Struggling with Self-Imposed Pressure and Expectations

Have you noticed how much time your inner critic spends looking over your shoulder and telling you how you're doing everything wrong? No, I bet you haven't - instead you're just completely mystified about why you've grown to dread your writing or your reading or your teaching or whatever else it is that you used to enjoy but now don't. It's not doing the thing that's the problem here. It's what you're telling yourself about how you're doing the thing.