I believe that we learn all our lives and don’t expect others to know everything - however, I have caught myself expecting myself to know everything. I have realised that I thrive on positive, external feedback. Being told I’ve done a good job makes me beam inside. Why doesn’t it have the same effect if I tell myself I’ve done a good job? 

I had a terrible habit of comparing myself and my achievements to others and judging myself (harshly) if others did better. If a colleague in the same job as me was younger I’d automatically think that I hadn’t achieved as much as I should have, at this stage in my life. Then I trained in NLP and asked myself - WHO says I should have?

My husband, my children, parents and friends do not judge me. I am happy in my job and don’t want a promotion. Why is this situation making me feel rubbish about myself?

Our inner self talk is formed over our lifetime and several factors including childhood events,  cultural ideas and expectations, and experiences in our life. Over many years we have formed thinking habits which may not be helpful to us anymore - just like my negative self talk.

The good news is that it’s fairly simple to change our negative thinking habits into more positive thinking, it just takes a bit of practice.

If you find your negative self talk is loud, try these steps: 

• Stop the stream by putting your tongue at the roof of your mouth. This will just ‘poke’ your conscious mind and stop your thinking. 
• Take a deep breath - breathe in confidence, breathe out doubt - say this to yourself as you breathe. Spend a minute just focusing on your breath and calibrate your body and mind 
• Acknowledge the thought - oh hi, it’s you 
• Reframe - say your inner critic is say you’re not good enough - ask yourself - who says I’m not good enough? What is the evidence for this? What would happen if I am good enough? How will I feel when I try this and it goes well? 

They say it takes about 3 weeks to install new habits, so why not start today and reach your goal sooner? 

I run an online event ‘Silencing Your inner Critic’ where you can learn more about managing your self-talk - why not sign up?