HOW TO QUIET THE INNER CRITIC (AND WHY IT'S SO IMPORTANT)

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 What do you believe is the biggest obstacle to your success, your happiness and your life fulfillment? If you're like most people, you may name outside circumstances such as other people, discrimination, and even competition.

While these are very real and can certainly provide challenge and be an obstacle, it is shown that one of the biggest obstacles that we must learn to overcome is actually our own harsh over critical thoughts aka the Inner Critic.

I know I've personally lost count of how many great and accomplished people have repeatedly emphasized their own experience that once they managed to get a hold of the negative, harsh, critical looping thoughts in their own heads, the world opened up for them and things began to fall into place.

As a certified hypnotist, I know that our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings create our habits and our habits create our life. 

But where does this inner voice come from? In short, it is a combination of the various critical voices of those authority figures who shaped us: parents, grandparents, teachers, counselors, pastors, priests, employers, older siblings, and even colleagues, friends, lovers and acquaintances that we have given the power of authority or importance to. 

Anytime someone criticizes us, and we decide that person's opinion matters, the subconscious mind makes a note to record that information and absorb it for future instruction, if for nothing else than to prevent future pain, especially the pain of rejection.

This criticism echoes in our head anytime we want to reach for something more or to stretch ourselves. Why is this a problem? Because everything that you want - a higher paying job, a more exciting career, a new or bigger business, an exciting and sexy relationship - must be found on the other side of our comfort zone. We have to stretch and order to get what we really want, and the Inner Critic's job is to keep us where we're at.

The Inner Critic's job is to mold us to the image of someone else, but what will make you most happy is to mold yourself to the image that YOU want.

Therefore the Inner Critic must be challenged and quieted.

So how to do that?

1. Be aware of how much the Inner Critic talks…because it talks a lot. The first step is always awareness. By the time we reach adulthood, our harsh critical thoughts have very much become a part of our default background mental chatter. We are often criticizing ourselves and putting ourselves down and we don't even realize we're doing it. Become more aware of how you feel and what thoughts come up when it comes time for you to really go after what you want.
2. Cancel and interrupt! As famous author Jack Canfield states, when you become aware of thoughts that you're having that are not serving you, it's time to cancel them. His preferred way of interrupting negative thoughts is to literally say " Cancel! Cancel! " This is something I've taken to heart, and it is not unusual or uncommon to hear me mutter "Cancel! Cancel!" to myself throughout the day!
3. Install your Inner Coach. In order to consistently move forward towards what you want, it's important to install an alternative voice to challenge and replace the voice of the Inner Critic. Hypnotherapist Marissa Pier calls this the Inner Coach or Inner Cheerleader. Most of our default settings are all about default, automatic, subconscious criticism and self-abuse. How much more wonderful would it be if we had a default, automatic, subconscious voice of praise, encouragement, love and motivation?

Praise yourself often and every day. Mutter wonderful things under your breath randomly, even if they don't make sense. Habits are created over time, and habits often can take time to be replaced.

But the world has so much to offer you, and the more you are able to believe that - like, really and TRULY believe that - the faster those wonderful things can happen for you.





​ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kesha Dent is a certified hypnotist, certified RTT hypnotherapist, transformational coach and author of "Life Change Now: A 3-Step Guide to Manifesting What You Want Through the Magic of Being Who You Are". She helps professional adults to achieve life success, overcome anxiety, reignite their confidence and break out of their limitations to create a life of purpose, productivity and passion. You can find her at www.newworldcoaching.org  .