3 Ways To Silence Your Inner Critic and Empower Yourself Into Action
Your inner critic can take you hostage sometimes, filing your head with negative thoughts, criticisms, and ideas that hold you back from your true potential.
Self-doubt happens to even the most well-intentioned, ambitious women.
Luckily, it is possible to learn how to silence this frustratingly persistent inner critic, no matter how relentless it is.
Although it’s hard to break entirely free from old, unproductive patterns, there are steps you can take to tame the negativity in your head.
And it’s a necessary practice that will support your mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Because chances are, self-doubt and negative self-talk have held you back more than a few times in your life.
When you choose to release some of the fears and failure mindsets that keep you stuck in a state of limbo, you’ll open the door to new opportunities and experiences.
More importantly, you’ll feel more confident than ever about pursuing your wildest dreams and desires.
Read on for three ways to silence your inner critic and stop self-doubt.
1. Remove The Power of Judgment
The inner critic relies on your fear of judgment in order to continue sabotaging your goals.
The less you care about the opinions of others the less likely you will find yourself tangled in the bondage of pleasing others.
There is not one person whose opinion means anything concrete. Power is a socially created construct. No amount of money, accolades, or skill will ever equate to someone’s opinion being more valuable than yours.
On the surface, you probably recognize this is true.
Yet the inner critic might still spend hours in your head arguing the opposite.
Telling you that you’re not good enough, smart enough, or capable enough. Or that others will judge your efforts harshly.
Your own mind is trying to tip the balance of power in someone else’s favor. Why would you do that to yourself?
Consciously, you wouldn’t. But the inner critic operates in our subconscious minds.
When your self-doubt starts acting up, gently remind yourself that you have a choice in whether or not you listen to those defeating thoughts.
You can either give in to the fear of judgment and failure, or believe that you are capable of anything.
2. Explore The Worst Possible Outcome
This practice is a great way to dive headfirst into your limiting beliefs and expose your inner critic.
When you find yourself caught in an anxious self-doubt spiral, consider the following prompt:
“If my limiting beliefs were true, and I did fail, what’s the worst possible outcome?”
Sure, it’s hard to think about. But if you confront the hypothetical what-ifs that hold back you might discover that the scary “what ifs” aren’t so daunting after all.
The inner critic has a sneaky habit of taking small pebbles and casting huge shadows around them so they look like intimidating boulders.
This illusion is a trap – it makes it less likely you’ll challenge your critic.
But, in order to process and understand why certain thoughts leave you in a state of inaction and defeat, sometimes you have to do just that.
The prompt above is a great tool to use anytime you want to hush your inner critic, even if only temporarily.
Consider it exposure therapy of the best kind.
The more you confront your fears the better equipped you are to face them!
3. Give Your Inner Cheerleader a Raise
Give the positive cheerleader inside of you a big high-five.
Despite all of the fear, insecurity, and self-doubt your inner critic shouts at you, this uplifting voice has never stopped trying to push you forward.
If it had, you probably wouldn’t be on Female Mind Unleashed reading about personal growth and pursuing your highest potential.
Your positive self-talk is worth paying more attention to.
In fact, give her a raise and more responsibility!
So, how can you reward your positive thoughts as they occure?
Well, start by making sure she has a seat at the table during every conversation in your head. Give her space to advocate on behalf of your dreams, desires, and the future-you. Empower her to get tough and loud when your negative thoughts try to drown her out.
Stop doubting her and start second- and triple-guessing your inner critic.
Finally, listen to your cheerleader, because she is the truth.
If you treat her well, she’ll become just impossible to ignore.
Leaving Your Inner Critic Behind
As you learn to care less about the fear of judgment and the opinions of others, your inner critic will grow weak.
And as you continue to reinforce positive self-talk, it will become second-nature to listen more closely to your cheerleader instead of your critic.
It will take practice and a commitment to change, but you have the power to choose which thoughts to listen to and nurture and which to silence.
Choose wisely!
You are so worth believing in yourself.
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