Ep 35: 6 Strategies to Reduce Self-Critical Thoughts & Become More Confident

Episode show notes:

Are you your own harshest critic or your own best friend? 

Or maybe a combination of the two? 

Shifting from self-criticism to more self-compassion is one of the most important shifts you need to make to get to the next level, both in life and in your career. 

It’s true, constantly beating yourself up or down for everything you do, or don’t do, is not serving you or your purpose on this earth. 

I know you have so many talents and super powers, but still this feeling of not-enoughness kicks in. 

It’s very natural and normal but I know it holds you back from reaching your potential and going after your dreams. 

What can you do about it? 

This episode is all about that; giving you concrete tools on how to switch negative thoughts so you can feel better, perform better, become more present and focus your energy on the things that matter.

I will also talk about the consequences of letting that inner critic stay loud. 

Hi ladies, 

Have you ever stopped to notice the negative mind-chatter going on in your head? 

What kind of thoughts do you have about yourself and your capabilities? 

Many of the amazing women I work with have a rather large portion of self-doubt and self-criticism when we start working together. 

And this is a big part of the work we do, to shift that voice to a more compassionate, empowering and loving one.

Why is this such a big deal? 

Because your thoughts will fuel certain emotions, and those emotions will fuel certain behaviours. 

This can be detrimental to both your health and your success, if it’s a negative spiral. 

Negative thoughts will activate the fight and flight part of your brain, which will not only create negative emotions such as a anger, stress, guilt, shame, it will also stop your creative, empathetic and innovative thinking.

But it can also be turned to your advantage if it’s a positive one! 

Positive thoughts will activate the wiser, more sophisticated and logical part of your brain, leading to better decisions and more creativity. 

But it’s not so easy to just say, “let’s only think positive thoughts”.  

Your brain is made for survival, not to make you happy. 

But there are ways to work around that and to rewire those old thought patterns and change behaviours, which will benefit you and make you more self-compassionate. 

So now I will walk you through a few things that I do with my clients so they start to empower themselves and unleash their badass and rockstar self that is hiding.

I will use a concrete example to make it easier to follow. 

One of my clients had thoughts around not getting enough things done, even if she is more productive than 99,5% of the people on this earth. This made her feel like shit. 

In order to break this pattern of self-criticism and over-working, we need to take a closer look at what’s going on. 

This is what we are doing at the moment, and something you can do too.

So here’s a six-step strategy on to be nicer to yourself and shift those negative thoughts. 

1. Become aware of your thoughts, feelings and behaviours

What thoughts are running on repeat in your head? Maybe it is: “I’m so bad at this. “I don’t get anything done”. “Everyone else is smarter and more effective than me.” 

What feelings do those thoughts trigger? Maybe feelings of stress, anxiety, tummy ache? 

And what are the behaviours that follow? Over-working, people-pleasing, controlling?

Then you can also look at the short term and long term consequences of those behaviours, to see how being so self-critical is hurting you and your performance. 

This is a classical behavioural analysis that is so effective and that I often use with my clients. And doing that, everything becomes so clear, what triggers what. 

And we all have thoughts and behaviours that are not really helping us, so nothing is wrong with you if you recognize yourself in this. The first step is always awareness. 

2. Assess your beliefs 

What beliefs about yourself is fueling those thoughts? In which ways do you think you need to be and act to be accepted/worthy/loved? 

Maybe one belief is “I have to be perfect to be loved” or “If I’m not 100% effective at all times I have failed and won’t make it.”

To get clarity on your belief systems, the Positive Intelligence work is awesome. That way you will see which Saboteurs that are impacting you. More about beliefs and saboteurs in episode 20 & 25. I’ll drop a link in the show notes if you want to check those out.

3. Create distance to your negative thoughts

Just seeing these thoughts and beliefs and writing them down can be an aha moment. Now it’s easier to create some distance to them! 

There are many great techniques for that, such as defusion, which I will make a episode about in the future. 

In short, it’s about not identifying with the thoughts as a truth or part of you, but rather see them from a bit of a distance. It’s super effective. 

4. Come up with new more empowering beliefs & thoughts

What new beliefs & thoughts would support you more here? 

Maybe it is;

“My self-worth has nothing to do with my performance”. 

“I’m a great human being no matter what.” 

“I focus my attention where it matters the most” 

“It’s ok to ask for help”

“I treat myself with respect and compassion” 

5. Get clarity on your values 

What is truly important to you? Say that some of your values are; kindness, sustainability, impact, love, success, presence. What do these mean to you? How can you live those values? 

What does this have to do with being self-critical? 

Knowing your values will support you to prioritize and serve as a reminder of what’s truly important in times of self-criticism and self-doubt and this in turn will build your confidence.

6. Shift focus and act according to your values & new beliefs

So knowing which values, you have, and which beliefs are more serving , because you can’t just think yourself happier. 

You can’t just think yourself happier. Actions are required.

Say that these new beliefs and thoughts were true, how would that change things? 

How would you behave differently? 

Where would you say no and set boundaries? 

How would you treat yourself? 

And a strategy can be to remove things from your plate in order to not spread yourself too thin, this way you will feel that you do get more stuff done. 

This can usually be a sign, this for sure has been a sign for me, I have a lot of things in progress at the same time. 

Shifting focus to what’s going on in the present moment, and acting in a valued direction is super effective to both feel better about yourself and live a more meaningful life. 

And this will also make you better at your job. 

I hope this have given you inspiration to take some action. 

Yesterday I had a session with another one of my clients, that is really taking some scary action, and she has grown so much! I even made a LinkedIn post about it, which I will link here so you can read it. 

I love to see how my clients are going through these shifts internally, from not feeling good enough and criticizing themselves, to start become aware of the thoughts, taking scary action, and to see this transformation and shift internally and externally is mindblowing. 

I would love to hear what you take away from this, and let me know how it goes, either in a DM or email. 

Take care of yourself, and go be a badass!