A couple weeks ago I read a book about mastering our Inner Critic. Your inner critic is the voice in your head that is usually spouting off negative thoughts or phrases about you. This inner voice can be very mean and awful . The worst part is that it has been with you so long you don’t even know all the negative thoughts it says to you! This inner critic can hold you back in many areas in your life.
Take the rest of today to listen to all the thoughts inside your head. Do you hear anything along the lines of “That’s so dumb, that idea will never work”, or “Ugh, you’re so ugly and fat”, or “You’re not good enough”? These are only scratching the surface of what could be swimming around in your head. Now if you really pay attention to these thoughts, do they help you to move forward in your life or are they holding you back from achieving what you really want in life?
The more I learn about our inner critic the more I realize that these thoughts, all though really awful, were put there to protect us at some point in our lives. They were meant to protect us from feeling vulnerable, but if we take away our vulnerability, we take away our love for ourselves. If we can’t love ourselves now, we won’t love ourselves when we get the big promotion, when we meet our soulmate, and we definitely won’t love ourselves more when we lose the weight.
Our inner critic is pretty powerful, but love is stronger. Sounds cheesy I know, but try it!! Every time you think a negative thought about yourself quickly replace it with a positive thought. You don’t have to believe the positive thought right away, you just have to fake it till you make it. After a week of practicing this you will start to notice a difference. When you walk by the mirror you will start to see things you like about yourself. When someone compliments you, you will slowly start to believe it. Instead of talking yourself out of accomplishing that great big goal you’ve been wanting to achieve, you will start making a plan to make your dream a reality.