Call it “monkey talk,” negative self-talk, or whatever. Unless you are some enlightened master who meditates fourteen hours a day, you have an inner critic who is producing and directing a multitude of self-limiting messages. In that you are the CEO of your life, it might be time to consider a termination or reassignment. Why not fire this Inner Critic?
This inner critic or little voice works hard. A tireless worker, it produces about 50,000 messages a day. These messages are highlighting your doubts, cross-examining your decisions, belittling your abilities, and telling you are not worthy of your dreams. Once upon a time, you probably hired this inner critic to keep you safe and provide you pause before you acted. Once you experienced a scare, setback, or disappointment, you may have even thanked and promoted this inner critic, but now the little devil has gotten completely out of hand. He is beating you down and poisoning your entire consciousness with limiting beliefs, setting you up for disappointment, frustration, and taking you out of alignment with your best authentic self.
This inner critic has become incessant turning into a “waking hypnosis” and it’s time to terminate it. Firings are never fun and seldom easy, but here are a couple tips to help you get rid of the little bugger.
- Monitor your inner voice. Becoming aware is the first step to determine just how good or destructive your inner voice is. You can choose the thoughts that support you, not your inner critic. When you catch your inner critic spouting forth, thank it very much, but explain that you’re not listening today. Ignore it. And you may want to even keep a written record. Try recording some of the inner critic’s outbursts in writing. You might be shocked at how nasty and destructive the critic can be and you’ll build a better case for the firing.
- Don’t take your inner critic personally. Don’t beat yourself up for having brought it aboard. We all have one, and its intentions were originally noble – just trying to protect you. That said, if you decide not to fire it, you can always re-assign it. Your critic may reside in your head, and you are always free to promote your heart or your gut as more trusted advisors for those two will never lie to you.
- Relax for you can’t know everything. The world throws so much at us that it’s impossible to know everything about everything. That’s good news. Rather simply be open to life’s possibilities and be accepting of yourself and others. When you deviate or get off track, silence that inner critic and simply ask “What can I learn or how can I benefit from this?”
In the end, you may be able to avoid firing your inner critic, but you certainly will want to reassign and monitor it.
