How to not be so hard on myself

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I'm a competitive person, but sometimes my competitiveness can get me all uptight and mess me up a little bit.

My parents have encouraged me since I was very little to be gentle with myself and now I am starting to believe them, however when it come to a quiz, test, exam, national or world championship RC car race, I go into "beast mode" (however i am much better at controlling my emotions today than i was 15-10-5 years ago). I focus on getting that good grade or winning that big race or doing my job the best way possible in not mess up, when I do mess up it can make feel real bad and I dwell on it for quite awhile. I told myself at 26 years old that i would be more kinder to myself, but when it comes to school, racing or a job, I am giving it a 100%,and when I don't do well it can kinda screw me up.

I'm just trying to figure out how to not be so hard on myself but also maintaining my competitiveness. I know there will be somethings in life that I will never be but I don't care because there are things i could for sure accomplish if I work my tail off for it, and do it right. But while doing that I have to be patent with my self, but the good question is do good things come to those who wait or work or is it a little bit off both.

I am not very competitive at all, and I also am far too hard on myself....not sure how not to be though. That is the hard part I guess.

I think to some extent, it comes with the territory. If you are competitive and you have high expectations for yourself, there will be times when you will have to be critical of yourself. But it's definitely a problem when you run yourself down without a realistic assessment of your strengths and weaknesses. Maybe that's the key to maintaining your level of accomplishment without driving yourself crazy; when you meet with failure, be very honest about BOTH where you did poorly and where you did well. A balanced assessment can help you improve yourself whereas attacking yourself will only leave you feeling like a failure.

I find keeping a journal where I write an analysis of where a project went well and where it went poorly can be helpful in improving future work and it reminds me that I was successful in some areas of the work.

Very good points folks. I appreciate it.

I guess what I really have to do is learn when to floor down on the accelerator and when to pull back on the reins. Some times it's good to have anxiety because it keeps you active but it can really screw you up if you don't control. If I don't do well sometimes on something I have to think about what went wrong, analyze it and just shrug it off. Life is too short to dwell on things all the time.