Send your inner critic on holiday

Deep down we are all excessively self-critical, even the seemingly most confident people have a well-developed ‘inner critic’. The inner critic is that part of each of us which nags away and is never satisfied with our performance.

You can easily recognise its voice – it’s is the one which tells you off all the time; the one that keeps saying that you are never good enough; clever enough; thin enough; or educated enough to do or be anything of note in this world. It is important for us to understand that the inner critic will never be content because its work is never over: its job is to keep on criticising and so it keeps us on the hook. Deal with it in the following three ways:

Accept that the inner critic will go on nagging at you. Learn to recognise the voice of the inner critic. As soon as you start to feel low, listen to what you are saying to yourself. Are these negative things really true or is this the voice of your inner critic?

Visualise your inner critic resting in a deck chair, drink in hand, feet up in some exotic location. In other words, send your inner critic on holiday.

When you work on your inner critic in these ways, soon you won’t be continually bringing yourself down. You will know you are an incredible and multi-talented person. You will love and value yourself. You will be your own best friend and this amazing relationship will last forever.