SET AN INTENT

questions, such as, ‘Was I overly negative towards myself earlier? How does that make me feel? And how might I react differently next time?’

DISCOVER THE ROOTS

Ask yourself, where did this self-critic come from? In my experience, self-criticism evolves in response to a whole constellation of forces coming at us; some obvious, some less obvious.

I often encourage people to think about their early attachments and relationships, and their family upbringing. Even if a parent, sibling or teacher didn’t intend to criticise us, if we feel this at the time, we internalise it. Recounting our early experiences can help us to trace how our attitudes were shaped.

If you find yourself in a slump or feel a sense of embarrassment, shame or wanting to withdraw, try reverse engineering. Those feelings might be related to the here and now, but they might also be reflective of a different occasion many years ago and your nervous system is remembering that episode or experience. Through the process of unpacking our self-critic’s origins, we can be better able to alter our thought process and work out if we should listen to it or not.

You can’t run a marathon simply by watching Youtube videos – you have to buy the trainers, lace them up and get going. In the same way, it’s important to set intent when it comes to tackling your self-critic. I encourage people to be their own detective, to be curious about their thought patterns and to set themselves the task of attempting to catch their self-critic in the act, even if just for a day. If you notice yourself feeling ‘toe-curly’ and disliking yourself, take a pause. Work backwards and ask, ‘What did I say to myself or believe about myself to make me feel this way? What was it in response to?’

Try having a pen and paper at the ready, and every time you catch yourself being overly critical, write it down. Seeing the words you have said to yourself can be a powerful intervention.

CORRECTION OR CRITICISM?

With self-correction, we are patiently helping ourselves to improve, learning from the way we have acted

Self-correction – our inner voice that helps us move on from mistakes – is different from self-criticism. With self-correction, we are patiently helping ourselves to improve, learning from the way we have acted in order to do better next time. For example, we may have made a joke that someone found hurtful. Self-correction would be apologising and making a mental note to think before speaking next time, whereas self-criticism would be spiralling into deep regret, berating ourselves and replaying the incident in our mind, unable to move on. The former can be helpful; the latter can make things worse.