takes a lot of time and effort, which can be difficult to accept and often makes it tempting to throw in the towel. It’s important to recognize that this will be a challenging and lengthy process, and you’ll likely have to acknowledge that every day.

It’s also really important to have a support system to help you through this process and hold you accountable. Talking to a therapist is important, but it’s just as important to have friends and family in your corner to help you out. They can cheer you on or call you out when you’re being cruel to yourself or hold you accountable when you want to quit. It’s close to impossible to go through this process alone, so make sure you have a strong support system to help you out.

Closing Thoughts

Self-growth is difficult – there’s no way around it. But take each small step in the right direction as a personal victory and use it as your motivation to keep going.

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