Have you ever felt like your anger was getting the best of you?
If so, don’t worry because we all get angry with ourselves from time to time.
We may feel like we’re not doing enough, or that we should have done better, but it’s important not to dwell on the negative.
The problem with being mad at yourself is that it can cause you to become very self-critical, and this can lead to you not taking care of yourself in ways that are good for your mental health.
Here are 10 reasons why you’re probably mad at yourself, and some tips on how to stop feeling this way.
1) You can’t accept your mistakes
It’s a familiar story and it usually goes like this: lately, you find yourself angry at your own mistakes. You can’t seem to stop feeling frustrated with everything that is going wrong in your life.
The way you feel about yourself has started to change for the worse. Your self-esteem has plummeted, and you just can’t shake this feeling of hopelessness.
We’ve all been there.
When we make mistakes or mess up, we can feel both angry and frustrated with ourselves.
They say that anger is really just fear in disguise—and this is true. When we’re angry at ourselves, it’s usually because we’re afraid of the consequences of our mistakes.
We’re afraid of what other people might think of us, or we’re afraid of failing at something important to us.
The problem with this is that dwelling on your mistakes and being angry with yourself can make you feel like a failure and may prevent you from taking any action at all.
However, being angry with yourself will not help you change your behavior or move forward. In fact, it might just be holding you back from achieving your full potential! And realizing your full potential is vital for your self-esteem which eventually leads to subjective well-being.
So the next time you find yourself feeling self-loathing or angered by what happened today, here are some helpful tips to put the brakes on those negative feelings before they take over…
2) You compare yourself with others
Have you ever felt like everyone else is doing better than you?
This is one of the most common ways that people get mad at themselves—they compare themselves to others.
We may compare our lives to the lives of others, or we may compare our achievements and abilities with those of other people.
In psychology, this tendency is known as “upward comparison” and it’s one of the most damaging biases for our self-esteem. Why?
Because when we’re comparing ourselves to others, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment because there will always be someone who is better at something than you are—and there will always be someone who has a more exciting life than you do.
It’s important to remember that everyone has their own struggles and successes and that no one is perfect.
Keep in mind that even if you aren’t as good at something as someone else, there’s no need to compare your life to someone else’s.
So, try not to get angry with yourself for doing so—instead, remind yourself that everyone is different and it’s okay if your life doesn’t turn out exactly like everyone else’s.
3) You have unrealistic expectations of yourself
It begins with a feeling of being tired. You’re frustrated. You think you could be doing so much better in life if only…
If only you were smarter, prettier, more popular, richer, healthier, happier.
If only everything in your world was in alignment.
Have you ever done something and then felt like it wasn’t good enough?
If so, you may be setting yourself up for failure by having unrealistic expectations of yourself.
Often, you want to make a change for the better but don’t know how to stop being angry with yourself.
For example: if you’re a student and you expect to get straight A’s in all your classes, but then don’t get the grades that you want, you may feel angry at yourself.
We all have this problem. It’s because we’re too hard on ourselves and hold unrealistic expectations about what life should look like. And believe it or not, you need to stop being hard on yourself.
When we are angry at ourselves, it means we have high expectations of ourselves and the anger is our way of pushing back against not meeting these expectations. After all, if we don’t have high expectations for ourselves, then what are we really doing? Being mediocre?
Actually, there’s nothing good about having too high expectations of yourself. Why?
Because it might lead to perfectionism. And even if perfectionism can be great for your self-development, it damages your self-esteem and badly affects your mental health.
So, if you’re angry with yourself, stop comparing yourself to others and stop expecting to be perfect.
Instead of expecting to be perfect, accept that you’re human and that you’ll make mistakes—and then forgive yourself when you do.
4) You take on too much responsibility for other people’s actions
Sometimes, we get angry with ourselves because we think we’re responsible for other people’s actions.
Deep down, you know it’s true.
For example, if your best friend is mad at you for something that happened between the two of you or if your spouse is mad at you for something that happened in your relationship, it can be easy to get angry at yourself because you feel like it’s your fault.
If you feel like you’re responsible for other people’s actions, you’ll feel angry with yourself.
However, the truth is that you are not responsible for other people’s actions. It’s their responsibility to be accountable for their own feelings and behaviors. You can’t control what they do or how they react, so stop taking on the burden of their feelings and behaviors.
5) You’re your own worst critic
Admit it. It’s likely that you have a tendency to be very hard on yourself. It’s like you have a voice in your head that criticizes you constantly.
Be honest, we all do it.
Perhaps you’re your own worst critic, or perhaps you believe that others are judging you more harshly than they actually are.
If either of these is true, try to remember that people, in general, aren’t as harsh as you think they are.
Everyone makes mistakes, and people who care about you will understand if something goes wrong.
We all get angry with ourselves because we listen to a voice inside our heads that tells us we’re not good enough—a voice that can be very critical and even judgmental.
The voice inside your head is called the “Inner Critic,” and it often comes from your parents, teachers, or other authority figures in your life who were mean to you when you were growing up.
Fact: the inner critic can make us feel like we’re not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, etc. Our inner critic can be very mean and judgmental toward us. It’s like the inner critic is the devil on our shoulders, constantly criticizing and judging us—and it makes it hard for us to have self-compassion and self-love.
So yes, if you’re angry with yourself a lot of the time or if you have a voice in your head that criticizes or judges you a lot of the time, it could be because of your inner critic.
6) You’re not used to failing at things (and it sucks)
Let me guess, you’re a perfectionist! And if it’s true, it’s likely that you’re not used to failing at things or making mistakes.
It can be hard to be angry with yourself when you make a mistake or fail at something because it means that you failed and that in turn makes you feel bad about yourself. In fact, when perfectionists fail, they often beat themselves up for failure and become angry with themselves.
Because of this, you might think that the way to avoid being angry with yourself is to avoid failure by trying to be perfect all the time. However, avoiding failure is one of the biggest reasons people get so angry with themselves.
Instead, if you want to stop being angry with yourself for making mistakes or failing at things, then you have to be willing to fail and make mistakes. For this, you have to deal with being a failure.
When you’re willing to fail and make mistakes, it makes it easier to be angry with yourself when you do fail or make a mistake because you know that failing is a part of life—and it’s not the end of the world.
Good news: you can still try to do your best, but as long as you’re willing to accept that sometimes you’re just not going to be able to do your best, then it makes it easier for you to be angry with yourself when things don’t go well.
7) You don’t know your own worth
If you don’t know your own worth and value, then it’s going to be hard for you to be angry with yourself.
If you’re not used to being angry with yourself, then it’s likely that you have a very low opinion of yourself.
You might think that beating yourself up is the only way that you can motivate yourself to do better in life or get things done.
As a result, if you want to stop being so angry with yourself, one thing that can help is knowing your own worth and value.
If you don’t know your own worth and value, then it’s going to be hard for you to accept that you are worth being angry with.
You might think that you’re not worth being angry with because of all the mistakes and failures that you’ve made in the past.
Fair enough, but if you know your own worth and value—and if you know how much things like love, happiness, freedom, etc. are really worth to you—then it will be easier for you to accept that anger is a way of showing yourself that something is important to you and something matters.
It will also be easier for you to accept that anger is a way of telling yourself that something needs to change in your life.
8) You’re not assertive enough
I know the feeling. You might think that being assertive is all about standing up for what you believe in and telling people what you want them to do.
That’s right.
However, if you want to be assertive, then there’s one more thing that you need to do: you need to stand up for yourself.
If you’re not good at standing up for yourself, it can be hard to get angry with yourself, because when you get angry with yourself, it’s often because it feels like someone else is telling you what to do.
Still, if someone else tells you what to do and you’re not good at standing up for yourself, then the only way that you can express your anger about that is by getting angry at yourself.
For example: if a parent tells a child not to drink too much soda because it’s bad for their health and the child doesn’t stand up for themselves and say, “I’m an adult and I can make my own decisions,” then the child might get angry with themselves for not standing up for themselves and listening to their parent.
But this is just one of many examples.
9) You’re deprived of meaningful experiences
- You’re not doing as well as you should be
- You’re not as smart as other people
- You’re not in a relationship
- You don’t have enough money
- You haven’t traveled enough
- You have trouble making friends
Do any of these sound familiar?
If so, chances are high you’re angry at yourself because your daily life isn’t fulfilling enough for you – you lack some experiences that you find meaningful.
You feel like you haven’t accomplished much in life.
You’re nowhere near where you want to be in life.
You’re not living the way you want to live.
And that makes you angry at yourself.
Yes, it’s true!
However, you should understand that all these boundaries are set by yourself. In real life, there’s no need to be smart, or to have a relationship, or to have enough money.
If you want to get rid of your anger at yourself, then you should first think about what would make your life more meaningful for you. And then go out and get it!
10) You lack self-acceptance
It’s not all about anger. Sometimes you can be angry at yourself because of something that happened in the past, but even though a lot of time has passed since then and the situation has nothing to do with the present anymore, you still can’t let go of it.
You keep thinking about it and blaming yourself for what happened in the past. And that makes you angry at yourself, even though nothing is your fault.
Does this sound like you?
For instance: when you were in school, you might have been bullied by someone, and you blame yourself for not standing up for yourself. Or you might have been rejected by someone, and you blame yourself for not being good enough to be liked.
If so, then what makes you angry at yourself is not the situation itself, but your own reaction to it.
Back then, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Once a young woman named Kate, told me that when she was in high school she used to date this guy who wasn’t treating her right and was cheating on her. And every time he did something bad to her, she would get really angry at herself because she kept thinking that if she could only have done something differently, then maybe things would have been different.
But the fact is that nothing she could have done would have changed anything. That guy was a jerk, and he wouldn’t have treated her right even if she were a model.
It’s important to understand that you can’t change the past. And if you keep blaming yourself for something that happened in the past, then it will be hard for you to move on with your life.
So what can you do about it?
In order to stop being angry at yourself about something that happened in the past, first make sure that it’s really not your fault. Oftentimes, we blame ourselves for things that are not our fault.
If you find out that it really was your fault, then you need to forgive yourself. You made a mistake, and it’s normal. Everyone makes mistakes.
And if you find out that it’s not your fault, then you need to stop blaming yourself. That person or situation has nothing to do with the present anymore, and spending time thinking about the past will only make you angry at yourself and depressed.
And then you need to move on with your life. Think about what would make your life more meaningful for you now, and go out and get it!
6 ways to stop anger towards yourself
If you’re mad at yourself, the first thing you need to do is figure out what’s driving your anger. But if you’ve already identified the source of anger, now it’s time to start working on it.
At times, you might feel that you’re the cause of everything bad that happens to you and that the whole world revolves around you. But, there is a way to stop this type of self-anger, and here are some ways to do so.
So let’s take a closer look at 6 tips for helping yourself stop being angry at yourself.
1) Write down what you’re feeling
If you feel a surge of anger, write down what you’re feeling. Why are you angry? What is it that makes you so mad?
Ready?
This small exercise will help you get a better understanding of your feelings, and as a result, the next time you feel and about yourself, you’ll be ready to control your emotions instead of being mad at yourself.
2) Don’t avoid thinking about your anger
Avoiding thinking about your anger and other negative emotions will only make matters worse. If you’re angry at yourself, you need to accept that and face it.
Don’t try to find excuses for why you’re mad at yourself. Don’t try to rationalize your feelings by telling yourself that it’s normal to feel this way or that everyone makes mistakes.
Instead, reflect on your feelings whether they’re good or bad, and embrace them!
Believe it or not, the most effective way to stop anger towards yourself is to tap into your personal power.
You see, we all have an incredible amount of power and potential within us, but most of us never tap into it. Instead of trying to unleash our personal power, we tend to doubt ourselves and our beliefs.
That’s why it’s hard to avoid thinking about your anger.
This is something I learned from the shaman Rudá Iandê. In his excellent free video, Rudá explains why it matters so much to stop searching for external fixes to sort out your life.
His unique perspective helped me realize how to overcome my limiting beliefs, handle my negative emotions, and unleash my personal power.
So, if you’re tired of being angry about yourself and other people around you, I’m sure his teachings will help you achieve the life you want to have.
Here’s a link to the free video again.
3) Talk with someone about how you feel or what’s bothering you
When you’re angry at yourself, it’s hard to talk to yourself. That’s why you need to find someone you can talk with. In fact, that’s what therapy and counseling are all about.
Fact: the whole point of talking with a therapist or a counselor is to talk about your feelings and work through them.
If you don’t have anyone to talk to, then you can talk with a friend or family member. Choose someone who will listen to you without judging you or trying to rationalize your anger.
4) Learn from your mistakes instead of beating yourself up over them
The simple truth is that everyone makes mistakes. The key is to learn from them and not repeat them.
If you’re mad at yourself for making a mistake, try to figure out what the mistake was and why you made it. Then, you can use that information to prevent it from happening again in the future.
5) Look for what is good about you
If you’re always angry at yourself, then it’s time to change that.
Instead of focusing on what’s wrong with you, look for what is good about you. For example: if you’re a student, then focus on your ability to learn and study hard. If you’re a parent, then focus on your caring and loving attitude towards your family.
If you can’t think of anything that is good about yourself, then try to find someone who will tell you what they like about you. The goal here is to concentrate more on the positive instead of the negative side of yourself.
5) Express your rage (but only after you’ve calmed down)
Let’s face it. If you’re mad at yourself, then it’s important that you express your anger to get it out of your system. But, this is not the time to lash out at yourself and blame yourself for everything that has gone wrong in your life.
Instead, try writing a letter to yourself or talking with someone about how you feel. The key here is to express your anger in a constructive way instead of just venting and screaming at yourself.
Believe it or not, if you do this right, then you’ll be able to get rid of your anger towards yourself without feeling guilty about it later on.
Final Thoughts – it’s natural to be angry
So what does all this mean?
No matter how angry you’re at yourself, no matter how much you blame yourself for your mistakes, you must remember that it’s okay to be angry sometimes. Why?
Because you’re human. And you have the right to be angry at anyone, including yourself.
However, you should remember to express your anger in a healthy way and not let it control you.
So give it a go, follow the tips above, and you will not only feel less angry at yourself but more confident and happy as well.
