It's garbage day? I can't believe they made a day dedicated to me!

The only multitasking I'm good at is f#cking up more than one thing at a time.

"You're going to hate yourself in the morning if you stay up late..."

"Nah, I'm going to hate myself in the morning no matter what :D"

If you're the kind of person who makes self-deprecating jokes about yourself...

Stop it.

Because you're probably making other people uncomfortable... and not relaxing them like you think.

If you make ONE self-deprecating joke, once in a LONG while ... then that's usually okay.

It's funny if it's out of character for you. Because everyone knows you're joking, so they can join in and roast you.

But as soon as you do it a second time, too soon, you plant the seed of "is he really joking?" in other people's minds.

You start to become the guy who lacks confidence. The guy who sees himself as inferior in some way.

And while that may be true... maybe you do lack confidence, and maybe this is your way of trying to show that you're okay with that ... it's probably not having the effect you're looking for.

If people start to believe that maybe there's some truth to these self-deprecating jokes, they're going to start responding to you differently.

They'll start to assume that you're masking your real lack of confidence by mocking it... which suggests that you'd rather hide it than talk about it on a real level.

This is the opposite of connection. You're creating a disconnect. A barrier.

They'll start to feel like they can't be completely themselves around you, because you're not being your real self with them.

They'll have to watch what they say to you, instead of saying what they're thinking (because what they're actually thinking is that you're masking your real lack of confidence).

And if we can't say what we think around someone, we feel less comfortable around them.

If you want people to feel more comfortable with you... stop self-deprecating too often.

But how often is too often?

If you find yourself making self-deprecating jokes automatically, out of habit, then you're making them too often.

If you use them as a default response, because you don't know what else to say in a given situation... think back to one of those situations, and use these daily emails to figure out what you could have said instead.

Build the habit of looking backwards, to remove this unconscious crutch from your social repertoire.

A self-deprecating jokes can be hilarious... yes. But they get old very quickly when someone says them to you every day.