Ep 134 The Hidden Energy Leak No One Talks About: Self-Judgment

You know that voice in your head that says, “You should be doing more,” or “You’ll never stick with it”?
Yeah, that one.

This week, I’m diving into one of the sneakiest energy drains of all: self-judgment.

It might not seem like a big deal, but those subtle “not enough” thoughts take a real toll on your mental and emotional energy. They keep you in a loop of guilt, comparison, and frustration — instead of helping you move forward.

In this episode, I share:
 ✨ What I’ve been noticing about my own energy leaks lately (and how mental clutter plays a part)
 ✨ How self-judgment quietly drains your energy and motivation
 ✨ Why being hard on yourself doesn’t create change — it keeps you stuck
 ✨ Simple ways to respond differently to that inner critic so you can reclaim your energy and focus

If you’ve been feeling tired, stuck, or just over it — this one’s for you.

Mentioned in this episode:

• My Freedom Project (monthly experiment in exploring what creates more happiness, energy, and aliveness)
• Practical ways to shift from self-judgment to self-compassion

Tune in and learn how to seal up one of the biggest energy leaks of all — so you can feel more free, focused, and alive. 

--- LINKS: ---

Download the free e-book, How to Create a Life You Love

Take the FREE Habit Hangups Quiz

Read about this topic on my blog HERE

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Transcript

0:51

Hello friends and welcome back to Real, Brave and Unstoppable. Thank you for being here with me today. Look at me. I've got another episode for you, and it's only been a couple weeks. What is going on here? Well, I really am having fun with my project, the one I mentioned to you all last time, and in case you didn't catch the last episode, today marks one week, well one week and a day of my Freedom and Aliveness project. This month's focus is energy and I'm focusing on noticing what fuels energy, what drains it, and also how I can cultivate more of it. So, as I have started dipping my toe into this fun project, I've noticed physically my energy has been pretty good, but I've been feeling kind of mentally drained. So I was not sure why that was like, why do I feel this way? I am really focusing on trying to feel more energetic. But what I discovered was a few like energy leaks, we'll call them, that were zapping my sense of happiness and freedom and aliveness. And when we notice these like energy leaks we wanna find ways to plug them. That's important because like I said, energy is everything. If too many things are sucking my energy, I won't have enough of it to pursue things that are important to me. Energy is that foundational piece. So in today's episode, I'm gonna share a little bit about how the project is going. Like what's working, what's not working, in my quest to improve energy and also to bring some freedom and a sense of aliveness into these, you know, areas of my life. I'll also share what I learned about my energy leaks. I think it will be surprising. I also invite you to get in tune with your own energy leaks. So in my last episode, I shared a little bit about what I'd be focusing on this month related to the energy area of life. Those things are eating better, moving my body, hydration, sleep, really going to bed earlier, self-care and clutter. Both physical and mental clutter. So a little bit about how this is going. August was a busy month for me. I took two trips, one to Spain and Portugal. That was a solo trip that I had a lot of fun with. And then my kids and I visited Seattle for a week. And as you probably know, vacations tend to pull us out of our routine. And, sometimes it's hard to find our way back. And then at the very tail end of August, beginning of September. I got really sick. I had sepsis. I was in the hospital for almost four days, and recovery has been harder than I thought. I was just very zapped of energy. I lost a lot of muscle tone from not maintaining my strength training routine. But since starting my project, since really the middle of September, I've been able to get back on track nutrition wise. So protein intake is something that I've really been focusing on for a little while now, but after my crazy August, beginning of September, I've managed to get back on track with that. And I'm doing fairly well with hydrating and staying present while eating food. Those are some things I was, I was gonna pay attention to this month. And I definitely notice when these things are not in place. I definitely notice it. With protein... I can't even tell you how big of a difference that makes you guys. But I definitely notice when these things are not in place like I want them to be. Now that they're back on track, you know, I feel more awake, usually, my body's not as stiff and I'm actually also a lot more able to determine if I'm really hungry or not. So I'm not mindlessly, snacking as much. Wins all around, right. I've also been walking my dog more, which has like really increased my step count and just that, non-planned exercise sort of thing. It's more of a relaxing movement without the intention of working out, which I think is a nice mental break. I really enjoy working out for, you know, a really hard workout, but it's also really nice just to not care about that. And my 7-year-old crazy dog... I'm trying to teach her how to walk on a loose leash after seven years. So we do lots of walking. She's kind of a slow learner. She's got deeply ingrained habits. I don't know if this gives me more energy or not. I am already really consistent with working out five days a week, but just knowing that I move my body instead of sitting around is just kind of mentally it feels kind of good. And this also applies to being back on track workout wise, like just, I, you know, I notice when I don't workout I feel a lot more sluggish and I am also kind of judgmental of myself when I don't get a workout in, which isn't necessarily helpful. But, it is actually pretty draining, in and of itself. But being consistent just feels good. I've also been doing better at going to bed a little earlier. This is helping me wake up feeling more refreshed in the morning. I wake up at 5:30 in the morning, so, you know, I, I gotta, gotta get that sleep in. But one thing I've noticed is that while my physical energy feels pretty good, so far, I've been, like I mentioned, I've been feeling kind of mentally depleted. And when I noticed this, I had a little bit of a like sinking feeling like, oh, like what's going on? Like, what am I doing wrong? So I did some reflecting to find the culprit, and I was really surprised to notice one energy leak that I hadn't anticipated. Mental clutter. People who know me well know that I tend to dive into a project completely headfirst and all of you that know me well, you're totally laughing right now at this. I know. I tend to just dive in headfirst into the deep end, and I, I take in all kinds of information. I set these grand expectations for myself, and then, you know, honestly, I make the project infinitely more complicated than it actually needs to be. And this time with this, I found myself doing the same thing again. It's what I do. What I started noticing is that I was feeling more physical energy, but mentally, like I said, I felt depleted and I, I was actually feeling pretty overwhelmed because I decided to jump in and track all these things and pay attention to all these different things that related to better energy. And on top of that, to be completely honest, I was feeling this pressure, it was self-inflicted, about showing up here to talk about the project. I noticed I was doing a lot of thinking about doing it right, quote unquote, or even worrying a little bit about like what you all think of me sharing this project. But my big aha moment was when I realized that beneath the surface, the real energy leak wasn't too many to-dos. It was actually the self-judgment about not being able to keep up, organize everything in my head, and also kind of not being enough or doing it right. So let's talk about how self-judgment drains energy. Self-judgment is sneaky, friends, it's common to have judgmental thoughts about ourselves without realizing we have them. The thing is though, judgmental thoughts create feelings like inadequacy, fear, worry, anxiety, and I don't know about you, but while there isn't anything wrong with having these emotions. I don't find them very motivating or inspiring. Self-judgment is exhausting and it really drains our energy because it keeps our minds spinning and stuck in criticism and comparison. We burn mental energy and we're not solving anything at all. When we're stuck here, we can have even more judgment just about being stuck. So this becomes the cycle that's really hard to get out of. self-judgment also creates tension in the body. You know, when we have feelings like fear or worry or inadequacy, anxiety, like that creates tension, which is, that's part of our fight or flight response. And when our body is full of that tension, we just don't function as efficiently, and that tension actually also depletes our physical energy. These lovely self judgmental thoughts also disconnect us from the present moment and the things that really matter to us instead of really being in the moment we're busy evaluating what's wrong or what we should be doing differently. Here's an example. When I kicked off this project, I did the usual gung-ho Kortney thing and dove right in. I created this special tracker in this new app that I've been using called Notion for anyone who knows what it is. I completely love notion. This is something that is totally outta scope for this podcast episode, but it is very nice, very cool. And might actually also be a project where, or a thing where I kind of dove in off the deep end now that I'm, I'm just noticing this in real time here, but, I created this tracker in there and I added all these things to track. So after a couple days of this, I noticed that my physical energy levels were pretty good, but like I said, I felt a little mentally tired and I really wasn't sure about the disconnect there. So, I mean, I just thought like, you know, if I have more physical energy, that's gonna set me up to be mentally more clear. So I reflected on this by doing what I always like to do when I notice I'm feeling kind of stuck. I do a brain clean out. I don't know if I really talked about brain clean outs before here, but, but a brain clean out is kind of like when you carve a pumpkin and you scoop out all the guts. Except your brain is the pumpkin and your thoughts are the guts. So you're just scooping all of them out. You're putting pen to paper and you're listing off all the stuff there. To do items, but also thoughts. So literally whatever's spewing out of there, you just write it down. What are you worried about? What are you afraid of? What judgements are coming up about yourself or other people like you? Just get it all out. So when I did my brain dump, I looked at what I had written and here are some examples. I'm doing it again. I've made this too complicated. Ugh, when will I ever learn how to just do things the simple way? How am I ever gonna follow through? I'll probably end up just letting this fade away. Like everything else, I dive into this hard. Third day in a row. I didn't drink enough water. Damn, I suck at this. I don't know what to write on my blog. What if people don't think this project is interesting? What if I look stupid? So try those thoughts on for yourself. Not super motivating, right? Nope. So it was here during my brain clean out that I realized a lot of this drained energy feeling was coming from being judgemental of how I was showing up to this project. So let's talk about sealing this lovely self-judgment leak. I've been working on it and I wanted to share some things that I think are helpful. First, mindfulness of thoughts. This is so important. When I notice judgmental thoughts come up, I'm really taking an effort to pause and name it, and that looks like this."I notice I'm judging myself a lot here", so simply noticing and naming our feelings and thoughts is really powerful because it just helps us create a little distance from those things. These are just thoughts I'm having, not who I actually am. This is what's crossing my mind right now. Curiosity is also a great tool. Ask yourself, what's really going on here? What do I need right now? Sometimes when we see like this misguided logic that our brain is using to create its thoughts, it's easier to let go of those thoughts or shift them to more helpful ones. Reframing thoughts is also incredibly powerful. In my case, I had to look closely at the expectations I had for myself and reframe them as they really were a bit unrealistic. So I'm reminding myself that this project is an experiment that I'm participating in on the fly. I started it for myself. Not to publicize it, so I'm doing it live in real time. This is not a performance I'm hoping to get applause for. Besides, it's important for me to project that to you. I help people with this kind of stuff, but I'm far from perfect and I definitely do not have it all figured out. Just like every other human on the planet. I mentioned the brain clean out. I like to mentally declutter my brain and decide what truly matters right now. So I choose being between reacting to judgmental thoughts or following the path towards what's really important. So if I had chosen the path my thoughts wanted me to take, I might have just scrapped the project because it feels a little edgy to me to show up here to, to tell you all about it. But it's important for me to do this work for myself as well as to share it with you because it is important work. we all really deserve to live lives that feel free and meaningful. We all deserve to feel like we are living our life, not letting it live us. Finally, it's important to lean into self-compassion when we notice self-judgment. Not really helpful to stay stuck in thoughts that are focused on how we're not being or doing enough. But what is helpful is to swap out those thoughts with more compassionate ones so you know you'll feel better. And when we feel better, we take very different action than we when we feel crappy. Plus research shows that being self-compassionate is way more effective when it comes to motivation and productivity than being self-deprecating. Also too, just offering that, you know, think about choosing gentleness over, gritting it out. There's a time for gritting it out, but sometimes conserving energy means letting go of the push to do more. In my case, I let go of some of the things that I was like focusing on and tracking. I simplified and it feels really good. So those are some things that I have found helpful in sealing this energy leak of self-judgment, and I'm already feeling less drained. I'm not saying completely, but I'm feeling a lot less drained. And to also share a couple of other things I noticed that have been really helping, energy wise, like mental energy wise are two things that I think might be quick, easy, helpful things. The first one is following the one minute rule. I got this from the, the Happiness Project book that I mentioned in my last episode. The one minute rule is basically if a task will take one minute or less, just do it now. Don't wait. It's so simple, But for me, it's been a huge, huge game changer. I tend to be somebody who's like, I don't wanna do that now. I'll do it later. And then things get cluttered and like there's dishes on the counter. It just, yeah. Or like my clothes. I'm like, oh, I'll hang that up later. And just doing it now has been. Oh my gosh. It, it feels good first of all. I'm so proud of myself. But also just too, it is helping with the clutter, physical clutter. The other thing is watching the"shoulds" when, and what I mean by that is if you notice yourself saying things like. I should really be drinking more water, or I shouldn't have drank last night... but what I've found, what I've been doing is substituting or saying it differently. So instead of the should, I've been saying, I feel better when I drink more water. Or I feel better when I don't drink during the week. That just feels more empowering, like I am highlighting that I have a choice and I'm making a choice. Remember thoughts create feelings and feelings can influence our behavior. So if I feel empowered, I'm gonna take actions that align with those feelings of empowerment. If I feel defeated and critical of myself, I will take actions that align with feeling those feelings. Very different. So friends, the big takeaway here is that if you're in the market for more energy, which I mean, aren't we all remember, it isn't just about physical energy and energy leaks aren't just about physical habits. They're often about how we treat ourselves. So I invite you to reflect on your own experience with self-judgment. Where might self-judgment be quietly draining your energy? I'd love to hear, so leave me a comment or drop me an email. You can always go to my website and send me a message, too. If you want more or you know, you wanna follow along with this fun project that I'm doing, you can do that by connecting with me on Instagram or Facebook. I'll put those links in the show notes. You can follow along here, or you can also join my email community if you're not already a member. There are three ways to do that. One, you can go to my website and go to the contact link and send me a message, you can just go to my website, kortneyrivard.com and take the free habit hangups quiz. That will just pop up right away for you to click on it and take that. Or you can also download the free ebook called How to Create a Life you love at kortneyrivard.com slash lovelife. Any of those three things will get you added to my email community. So, all right, well go do one of those things. Connect with me. Reach out, send me your comments, let me know how things are going. If you enjoyed this episode, leave me a rating and a review. I always appreciate that so much. And thanks for being here with me today. I'll see you next time.