🛟 Introducing Ask Sarah Anythingby weekly contributor Sarah Curnole

Have you ever wished you had a magic genie in your pocket who could tell you exactly what to do to make everything ok?

Someone who had the wisdom to say exactly what you needed to hear?

That’s what a coach can offer and that’s what I will provide here in this column for you.

Hi, I’m Sarah Curnoles. I am a life-long Baltimorean with a lot of curiosity about seeing as much of the world as I can. I love living in a vibrant place with lots of culture to absorb- live music, art, theater! And I love helping people through my work as a life coach. If you’ve never worked with a life coach, allow me to show what I do by answering a question recently sent to me. “How do I stop being so hard on myself?”

How Do I Stop Being So Hard on Myself?

To answer this question, let me share a personal story. A couple of years ago, I saw a picture of myself from a recent vacation and was surprised to see how much weight I had gained. I knew clothes were fitting differently, but I guess I was in a bit of denial about where my weight was.

I immediately went into a shame spiral. I started criticizing myself for letting my weight get so out of hand. It felt awful. I figured that being hard on myself would inspire me to get disciplined about working out and eating right.

But it had the opposite effect. I was stuck in a loop of beating myself up. It was like an army sergeant in my head screaming directives at me. And instead of falling in line, I rebelled. It started with mozzarella sticks at happy hour. And it quickly slid to half-effort workouts and eating sweets after most meals.

Then I decided to try an experiment. I picked a tiny task to do that would start building healthier habits. I set my alarm at the time I wanted to get up and then I got up at that time without hitting snooze. I’d go to the mirror and tell myself, “I’m proud of you.”

I did that for a week. And after that, I stacked on the next step. I got dressed for the gym and went and did 10 minutes. I did that for a few days and then 10 minutes became 20 and so on and so on.

Each time I added something new, I made sure to keep my habit of telling myself I’m proud or excited.

We don’t change big things by taking big giant steps. We change by taking small steps consistently.

You’re not going to stop being hard on yourself by eliminating it all at once. That’s an unrealistic expectation that’s going to feel like you’re doing too much and you can’t keep it up.

But if you do one small thing, like look yourself in the eyes in the mirror and smile, it feels so small like you can’t not do it. And as you continue to do one small thing, then the next you create momentum. And momentum fuels itself instead of waiting for motivation to strike (and it never will, I’m sorry to say).

To stop being hard on yourself, add one nice thing into your day. Give yourself a compliment, do what you say you’ll do, have a mini dance party to a favorite song. Do one nice thing every day for a week. And then add another nice thing.

Eventually you will become the person who does nice things for herself/himself. And being hard on yourself will seem like the random once in a while thing. Do you have a question and want some help?

You can email your questions to [email protected]. I will pick one question to answer every week and share here in the Towson Torch. When emailing your question, be concise. Let me know how you want to be credited (for example: do you want your first name, your full name, or anonymous?). When you have the courage to share your question, you create a breakthrough for yourself AND others. A breakthrough shared is a breakthrough multiplied. The moments when I have felt alone, misunderstood, or weird are actually the times people could relate the most.

You’re not alone. Not anymore. You can bring your question here and I got your back.