“No one likes any of this stuff. You shouldn’t try to make anything new” a voice hissed as I packed up the last of my merchandise at the market. As I tugged my suitcase out the door of the event hall, her voice would not relent. “You wasted your time making all of this and no one bought much of it. I mean, look at all these leftovers. You’re not a real maker”. Ok. I had had enough. I spun around to face this nasty person but I found myself standing alone in the parking lot.
Sometimes we speak to ourselves in a way that if we heard one person speak to another person that way, we would give side eyes all day. So why do we allow such cutting, toxic and negative words to be spoken over ourselves? Sometimes such negative self-talk is an indicator of how we truly see ourselves or how we feel deep down inside. We take such care to craft beautiful hand made designs, let’s take care to speak beautiful words over ourselves.
As makers here are three things we can do to walk away from negative self-talk and kick our inner critic to the curb:
- Avoid absolute words such as never because it only sets you up for failure. You have the power to create your best life. You are not defined by absolute words like “never” and “always”.
- Focus on the positive. Take a minute and write down things that are going great when you feel the critic in your arise. Focus on the good instead of centering on the bad.
- Turn it around by speaking life over yourself – Try saying, “I didn’t sell very many goods today but I will sell more goods at my next market” or “The sale of lack of sale of my goods are not a measure of my talent.”
What will you do to shut down your inner critic?
Image Credit – Jack Canfield