The Goldilocks Latte of Self-Awareness

When I decided to become a coach and go solo, I made a plan. I quit my full-time job, took a part-time gig as a barista five minutes from home, and dreamed of flexibility, mental space, and a screen-free way to recharge.

I was juggling my coaching certification, a business program, and life, like a Juggling Bee 🐝😂, but I was excited. Especially about coffee and oat lattes. A latte is a shot of espresso with frothed milk. One of the key elements in making a lovely latte is getting the milk just right. A Goldilocks Latte, if you will.

But I kept failing, because I was over-steaming it. The milk would end up too thick, too frothy, and sometimes I’d have to start over. Mindfulness? Hard when you’re joking with customers in a place buzzing with caffeine-hungry humans, or your brain’s already three steps ahead. Sometimes, the milk would escape the jug entirely.

One day, I told my partner about my over-steaming habit and how I thought it mirrored my life. You see, I tend to feel things to an extreme. Once they’re out, I’m more relaxed, but the impact on people isn’t great. I don’t want to be like that.

Self-awareness, for me, was like over-steaming the milk. I turned up the heat not to understand, but to punish, to make the milk too frothy, too cloudy, so it lost its true flavor. In the same way, I used my self-awareness to dissect myself, not to understand myself. I became a biased detective, collecting evidence that fit the story I already believed. The milk was frothy, cloudy, and unusable. And the worst part? I didn’t even realize I was the one turning up the heat.

Turns out, my latte was onto something. Neuroscience backs this up: our brains are wired for balance. The Goldilocks Effect (or Goldilocks Principle) - first proven in infants by Kidd et al. (2012); shows we naturally focus on what’s "just right" for learning, not too easy or too hard. But when self-awareness turns into self-criticism, it’s like over-steaming the milk: our prefrontal cortex (the brain’s "CEO") gets hijacked by the amygdala’s threat response, and we lose the "just right" zone.

No wonder I felt so exhausted; my brain was chronically stuck in overdrive, treating self-awareness like a threat instead of a tool. 

I’m a glass-half-empty kind of gal. If I’m having a bad day, I’ll say, “OMG, I’ve never been happy.” And I mean as an adult, not a teenager. That’s why I dove into emotional intelligence early on. I wanted to understand my emotions better because - well - I was terrible at it. I still struggle, but that’s why I’m here: learning, growing, and sharing my journey.

It became a running joke with my husband.
“Are you over-steaming the milk again?” he’d ask.
“Yep!” I’d reply. Then we’d laugh and I’d make myself a latte.

This metaphor struck a chord. I started seeing it everywhere: in my life, past and present.

Up until recently, I didn’t talk much about my experience as a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults). Not because it wasn’t important, but because I had built a quiet, stubborn belief: I was a bad CODA. And once you believe something like that, self-awareness becomes very efficient. It starts collecting evidence. I used my self-awareness not to understand, but to prove the story I already believed. Like a very biased detective. The milk was frothy, cloudy, and unusable.

For me, self-awareness plus self-criticism equals self-betrayal. Have you ever experienced betrayal? It cuts deep.

For a long time, I thought I needed more awareness. But the shift didn’t come from more insight. I had plenty of that, that’s my point. It came from a different question: What if this part of me isn’t wrong… just unheard?

Self-awareness isn’t the problem. It’s how we use it. In my case, it became a tool to dissect myself, not understand myself. And when we pair it with self-compassion, it becomes a bridge, not a butcher. I sincerely believe it’s a responsibility we owe to ourselves.

We need both to feel safe, so we can show up more fully and, therefore, more open to others. One without the other is like having a very smart inner critic with terrible bedside manners.

So, how do we balance self-awareness and self-compassion?

I’m still learning this in real time.

Sometimes it looks like catching the tone:
“This isn’t curiosity… this is punishment.”
And then adjusting, just a little.

For example, next time you catch yourself over-steaming the milk of self-awareness, pause and think of someone you love. Imagine it’s them telling you, “I’m a horrible human being because I forgot to water the plants.” See what I mean? Drama queen.

Name the tone:
“Yikes, this is harsh,” or “This is maybe a bit of an exaggeration.”
Then, adjust the heat. Ask yourself:
What would this sound like if I wasn’t trying to fix myself, but simply trying to understand?

If you’re someone who’s very self-aware and also very hard on yourself, you might not need more insight. You might just need a different tone. The same awareness, with a little more space to breathe.

This isn’t just about making a better latte. It’s about showing up in the world as the leader, coach, or human you want to be. When we over-steam our self-awareness, we’re not just distorting our own story—we’re limiting our impact. We’re less available to our teams, our clients, and even ourselves. The Goldilocks Latte isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence. And presence? That’s what makes us whole.

So I’m curious: 

Where in your life are you over-steaming the milk? And what would it look like to adjust the heat? 

Looking forward to reading your comments.

In the mess with you, as we are,
Jess

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More on Goldilocks Effect: 

• Goldilocks Effect in cognition: Kidd, C., Piantadosi, S. T., & Aslin, R. N. (2012). The Goldilocks Effect: Human infants allocate attention to visual sequences that are neither too simple nor too complex. PLOS ONE, 7(5).

• Goldilocks Theory of Cognitive Control: MacDowell, C. J., Tafazoli, S., & Buschman, T. J. (2022). A Goldilocks theory of cognitive control: Balancing precision and efficiency with low-dimensional control states. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 76.