But how do you stop being hard on yourself? Its a bit of an odd thing isn't it? and where on earth does it come from?
I suppose when i hear people saying i shouldn't be so hard on myself i imagine what they are talking about is that little voice in my head......the one that says things like you are so stupid, you are rubbish at this, you have to do better - I call it my chatterbox. Everyone has one, that inner voice that never really seems to stop - how many times has yours asked what on earth are you doing? or why are you doing that? or my favourite why did i say THAT! ?
So if everyone has one then what makes mine any different to anyone else's? I thought everyone's inner voice had that critical edge to it - its about self monitoring (i actually did a study on this at uni) and its our way of guiding ourselves and giving ourselves feedback about ourselves and situations. So if thats what it does surely then everyone's chatterbox lets them know when they are doing something wrong - it wouldn't work otherwise would it?
The way i see it is if i am going to learn to stop being so hard on myself then i a few options:
- stop the chattering happening altogether
- stop the negative chattering
- not listen to the negative chattering
- increase the positive chattering
- make a conscious effort to listen to the positive chattering
hmmmmm its not easy to know how to do any of these things really, but i would say as everyone has a chatterbox then the first option is nonsense. If it does provide you with guidance then there has to be a certain degree of negative in there doesn't there? We all need constructive criticism to be able to learn so maybe that is the key here - it needs to be constructive! This is where it gets a bit tricky - i have no access to other people's chatterbox so how do i know what is it that other people say to themselves??? lol
Anyway, i suppose what i think i have to do is learn to recognise the just being critical voice and try to stop paying attention to that so much. Or maybe its about challenging it - that makes more sense to me than trying to stop thinking a certain way - that always reminds me of the white bear experiment - do it now to see what i mean - its really simple, just close your eyes and tell yourself NOT to think about a white bear.............and what is the first thing that comes into your mind? Mine is always a picture of the coke ad white bear hahahaha!
I have read a lot about positive affirmations which relate to this topic quite a bit - the idea that you should look in the mirror and say something good about yourself - i don't know about anyone else but i just find this almost impossible - i just feel ridiculous which maybe in itself says a lot!! Years ago when i started to read up about positive affirmation i decided i would kept a dairy just for writing one positive thing about myself each day rather than talking to myself in the mirror - i do remember it being very difficult to start with and getting easier as i went on - i still have that dairy as well :)
On a similar note i have used what i call my positive steps challenge - each day i think about what positive steps i have taken towards any of my goals and i write them down. Some days i don't have too many and other days i have loads - its funny though how you really have to think about what positive things you have managed to do at times - to me its like a kind of backward to do list and its funny how it helps to think more positively about what you have done but also gives you a kind of target - i start to think during the day now what can i add to my positive steps dairy for today? so i give myself something to do so i can write it down. The thing i personally need to be careful about is writing a to do list and using it to give myself far too many things to do. This way however i tend to give myself one thing at a time to do - and usually it leads to getting a few things done each day :) whether that counts as more positive self talk or not i'm not really sure just yet - i think i am going to try and pay some closer attention to my chatterbox over the next few days and see what its saying, challenge it when i feel i am being 'just critical' and see what happens when i do my positive steps challenge - will be interesting to see what comes up :)
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