Cancel Your Inner Critic

By Stephanie Hoaglund, Fitness Director, Ashburn Village Sports Pavilion

Let’s talk about self talk – your internal dialogue. What you tell yourself day in and out can be both negative and positive. It can encourage you to reach goals or set you back. In other words, it’s the script we use to frame our lives.

Negative self talk can damage your health and wellness. It limits your ability to believe in yourself, your abilities, and can make it so much harder to reach your potential. It also adds stress to your life and we all have had enough of that lately.

Here are a few ways to reduce the negative self talk in your life:

• Be more self-aware. Be more aware of your internal dialogue. Ask yourself would you say what you are saying to a dear friend or family member?

• Challenge your inner dialogue. When you start to notice your self talk turn negative, ask yourself if what you are thinking is true or is it skewed by your own filter.

• Stop the thought. When thoughts start to turn negative, stop and redirect them. It’s a skill that needs to be developed, but with time, you will be able to quickly refocus your thoughts.

• Say it out loud. Whether you say it out loud in an empty room or to a friend, sometimes hearing your thoughts out loud will bring clarity and perspective.

It’s not easy to retrain thoughts away from the negative if that’s what we’ve always done, but training our internal voice to be kinder and more positive will benefit our lives in so many ways. It’s definitely worth the effort and work.

Editor’s note: I saw Stephanie’s article in an email that I received and thought that it had such a good premise that I wanted to share it here. Thanks to Stephanie for sharing this wisdom!