How do you conquer your inner critic when they might actually have a point?
When you really DID mess up
Your behaviour was unacceptable
You crossed your own boundaries
You disregarded your core values.
You regret your actions
If you’ve felt this way before, or you do right now….I promise you, that almost everyone else has been there too.
We always have a choice whether or not to believe what our inner critic tells us. But that doesn’t mean the choice is easy. And in times like these; it becomes even harder to move past the self sabotaging thoughts and shift back into a growth mindset.
We have these thoughts in the first place, because somewhere deep down we carry some belief that the thought is true. These thoughts are most often referred to as limiting beliefs, because they are holding us back in some way.
In situations where we fail, mess up or make a really big mistake, hanging on to those beliefs will hold us back from happiness. Hold us back from joy, from inner peace, and likely many other things in our life.
So what can we do?
In those times when we fail ourselves, our Inner Critic really kicks it up a notch. We may experience self loathing, guilt, regret, self sabotage and self criticism. That critic, our Rebel Mind™, it kicks us when we are down. And this is when we are more susceptible to believe it, when there’s recent evidence to support the Rebel’s case.
Here’s the thing though, you KNOW you messed up. And you feel bad enough about it to beat yourself up about it. That means you’re not a person who is ok with what you did. People mess up all the time, sometimes in big ways, sometimes just little things. YOU are separate from whatever it was that took place.
You are still accountable for your actions and any consequences that resulted from them. But you have the choice now to decide where you go from here.
You can choose to remain locked in the fixed mindset of letting it define who you are.
Or you can choose to learn and grow from it.
Here’s 3 things to consider for conquering that critic
1. Forgiveness
You can only control whether or not you forgive yourself. If another person is involved; realize that their forgiveness may never come, and that is ok. Their forgiveness, is their own journey, not yours. You need to do the work inward and find forgiveness of self. This can look a number of different ways to different people and different situations. Some ideas for finding forgiveness of self: journaling, therapy, meditation, counselling, coaching, religion/spirituality, yoga, or breath work.
2. Identity
Do the work do really understand who you are and what your values are. What do your values mean to you. What matters most to you. How your best self would show up. Try to be that person as often as possible. Realize that there is a deeper knowing of who you truly are underneath the actions that may come out when you are not at your best. Be patient with the process of showing up authentically as your truest self each day, its not an easy task. Even with practice something as simple as being hungry or tired can throw us off completely from our best intentions. We’re only human after all.
3. Surrender
You can not change anything that has already been done. Surrender to that idea, let go of what has happened before in order to focus in on what you will do now. Journaling and meditating are two ways I practice surrender.
Take the energy you put into the critic and put it into your growth instead. You’ll be amazed of the growth you’re truly capable of when you conquer that inner critic.
We cover the topics of conquering the inner critic, the Rebel Mind™, limiting beliefs and MORE in our 8 week Online Program “Power of Mindset.” Find more information on the link below.
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