How to Stop Your Inner Critic

Here’s a fabulous blog from Yvonne Dam, Founder and CEO of Amaze Yourself Coaching. This is an important blog, as it is sometimes our inner critic that sabotages our chances for success!

Take a look and learn!

Thanks Yvonne.

As much as I am an optimist and can always see the good in others – I do struggle with seeing that in myself. It’s like I have this inner voice, this inner critic that whispers things in my ear, that I start to believe more and more.

I am judging myself the whole time

And I don’t like it, yet I can’t seem to stop it. Sometimes I am not even aware of it, but I might be having more negative self-talk than I should.

Do you recognize this? Most likely you are.

Because as human we all have an inner voice, a critic that’s trying to keep you safe. So they’ll tell you “You’re not good enough”, or “That will never work”, so you hear it from yourself first before the ‘outside world’ can reject you. Painful, yet it makes sense.

We all have 60.000 thoughts on average during a day, 90% of these are repetitive. So if you’re stuck in a negative self talk loop, it doesn’t get better.

It’s stopping you from reaching your next level of success

Now how do you stop your inner critic? You can’t. As human we all have an inner critic, to keep us safe. But we can deal with it, here’s how.

  1. Develop an awareness of your thoughts

95% of what we think is unconscious, meaning we do things on autopilot ‘without even thinking about it’. 5% of our thoughts are conscious – and that’s what we have to work with. You need to actively notice what you’re thinking in order to change your train of thoughts.

Acknowledge your thoughts. Don’t ignore them or pretend they’re not there. That will not change them. And after all, they’re trying to keep you safe.

  • Actively think something else

Now here comes the hard part. You need to tell yourself a different story. You need to get back in control, and become the CEO of your life and your thoughts. You can do this in different ways:

Does this hold in a court of law?

When you just told yourself “This is never going to work” does this hold in a court of law? Or could someone prove otherwise? Is there evidence available that someone managed to do this? If so, tell yourself the opposite – as you just found proof.

Have a counter voice claim the opposite

Next to the critic, introduce your raving fan. The voice of a friend, or family member that loves you and is always cheering you on. Let the inner critic be talked back to by your biggest fan, and feel better.

What would you tell a friend?

Is that what you would say to your best friend? Would you say it out loud?

 If not, why are you saying it to yourself? Replace the inner critic statement with the advice you’d give your best friend.

Tell yourself a different story

Literally. You just told yourself it can’t happen? Go on a ramble and tell yourself that it will happen, how it will make you feel, how excited you are that it’s going to happen. Just start positively reinforcing, what you want to happen. Even better when you say it out loud.

This may sound odd, or at least it did to me, until I started playing with it. Walking the dog, I would record my own voice speaking to me how something I wanted was already a reality, how I made it work – and above all how amazing this would fell. It’s an instant pick me up and feeling those feelings ahead of time, a great experience.

Don’t let your inner critic run the show, they’ll ruin it!

If you’re feeling you’re not making the level of progression you had envisioned, it’s very likely that your inner critic is in control. Actively take steps to change this, and your transformation will start to unfold.

Be the CEO of your life, work less, get more.