How to Silence Your Inner Critic

Your inner dialogue can improve your success rate or prevent you from achieving your desired outcome. According to the ancient philosopher Aristotle, “A thought is a conversation with yourself.” Based on this premise, we have two voices in our head. There’s the voice that is nurturing and uplifting, and then there’s the voice that’s critical and discouraging. There’s the voice empowering and guiding us toward possibilities, and there’s the voice that weighs us down and tells us we can’t and aren’t capable of growing into who we ought to become. Your conversations with yourself can either be a stepping stone to get you to where you want to go or a stumbling block that impedes your progress. So, do you want to know how to silence your inner critic and improve your results? Here are three things you can do to do just that.

Set aside time to think about your thinking

Setting aside time daily to think about your thinking will help identify your default thoughts and feelings, especially when you experience stress. Identify the content and tone of your internal monologue. Research suggests that being constantly critical of yourself can shut down the learning centers of the brain, which will then rob you of the ability to grow and reach your highest potential. In other words, you cannot move your life in a forward motion if your critical, judgemental voice is speaking so loud constantly putting you down, scolding you for not being good enough and keeps pointing out your mistakes. Hence, regularly checking in with yourself is an excellent way to know what’s happening in your inner world.

Decide if your inner thoughts are serving you well

An essential step towards lasting change is gaining awareness of your inner world. Hence, bringing your critical thoughts to your conscious awareness is necessary. Here’s why: we cannot change what we’re unaware of. Consequently, ask yourself if my inner thoughts are empowering me or not. If not, give your disempowering and inner-critical voice a name. Whenever you hear that inner-critical voice, think about it as the character you named earlier. When that character/person goes critical or negative, tell them to shut up and use empowering statements to counteract the critical voice. This process will help you recondition your subconscious mind to align with your desired outcome in life. Also, your inner critic does not motivate you. It generates feelings of inferiority and shame and can negatively impact your health and well-being. Therefore, identifying whether your inner thoughts serve you well with the intent of changing them is a game-changing process that helps you achieve your goals.

Practice a daily habit of being grateful

According to research, gratitude is associated with better physical and psychological health, increased happiness, and more satisfying life. Consequently, practicing a daily habit of being grateful can help silence your inner critic and improve your results. Therefore, use a gratitude journal to record and reflect on the wins you are experiencing in your life each day. Each day, when you write down one thing about yourself that you’re grateful for, you’re simply taking the time to acknowledge the success in your life. You also acknowledge that you have value and worth and can be more, do more, and achieve more. Also, this process will help to silence your internal critic. When you learn how to disarm self-criticism, you automatically offset its adverse effects on your personal and professional life. You will then be able to break free from limiting beliefs, reach your highest potential, and achieve your ambitious goals faster.