If someone asked you how often you had negative thoughts about yourself, your answer would probably vastly underestimate reality. All of us have an inner critical voice which influences how we feel about ourselves by almost constantly spewing out negative thoughts, beliefs and attitudes. Every time you’ve berated yourself for getting something wrong, have felt overwhelmed or stressed, or made a decision that is not in your best interests, it’s likely that your inner critical voice is to blame.
If we had a colleague who was continually telling us that we were useless, annoying, stupid, worthless… Well most of us would hopefully report them to HR rather than punching them, but it’s likely that we would take some kind of action! However, when these comments come from within, because our critical voice has been there all our lives we can mistake these negative comments for ‘facts’.
The inner critical voice comes from experiences in childhood, including the attitudes and actions towards us by parents, teachers, peers, and anyone else influential within our lives. This is why therapists will often tell you that every patient’s problems can always be traced back to their parents! A sobering thought for those of us who are parents themselves…! As children we internalise the things that are said about and done to us, and that forms the basis of our self-image, and the ammunition for our inner critic.
Sometimes our inner critical voice can get in the way of our success. Maybe we won’t apply for a promotion because we ‘know’ we aren’t good enough to get it. Perhaps we don’t expand our business because we ‘know’ that we will fail. Over time, actions taken as a result of listening to our inner critical voice can add up to have a real impact on our lives. So what can we do about it?
It’s important to question your thoughts to decide whether these are negative assumptions coming from your inner critic, or logical thoughts, facts or truths. For example ‘I will never make any money I’m too stupid’ is definitely a negative inner critic thought, whereas ‘this business idea will probably not make me a millionaire’ is most likely a sensible logical thought! You can often identify inner critical thoughts by their personalisation ‘I am stupid for having this idea’ rather than ‘This is a stupid idea’. You can then question these thoughts, and work out where they might be coming from – for example from a past experience of a teacher or parent calling you stupid. This allows you to decide whether these thoughts really apply to the current situation, or can be ignored.
Once you can take control of your inner critical voice, you will find that every area of your life improves. From a business perspective you will be free to make informed, logical decisions, take calculated risks, and challenge yourself to succeed. And if you feel that you need a supportive, non-judgemental critical friend to bounce ideas off, our business advisors are always here. We promise that a chat with them won’t leave you feeling negative!
