How to silence your inner critic for good
Stop me if you’ve heard this before….
I was with a friend I hadn’t seen for a while, and she’d had her hair cut since I’d seen her last and looked great so I told her so. I actually said something like… ‘I love your hair – you are looking fantastic’. Her immediate response was ‘Oh I had it cut weeks ago … it’s too short. I’m not sure I like it’.
Recently a potential client I was meeting with, was talking about the overwhelm of juggling her career with the pressures of family and feeling like she was failing at everything.
A friend on social media posted about how much she hated her body and that she felt totally unloveable.
Our Inner Critic is that niggling, nagging, negative voice in our heads that love to judge, criticise and demean us. It often shows up when we are feeling vulnerable – we’ve made a mistake, we aren’t sure about our decision, or where we feel exposed or judged. AND worse – it keeps playing out those worst case scenarios over and over and over again in our head.
Psychologically speaking – our Inner Critic is actually trying to keep us safe. It comes from a part of you that wants to feel accepted by others.
But when we let our Inner Critic drive our thoughts and actions – it not only impacts on our self-esteem and self- worth, but holds us back from growth opportunities and creating connections.
How do you know its your Inner Critic talking to you?
The thoughts in your head might sound like:
‘I’m too sensitive / boring / selfish / inconsiderate / unloveable
I’m too tall / short / heavy / thin / unattractive
I’m not smart / funny / outgoing enough
I always say the wrong thing / I shouldn’t have said that stupid thing
I always make mistakes / I’m useless / I’m such an idiot
I’m so lazy, I should have exercised today.
When your Inner Critic gets loud – what can you do about it?
A key way to take action and turn down the volume on our inner critic is to learn how to reframe or change your thoughts.
When our inner critic starts and we don’t know how to manage it – it can impact our self-esteem in a big way. We can end up feeling ashamed and worthless.
When left unchecked, our inner critic can start to undermine all of our achievements. If you feel anxious and believes that you’re hopeless at learning new things, how likely are you to take up that new thing you secretly want to try like salsa dancing or learning a new language.
While our thoughts definitely influence the way we behave, there are many times that our thoughts simply aren’t true.
You can take control back from your inner critic by following these strategies:
1. Acknowledge and understand. When you notice the negative thoughts come up, acknowledge them. Then get curious and try to work out where these thoughts might have originated from
Why do I feel this way?
When have I felt this way before?
How old was I when I first started having this thought?
How do these thoughts affect my behaviour?
2. What would I say to a friend? If one of your friends is complaining that they were useless at their jobs or a terrible parent / partner – what would you tell them? Typically we are so much harder on ourselves than we are with those around us.
3. Breakdown the facts and the feelings. Your brain is incredibly trainable. Your constant repetition (negative affirmations maybe??) might have convinced you that you are ugly, that you are lazy, or that you are insensitive. But is that really true? ALL the time? Maybe there is some truth some of the time for some things, but look at the story you are telling yourself and find the evidence. Practice sorting through facts and your feelings.
Is there another, more positive way you could look at the situation?
4. Start a self-compassion practice. Every time you have a negative or critical thought, replace it with an accepting and compassionate one. Try turning the thought around. For example:
‘I’m useless as a mother’ - turn it to ‘sometimes I struggle as a mother and make mistakes, but I get it right a lot of the time and I love my kids so much’
You could have a collection of encouraging, compassionate beliefs ready for your common negative thoughts so you can go to those as soon as the negative ones start coming up.
5. Make a collection of positive thoughts. When your inner critic comes out, what is it saying? How can you challenge your inner critic?
Write down times in your life that people have said positive things about you.
6. When you start replaying mistakes in your head - turn off the ‘auto-repeat’ by distracting yourself: Remember the time you stuffed up something at work or put your foot in your mouth and then you replayed the mistake over and over and over again? Replaying and analysing doesn’t solve the issue. When you find yourself continually thinking about the situation instead of actively problem solving try distracting yourself. You could try:
Reading a book
Going for a run or a walk
Listening to music
Doing a crossword or sudoku
Giving your pet a hug
7. Remind yourself that its normal to have an inner critic. Everyone has some form of inner critic – it comes from the part of our brain that evolved to keep us safe. If you ever feel like you must be the only person to have these looping critical thoughts, sometimes if can be helpful to at least remind yourself that all humans experience self doubt every now and then.
The key is – your inner critic does not have to control your life!
You can take these steps to shut down that inner critic and start focusing on having a more empowering and supportive inner dialogue.
Remember that there’s a difference between wanting to grow to improve yourself and listening to a harmful inner voice telling you that you aren’t good enough.
Use the tips above to silence your inner critic so you can reach your full potential and if you’d like some extra support - reach out to me and we can shut down that inner critic together.