I recently read a Facebook post that I felt could have been written by me. It read:

“I am my own biggest critic.

Before anyone else has criticized me, I have already criticized myself.

But for the rest of my life, I am going to be with me, and I don’t want to spend my life with

someone who is always critical.

So, I am going to stop being my own critic.

It’s high time that I accept all the great things about me.”

In all honesty, the first three sentences of this post describe me to a “T.” I wish I could say the same about the last two sentences.

I am my biggest critic. I reflect on things I’ve done and before deciding if anything could have been considered “great” about what I may have done in this life. First, I focus on what didn’t go as planned, ask why, then ask what I could’ve done differently to create a better outcome, but if I accept that something is “great,” I might want to stop there. A saying I used many times with kids is, “Good, Better, Best, Never should you rest, until your good becomes better and your better is your best.”

Later in my coaching career, before allowing players to leave the field, we gathered as a team, and I asked players what we didn’t do as well as we could during the course of the game. After giving them a chance to respond, I gave what I saw that we did that might work better and could be worked on next practice or next game, if we played the day after. After looking at what didn’t go well, I asked what did go well, then gave my thoughts on what went well, and how we could build on that at practice or the next game. I always wanted to leave accentuating the positives, as in many conversations people are most inclined to remember what was said last in the conversation as opposed to the beginning.

In my own self-critic manner, I look at things I’ve tried to do and find it easy to look at what didn’t go according to plan, then look at ways to maybe better it for next time. When I get to what went well, I find it hard to credit myself for something the players actually did. If they performed well, I was just doing my job.

Don’t get me wrong, I realize much of what’s considered “successful” comes with luck, and I’ve been very lucky in my life. In most things I’ve undertaken, that I hoped would be “successful,” I learned early the best way for things to succeed is to surround myself with people smarter than me. Most of my “successes” have been because I’ve done just that.

During my careers in education and athletics (coaching football, baseball, softball, and officiating baseball and softball) I set the bar high for students, players, and most importantly, me. I knew mistakes were probable, and were reality, but the mistakes made became doors that opened up ways to learning from them. Success really doesn’t teach anywhere near as much as what failures teach. You look at what does go according to plan, then build on them to turn the mistakes into future successes.

Setting the bar high is a positive and a negative for me. I try to be the best I can be, and I’m willing to put in the work to get there, but it comes with having to accept the evaluations I give myself, especially when I don’t reach the success I set out to achieve. As the Facebook post read, “Before anyone else has criticized me, I have already criticized myself.”

One thing I’m definitely committed to, is not apologizing to anyone, be they family, friend, or people involved with the same group with which I may be leading or with which I’m associating. I’ve made mistakes along the way while doing my job, leading a group, or trying to help people or groups, and I’m sorry if people thought I hurt them, but I’ll never apologize for doing what I felt was right in my heart.

The late Ricky Nelson, wrote and performed a song shortly before the tragic plane crash that took his life. The title of that song was Garden Party. The refrain of that song was:

“And it’s all right now, yeah

I learned my lesson well

You see, you can’t please everyone

So you got to please yourself.”

That refrain might seem to contradict the idea of self-criticism, but it also validates all the self-evaluation to be the best I can be, and please the greatest critic I should ever face, me. I’m actually happy with myself when I’m nit-picking apart things I’ve done, then trying to make them better, for others and me. So, though I’ll make mistakes at times, I’m happy knowing I’m doing all I can to learn from them, then try to validate the goals I set for myself and those in my charge, and I’ll never apologize for the passion and effort expended which may inadvertently include mistakes.

Food for thought?