Stop Fighting Your Inner Critic with One Simple Strategy

Think about the last time you felt fear and anxiety take control of your day.

Maybe it stopped you from making an important contribution in a meeting because you felt like your opinion wasn’t worthwhile. Or maybe a simple email took you hours to write because your inner critic kept telling you it wasn’t good enough.

That YOU weren’t good enough.

What did you do? How did you respond?

For a lot of us, whenever we feel bad, we think that we are bad. As if having negative feelings somehow makes us weak or a failure.

I think we have the hyper-positive whitewashing in the media and self-help industry to “thank” (blame) for making us feel this way. There’s no shortage of experts or gurus talking about how we need to eliminate so-called “negative” emotions. But personally, I’m sick of the “fake it til you make it” approach to positive thinking. In the long term all it does is make us feel inadequate.

Day after day, I see my clients looking for a strategic way to build confidence. They want to go beyond the common advice to sugar-coat their struggles behind the mantra of “just be positive!”

Imagine if you could start hearing your inner critic as instructive rather than destructive. What if you could put your inner critic to work for you instead of constantly going in circles battling the negative voices in your head?

In my TEDx talk (below), I show you how listening to your inner critic, when done right, can actually be a useful tool.

You’ll find out:

• The counter-intuitive reason why feeling like a fraud can be a good thing, and how to use it for motivation.
• Why you’re not alone if feel like you’re still failing despite following the common advice about positivity, building confidence, and overcoming impostor syndrome.
• A quick, actionable, and research-based mental framework that will actually help you manage your fear and self-doubt in a healthy, productive way.

I’d love to know what you think! Like the video and leave a comment with your thoughts. I read every single one.

P.S. Many readers have already said that the approach I share in my 9-minute TEDx talk helped them make progress after years of dealing with chronic self-doubt. Watch my TEDx talk now.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2017/04/07/stop-fighting-your-inner-critic-with-one-simple-strategy/