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It's one of the things I'm very good at. If it was an Olympic sport I'd be on the podium at 2012...! But it's not helping... Confidence, especially at work, has always been an issue for me and my unenviable ability to give myself a kicking when things don't go right is making it worse and I think it's the main thing which is stopping me progressing in my career.
After getting done over by my boss in my last job and unceremoniously forced to resign, I'm pretty vulnerable to it at the moment...
There's lots of things that do make me feel confident so I do them as often as I can, biking, running, yoga, swimming and I always feel better afterwards. But they're outside of work.
After the grief I've given myself this weekend over my self-perceived lack of career success makes me feel like enough is enough and I want to do something about it.
I've done CBT in the past and helped enormously and am tempted to go back to it.
Any other suggestions/experiences?
Part of the CBT process will be trying to talk through your situation in a rational way. I was told to look at my problems as though they were a friend's and ask what rational advice I would give, based on the facts. Look at the actual evidence on the outside for your feelings. Can you give an example of something you've been hyper-critical about? (No problem if you don't want to). Pay attention to the constructive things other people say, and don't be too quick to write them off as just sugar-coating, or "not understanding". Usually, if other people think you're doing well, you actually are.
It can be a struggle to remember to do this, but if you get used to the idea, it can turn into a habitual "hook" which catches you before you slide down the usual spiral
I've got a couple of mates who are NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) practitioners who would say that their art could answer all your problems. I'm a sceptic, so I'm not sure it could, but it might be worth a shot.
I know how you feel, for what it's worth. A PITA boss in my previous job effectively forced my resignation, but after a couple of weeks of self-pity and a week of searching I found a much better (if temp contracted) job. Now getting my mojo back, bit-by-bit. The wee nagging negative voices are still there, but they are gradually going quieter in the face of my sheer awesomeness 😀
I wonder, would that CBT involve not wasting time posting on internet forums during office hours?
If so, not much use to me then..
You can be a confident, self-critical person. A powerful combination, in fact. How can you be truly confident in your abilities if you haven't carefully scrutinised them? Passed them over the whetstone a few times. So don't worry about putting yourself under the microscope to a degree.
So I'd say that you don't want it to go away, at all, you just need to bring things back into some form of balance as it sounds like things are way out of whack.
Hard to give advice without knowing more how you're feeling - it is a concrete problem like your work isn't at the level you (and others) want it to be, or a more political one in that you're not getting ahead despite your work being good?