Do you find yourself hushing your inner critic on a regular basis despite wanting to accomplish great things?
The conversations you have with yourself day-to-day can either lift you up or bring you down. If you have a particularly harsh inner critic, that means you battle daily with negative thoughts and self-deprecating opinions. This can prevent you from living a fulfilling life, accomplishing your goals, and feeling content with where you’re at.
Most of the time, it isn’t others who bring us down, but ourselves, and we may not even realize it. An inner critic refers to the inner voice that judges, attacks, or condemns you even if it’s not justified. Most of the time, it isn’t. A person with an active inner critic can easily feel overwhelmed, stressed, and depressed while their self-esteem takes a major hit.
If you have an inner critic you want to silence so you can live a meaningful life without judgment, here are 3 tips to get started.
Develop Awareness
Do you realize when your inner critic comes out to judge? If you fail to catch it as it happens, it’ll prove difficult to stop these thoughts in their tracks. The first step to overcoming any situation is practicing awareness towards it so you can recognize it and handle it as it comes.
Do you notice your judgments as they happen? Most people don’t, which makes it easy to continue the harmful habit before you have the chance to stop it.
When these thoughts creep in, the first step is to acknowledge them and how they make you feel. Don’t worry about understanding them or trying to decipher why they popped into your head. Let them come and then just as easily let them go. Accepting them means you don’t judge yourself for having these thoughts. Instead, you acknowledge them so you can move on.
When you understand how you judge yourself, you can then dig deeper into why. Pay attention to what you tell yourself and ask yourself if you’d say the same to a friend. You most likely wouldn’t, so why would you do that to yourself?
Practice Positive Affirmations
You’re used to circulating negative thoughts regularly, so it doesn’t occur to you that you’re self-sabotaging and creating a vicious cycle. Like anything, you need consistent practice for positive thoughts to set in and stick. You can do this by saying positive affirmations.
Positive affirmations are things you say to yourself to boost your confidence, strengthen your sense of self, validate your emotions, and improve your wellbeing. They’re what you say to yourself to reaffirm your positive feelings toward yourself so you feel better and build self-esteem.
Your inner critic thrives when you lack self-love, which is why positive affirmations are so useful. They’re daily reminders of what you’re capable of accomplishing, from acing a test to running an online business.
Your positive affirmations might sound like:
- I have endless talent that I can use to benefit myself and others.
- My heart is open and I am full of compassion.
- Good things come to me with ease.
- I have many successful relationships in my life that fill me with gratitude, love, and inspiration.
- I let go of and forgive those who have hurt me in the past.
Reframe Your Negative Thoughts
Those who struggle with a critic inside their head take a negative thought and roll with it. But to overcome this habit, you need to challenge these thoughts and completely reframe them.
Reframing a negative mindset takes consistent practice and can’t be achieved overnight. But this doesn’t mean you won’t eventually get to a point where you’re able to control your negative patterns and start to see the positive side instead. You might doubt your ability to create an ebook or cook a five-star meal, but the possibility starts with your thoughts.
To reframe your negative mindset, dig deeper into why you’re so hard on yourself when you’re likely not that way with others. What makes you criticize yourself so harshly while giving others the benefit of the doubt? Why do you extend compassion to others but stop when it comes to yourself?
When you understand why you think the way you do, it becomes easier to change your current patterns. Only then can you challenge your thoughts and prevent them from letting you live a fulfilling, successful life.
Your Turn
If you struggle with an inner critic living inside your head, you’re not the only one. Although it takes time and consistency, anyone can learn to silence their inner critic and create healthier habits for their mental health. How will you let go of your self-criticisms and judgments?