How to silence your inner critic and boost your self-confidence
Do you often find yourself criticising your own actions? Perhaps you catch yourself thinking or even saying something negative about a mistake you made. For example, while writing, I misspelt a word. When I realised the error, I muttered "Stupid" to myself. It was a harsh, automatic reaction from my inner critic. This inner dialogue often goes unnoticed but can significantly impact our self-esteem and confidence.
Recognising your inner critic
Acknowledging the presence of an inner critic is the first step toward silencing it. This critical voice can erode your self-worth and limit your potential. It's like having a stern teacher constantly judging your every move.
Imagine two scenarios:
Scenario one
A teacher is teaching piano to a schoolboy. The boy plays a piece and makes a mistake. The teacher stops him and tells him he is stupid. He shouldn't make mistakes and, if he does, he will get punished with detention. He's told to play it again until he gets it right.
Scenario two
A teacher is teaching piano to a schoolboy. The boy plays a piece and makes a mistake. The teacher notices he has made a mistake. They wait until the boy finishes, and congratulate the boy on completing the piece. They encourage the boy to try again with support on how to rectify the mistake. They focus on how well the boy tried and what he did right; and how to change the mistake through support and encouragement.
Which teacher will receive better results?
Well, you might say that in scenario one the teacher who invokes fear and punishment will get the boy to achieve success faster. This may be true but at what cost? The boy will associate the piano with fear and punishment rather than enjoy the instrument and music he can create.
In the second scenario, the boy will feel supported and encouraged to try to learn the piano, wanting to repeat his lessons for praise, support, encouragement and accomplishment. The boy may develop a love of music, playing and achieving without pressure. It is much more likely he will continue his piano lessons, through his choice.
Challenging your inner critic
Noticing our own negative inner critic is the beginning. We can learn to challenge the truth of the critic. We can ask the inner critic if its comments are fair, kind and non-judgemental.
For example, in response to my out loud comment, "Stupid". I could ask if this was a helpful comment. The answer is no as it will only make me feel stupid.
Reframing negative thoughts
I could:
- Accept that I have made a mistake (we are all human).
- Praise myself for spotting the mistake.
- Acknowledge it is frustrating (emotion) to make a mistake.
- Ask myself, can I do anything about it?
- Encourage myself to make the correct spelling and support myself by checking it.
There are no residual feelings left after this. In fact, I'm happy I found the mistake so I could rectify it.
If we have a brain which is biased towards negative self-talk talk we will naturally go to negative internal comments. Think of it as if your brain has two routes in response to scenarios.
In route one, after an incident, it is like your brain has the M25 speeding towards the negative thoughts. The road is fast and the brain quickly arrives at the negative thoughts.
In route two, the road is more like an overgrown alleyway with brambles and weeds slowing the brain down towards the positive supportive thoughts. In order to get through to the positive thoughts, you need to actively clear the path and find a way to the positive thoughts. Consciously choosing to find the positives in a scenario and practising going to it. This will gradually increase the speed towards the positive thoughts and decrease the speed towards the negative ones.
Even choosing positive phrases to have as a 'go-to' will help you start to find supportive statements. Phrases like "It's OK", "I'm doing my best", and "I can do it".
Developing positive self-talk
We can learn to develop our positive self-talk. Knowing it is more effective for us to learn through praise encouragement and support actively choosing positive phrases to say to ourselves in the face of mistakes will motivate us to continue to learn and see the value in mistakes. After all, no one sits at the piano and immediately plays a piece.
Through counselling, we can learn when we do criticise ourselves and how that feels. We can also develop phrases that are positive, supportive and encouraging. This may feel alien to us to begin with but, once we see the benefit, we can actively choose to use those to help us overcome hurdles, and support us in our learning to be a fallible human.