How To Silence Your Inner Critic And Boost Your Confidence

Hi,

I'm Caroline Baekeman,

Teacher here on Inside Timer and today I want to share with you how to silence your inner critic to boost your confidence.

My entire life until only a few years ago,

I was the queen of negativity and talked really negatively to myself.

I would say things like,

You're ugly,

You're fat,

You're stupid,

Your teeth are yellow,

You have a huge pimple on your face,

You're not smart enough to figure this out,

You can't have that job,

Your butt is huge.

If you are here today,

Chances are you also talk to yourself pretty badly.

Now let's take a second and think about it.

Would you ever say those things to a child,

Your best friend,

Your own children?

Most likely no.

Yet,

This is how we speak to ourselves way too often.

My coach once told me that beating yourselves up is probably our favorite pastime.

In a way it was reassuring to know I wasn't the only one doing this,

But on the other hand I felt alarmed that it was so widespread.

So how do we get out of this vicious cycle of negative self-talk?

And why do we do it in the first place?

Well there are three main reasons why many of us engage in negative thoughts.

First it's our archaic brain.

As Rickenson says,

Our brain is Teflon for positivity and Velcro for negativity.

Why?

It was a matter of survival.

Imagine you're in the savanna.

Your senses are on high alert and your highly anxious self jumps at every little movement of the grass ready to fight or flight.

This limbic brain is what ensured not only our survival but our success.

Imagine if more of us had been quite relaxed and enjoyed the soft breeze on our cheeks closing our eyes.

Well the human species may be extinct and there certainly wouldn't be more than 7 billions of us on the planet today.

This is what we call our negativity bias.

Even though we have adapted in many ways,

Our basic instincts are still governed by our limbic brain and while it was very useful thousands of years ago,

It makes us miserable today because it constantly scans for danger to keep us safe.

This scanning ranges from ensuring we don't get run over when we cross the street to making us anxious at the slightest unusual event or task in our life.

Our brain ensures that we remember those negative experiences very clearly so we can react quickly when they arise again.

On the other hand,

Positive experiences aren't stored much because they don't represent any danger for our survival.

So in short,

Our limbic brain stores all of the negative experiences and not the positive ones and wants us to stick to what we know because what is familiar is safe,

Therefore keeping us stuck to repeating the same thoughts,

Feelings and action or should I say non-action in many cases.

The second reason is our need to belong.

We owe our success as a species because we formed groups that protected each other and with various tasks to ensure the survival of the group.

Men were hunting,

Women were gatherers and talked to children and cooked,

Specific people kept an eye on at night and so on.

So there is no way we could have made it on our own in the savanna.

So feelings like shame exist to keep us aligned with the group and push us to act in accordance with the general rules of the group.

When we feel ashamed of something,

We are scared to be cast aside and not accepted.

We are afraid of how other people see us.

And without this willingness to be accepted as part of a group,

We would not have survived either.

And the third reason why we think negatively is purely based on our experiences since we were born.

Research has shown that by age 7,

Our personality and the beliefs we have about ourselves are already formed.

Let's call this the map of our inner and outer world.

When we are small,

We draw conclusions from the way our carers respond to our needs.

Put quite simply,

If a baby's needs are consistently ignored or responded to with screams,

An angry face,

Reluctance,

Etc.

,

This baby will develop a negative image of herself and draw conclusions like I'm not worth anyone's time,

I'm annoying and her map of the world will be dominated with anger and negativity and she will draw conclusions about herself from that.

Now please be aware that as a parent,

It's impossible to respond adequately to every single need of our children.

So don't start beating yourself up,

Especially if you tend to tell yourself already that you're a bad mom or you're a bad dad.

But that's another topic.

I'm just taking extremes here just to make the topic clear.

So on the other hand,

If the carers respond adequately and with love most of the time,

The map of the world that this baby will build is one where love,

Appreciation,

Acceptance,

Validation dominate and she will develop a more positive image of herself.

She'll feel competent,

Accepted and validated.

So to summarize,

Our inner critic is due to our limbic brain,

Our need to belong,

Which are both hardwired in us and from our childhood experiences.

From those,

You create your map of your inner world to navigate the other world.

So how do we change that?

First of all,

We need to realize that the identity you built by the time you were seven is no longer accurate.

In other words,

The map you built to navigate your world by the time you were seven no longer is accurate to navigate your other world.

Yet the way we think,

React and behave recreates the reality of our younger self on a daily basis.

So imagine for example,

That you're going to Paris and the map you take with you is one of your great grandfather back in the 1930s.

And you are now using this map as you go to Paris.

The problem is now there are entire suburbs that are built since then and that didn't exist and that are not on that map.

As a result,

You'll never go to these areas because you don't even know they exist.

We do the same with our life.

We navigate with an outdated map and beliefs and then we wonder why we keep hitting the same walls,

Unaware that there are other suburbs to visit and that we can do things more differently.

Second,

I'd like to reframe the concepts of negativity and positivity.

Why?

Because when we say we are negative,

It feels like negativity is part of who we are.

Instead,

I'd like to say that it's unresourceful.

And I also personally don't like the word positivity either because too much positivity leads to toxic positivity where our true feelings aren't validated.

So instead of positivity,

I'll use the word resourceful.

Do you notice how these words feel different in your body when you pronounce them?

Resourceful and unresourceful are external to us and they help us distance ourselves from our thoughts and feelings.

Well,

Negative and positive feel like they are glued to us and they tend to make us feel bad about ourselves because by now there's so much meaning around those words that we can't extract themselves from the meaning that the society has put on these words.

So let's use resourceful and unresourceful.

So the good news is you can update your maps because our brain is plastic and that means that its structure is changed by our thoughts and experiences.

Neurons that fire together wire together.

So when you consistently think unresourceful thoughts,

You are reinforcing unresourceful pathways and ways of thinking.

Whereas when you train yourself to have resourceful thoughts,

Your brain develops those pathways.

This is what we call neuroplasticity.

It's the capacity of the brain to change its structure based on our experiences,

Thoughts and feelings about these experiences.

So a parallel can be your body.

When you go to the gym and do three sets of 10 squats,

You're training your legs to be stronger.

So when you choose to choose your thoughts consciously,

You are training your resourceful thought muscles in your brain.

So to help you achieve this,

I have developed the PARC tool and this acronym stands for pause,

Aware,

Reflect and choose.

Now you may want to take a piece of paper to start working through these and you can pause this to get one.

And let's use it now.

So let's say you need to do something at work that you have never done before and you are inundated with feelings of worthlessness.

You feel incompetent and your inner voice is telling you,

You can do it.

So the first step is P for pause.

It's important to pause the second,

The millisecond you become aware of this thought and this feeling.

Why?

It's so that you don't go on autopilot believing what your mind tells you.

The purpose of this step is to disrupt your usual way of feeling,

Thinking and reacting.

Second stage is A for aware.

Become fully aware of this unresourceful thinking and separate yourself from the thought by giving the voice telling you this a name.

I have a client who named her voice Negative Nancy.

So when she starts having those negative and limiting thoughts,

She pauses and then she says,

Oh,

Here's Negative Nancy again.

Thank you for your advice,

But I'm going to do something different today.

So you could call your voice whatever you wanted.

Negative Nancy works very well for me,

But choose your own voice.

And this is a very important second step because it enables you to see that this thought is not part of who you are.

You become the observer and it allows you to disengage from it and observe it as an external object.

The third step is R for reflection and this step is crucial.

The more often you pause,

The more you become aware of your thought patterns.

Once you become aware of your patterns,

Allow yourself some mental space to reflect.

And here I like to take a few breaths.

We can do it together as a short breathing exercise.

You can do it anywhere and I find it very effective for shifting my energy and my mindset.

So take a comfortable seat where your spine is long,

Feet are flat in the floor,

Or you could be standing.

Now you'll take an in-breath to the count of four,

Hold for four and release for six.

I'll guide you through the first two rounds and then you'll do two more on your own.

Inhale,

One,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Hold,

One,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Exhale six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Inhale one,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Pause one,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Exhale six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Do two more on your own.

And before we continue,

Just notice if your energy,

Your mindset shifted.

That's the purpose.

And then we continue.

Ask yourself the question,

Is this really my voice?

Have I ever heard someone else say those words to me?

If not my own voice,

Then whose voice is it?

Most of the time,

These unresourceful words are not ours.

They were applied to us when we were too young to be able to reject these inaccurate comments.

As young children,

We simply internalize everything that is said to us or about us.

Because when we're young,

We always think that we are at fault and that adults are right.

Now depending on what comes up,

This stage can be difficult because emotions can come up.

And it may be better to do it with a friend or someone you trust,

Possibly a coach.

And also,

Maybe nothing is going to come up.

But that's OK.

It's worth asking yourself the question.

And then the last step is C for choose.

What is a more resourceful way to think and act?

Now you've established that the inner voice isn't yours,

Even if you haven't found whose voice it is.

And that definitely what it says isn't true.

It's based on a map that is outdated.

Now comes the time to choose differently.

You could say,

Well,

I don't know how to do this particular task,

But I can learn.

Let me find the resources I need.

Either ask someone,

Find YouTube videos,

Get some training.

The most important part here is that you don't get stuck in the I can't do this self-talk,

Which is unresourceful.

But start thinking into more resourceful ways.

Obviously,

Choose to think this new resourceful way.

At the beginning,

This can require you to sit down and write it down,

Journal it.

And it's actually a great way to go about it.

But when you become more comfortable with it,

Which happens in a matter of days,

The whole process takes only a couple of seconds.

And you can apply it in your everyday life easily.

The more you practice it,

The easier it becomes.

And eventually,

This way of thinking becomes second nature.

I'm not saying that your unresourceful self-talk will disappear forever.

But Negative Nancy,

Or whatever name you gave your inner voice,

Will speak less often and won't be as loud.

Sometimes she might even make you laugh with all her negativity or should I say,

Unresourceful thinking.

But for sure,

She will no longer keep you stuck.

So from today,

I am asking you to stop beating yourself up for all the things you are not.

Instead,

Pause,

Observe these thoughts with curiosity,

Self-compassion.

When you observe your thoughts,

You are changing your relationship with these thoughts.

When you give a name to that inner voice instead of believing it,

And treat yourself with self-compassion,

You are changing your relationship with yourself.

Both of these need to happen in order to raise your self-confidence.

And it takes repetition,

Time and practice.

Namaste.