By Guest Author, Melanie Benson, founder of MoneyDNA Mastery
Most of entrepreneurs have a voice in their head that generates doubt and fear. Actually, almost everyone I know has had these kinds of thoughts at some point…
“What if this doesn’t work?”
“Am I really capable of pulling this off?”
“Holy crap, is anyone really going to pay me THAT MUCH?”
“What’s wrong with me? That was a stupid mistake to make!”
The inner critic likes to nag at us and cast doubt over our goals and dreams. As normal as doubts and fears are, if your mind surfaces fear, doubt and worry over and over again and it begins to sabotage your ability to grow your business. That’s when your inner critic has taken you hostage.
Obviously, if you are in business for yourself, you can’t afford to have your inner critic take the lead when it comes to making decisions. Not only will that critical inner voice hold you back, it erodes your confidence and courage to pursue your dreams.
Here are seven signs that your inner critic has moved in to your mind and has taken over:
- You talk yourself out of taking big risks with thoughts like, with “What makes you think you can do that?”
- The fear of “what people will think” keeps you from taking action.
- Because you’ve made mistakes before, you’ll do whatever you can to avoid making one again.
- Your self-talk is often full of negative, critical thoughts that you would never say to your best friend.
- You’ve caught yourself bad-mouthing someone else who is more successful, perhaps judging or criticizing their approach.
- When something goes wrong, you relentlessly beat yourself up and blame yourself for not doing a better job.
- Always focused on your growing list of what you didn’t accomplish (instead of what you did), you often feel overwhelmed and stressed out.
The inner critic is often hard to detect. Many who struggle with this type of inner harshness were trained by a parent, authority figure or close friend to be critical. But left untamed, this type of self-talk can cause you depression, not to mention a pile of unrealized dreams.
To turn your thoughts around and start creating an internal “thrive” program, try this:
Recognize when your inner critic has been unleashed.
Stop immediately. Literally SNAP OUT OF IT.
Give yourself a gentle loving reminder to bring yourself back into a neutral or positive mindset.
If your inner critic rules your mind more often than you’d like, be sure to enroll now in my free video series, How to Upgrade Your MoneyDNA to Super Charge Results.
Inside I’ll help you identify where your inner critic came from — and how to recode your internal success program so that doubts, fears and worries are replaced automatically with a powerful success program designed for higher levels of success.
Melanie Benson is a Revenue Strategist, Business Performance Optimizer, and well as the founder of MoneyDNA Mastery. Join her for her free video series on How to Upgrade Your Money DNA here.
