Inner Critics. We all have one. It’s that little voice inside your head that sounds a bit like a disciplinary parent or partner or old teacher.

You think it pushes you to do more, to be better than what you currently are. You think that it’s your guide to making your life better.

It say things like:

“You should have gone for that promotion.” “You could have done better in that race.”

You think it’s a voice of of reason, of encouragement, but more often than not, it isn’t encouraging. It’s the exact opposite. It’s not only discouraging, it’s hurtful and mean. Please excuse my language but it’s often a bit of a twat.

And I’m telling you that that little voice is the thing that stops you from going for the big dreams. It doesn’t believe that you’re capable of the BIG goals. It thinks you’re bound to mess it up if you try so it gives you plenty of ‘logical’ reasons why you shouldn’t bother.

“You don’t know enough to do that.” “You really messed that up the last time you did it, you don’t want to go through that again, do you?”

And you might justify your inner critic by saying it’s gained knowledge from experience or it’s protecting you from embarrassment and fear.

But that little voice is something that you are allowing to control your life and when you inner critic controls your life, you will never achieve big things. You can’t. Because you don’t believe that you’re capable.

How do you feel about your Inner Critic?

Do you assume that because that voice is inside of you that it is part of who you are? That it knows better than you do?

You may think that it’s your ‘true’ voice when actually it’s just a thought.

A thought caused by a past event or an input from someone else. A thought that causes you to doubt and to fear and not to feel confident in yourself.

It isn’t real.

And you don’t actually have to listen to it.

Let me explain.

When you have a thought, you can choose what to do. You have three options:

• you can let the thought help you move forward with your goals and your plans.
• you can allow that thought to stop you in your tracks and cause you to procrastinate or self-sabotage.
• you can let it go. Plain and simple. Allow it to drift away without affecting you.

That is your CHOICE.

You make these choices every day of your life whether you realise it or not. Taking 100% responsibility for your life starts with taking control of your thoughts.

Through no fault of your own, if you are allowing your thoughts to control your life, then you are not living the life that you could really be living. And that’s a massive thing to comprehend.

When you take control of your thinking. You take control of your life. When you change your thinking, you change your life.

Sounds simple, right? It is, and it isn’t.

The first step is simply to actively think about what is written above. Are you consciously aware of your thinking process or do you believe all the thoughts that come into your head as being true?

Do you consciously allow only positive empowering thoughts to filter into your actions or do you get discouraged by negative automatic thoughts which cause you to get blocked and frustrated?

This step is key to changing your thinking and changing you life.

A great way to really discover how you currently think is to write a stream of thought out onto paper or type it out. Just write exactly what comes into your head and see if you can keep up with the multitude of thought processes that goes on.

If you want to see whether a lot of your thoughts are positive or negative, then you could highlight each one, positive, negative or neutral.

You might think that this is a complete waste of time but it’s a process of becoming aware of your thoughts. Reading over them, you can see whether what you automatically think is actually what you want to believe. You can see if you agree with your thoughts. This works especially when you are working on something specific that is causing blocks for you in one way or another. Let your stream of consciousness flow on to the paper and see how what you’re thinking is affecting your actions.

If you’re stuck on something or a project that you would like to work on, then you’re more than welcome to jump on a quick call with me to see how I can help.

Let me know what comes up for you. All the best, Ali