How To Quiet Your Inner Critic
She’s mean isn’t she? That voice in your head that tells you all the things you’re messing up, what you should be doing, that you are broken and talent-less, that you will be found out and no one will like you. That inner critic voice is an @ss!!
Luckily, there are some quick and simple steps you can take to change her tune and turn her into your inner supporter.
KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS: Before you can go about changing that inner voice, you first must get very clear on it’s talk track. Spend 1-2 days ( I recommend a work/school day & a weekend day) writing down every negative thought you catch yourself having about you. Some of these thoughts will be clear to you and you can probably catch them even before you have them, but others will be sneaky little buggers that you will only start to notice consciously when you spend some time coaxing them to the surface of your awareness. Some things to look for:
Any thought with the words “should” or “shouldn’t”
Any thought that starts with “I feel”
Thoughts of longing about others’ looks/relationships/luck/etc
GROUP & PRIORITIZE: Once you have your list of thoughts, take a deep breath (because reading them will not be fun) and dive into the organization piece of this work. First group all thoughts about the same things together - if you have a bunch of thoughts about your butt or your bedtime, group them together. Once you have your groups, prioritize the 2-3 thoughts that are most prevalent and sh*tty. Most important here is to be honest with yourself about which thoughts bring you down the most. Those are the thoughts you will focus on first
NEUTRALIZE: For your 2-3 most offending thoughts, create neutral or slightly less draining versions of your mean thoughts. For example:
“No one will love me with this butt” might become “Some women with butts like mine do find love”
“If I don’t get this promotion it will prove that I am a failure” might become “I am willing to believe that this promotion doesn’t mean anything about me”
You might notice that these shifts are not to anything outlandishly positive or even that “good” objectively. The idea here is to create a thought that makes you feel LESS bad than the original thought.
BUILD THE LADDER: Next built you ladder of thoughts that will get your to your positive goal thought: You are creating your plan to climb the ladder from negative to positive THROUGH neutral like this:
“No one will love me with this butt”
“Some women with butts like mine do find love”
“My butt is just a human butt”
“My butt has no bearing on my lovability”
“ I am a lovable and normal looking woman”
“I have curvy and womanly attributes”
“Curvy women are sexy and lovable”
“ I am sexy, lovable and confident”
Notice that each thought builds upon the one before it.
CLIMB THE LADDER: Once you build your latter then you can start climbing. Practice thinking, writing, saying, singing the next thought on your ladder until you believe it and feel a little bit better than before. Then move onto the next thought and repeat! Some steps on your ladder will take longer than others. Don’t be discouraged! Commit to the climb and you will be amazed at how much better you are feeling in just a few days time.
PS. For more support, accountability, and community around your goals and claiming your confidence join me in the Claim Your Confidence community! See you there!