On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 7 Steps on How to Silence Your INNER CRITIC Especially When it Gets TOO LOUD and Becomes Overwhelming

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Are you struggling to silence your inner critic? Is it becoming too loud and overwhelming?  Today, Jay guides you through the art of silencing your inner critic and the reasons behind our tendency to quit. Unpack the various types of criticism influencing our inner dialogue, and discover actionable tips to befriend your inner critic. Jay's insights span from the importance of self-love in catalyzing change to the transformative power of language, urging you to remove the "I Am" statement.  Learn the practice of journaling wins, cultivating resilience, and celebrating daily victories. And unpack how to navigate challenges with resilience, staying true to your goals despite the internal resistance. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why your inner critic is so loud How to take control of your inner critic How to think differently about yourself How to celebrate small wins Listen in, reflect, be in tune to a more positive and empowered self-perception.  With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:00 How To Silence Your Inner Critic When It’s Too Loud 03:29 This Is The Reason Why We Quit Doing Something 05:15 The Two Broad Types Of Criticism 06:35 7 Tips To Befriend Your Inner Critic 08:03 #1: You Can’t Hate Yourself Into Change 12:24 #2: Give Your Inner Critic A Name 12:56 #3: You Heard Your Inner Critic From Someone Else First 16:55 #4: Remove The “I Am” Statement 17:59 #5: Don’t Let Your Inner Critic Stop You From Making The Right Action 23:24 #6: Start Journaling Your Wins And Good Moments 26:04 #7: Write Down 3 Things You Did Well Today See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, host of the Hit Podcast Family Secrets. What happens when the person you idolize turns out to be someone else entirely? And what if you were kidnapped by your own grandparents and left with an endless well of mysteries about yourself and those around you? These are just a few extraordinary puzzles we'll be exploring in our ninth season of Family Secrets. I hope you'll join me and my astonishing guests for this new season of family secrets on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Jenna Colopas here with the new season of My Overcomfort podcast. What's Overcomfort all about? It's about inspiring confidence in all of us and choosing calling over comfort. Every Tuesday, I'll be having real and honest conversations. You'll hear it from me first before any cheeseman hits your social media feed.

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Right now, listeners of OnPurpose get 40% off a subscription to Calm Premium at calm.com forward slash j. That's c-a-l-m dot com forward slash j-a-y. For 40% off, calm your mind, change your life. You can't hate yourself into changing because you don't invest, you don't give time, you don't give energy to someone you hate. So if you hate yourself, how can you bring out the best in yourself? If you hate yourself, how can you build a life

that you're excited by? The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty. J Shetty. The one, the only, J Shetty. Ha ha ha. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health and wellness podcast in the world,

thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to become happier, healthier, and more healed. If you're here right now, it's because you believe that your mental health is a priority in your life. And I'm so grateful that in 2024, you're making the time, taking the time, investing your energy in making this a top, top priority. Now, today's episode is all about how to silence your inner critic when it gets too loud and

tells you to give up. How many of you in the last seven days have heard your inner critic say you're not good enough? Well then this episode is for you. How many of you have heard your inner critic say you you just can't get it together, can you? Well then, this episode is for you. How many of you have heard your inner critic say, have you seen what they're doing?

Have you seen how far behind you are already? Can you believe it's only the end of January and you've already fallen apart? If the answer is yes, this episode is for you. Research shows that only 9% of people that make resolutions complete them. In fact, research goes on to show that 23% of people quit their resolution by the end of the first week and 43% quit by the end of January. If you are one of those people, this episode is for you. And by the way, some of you may still be going on strong but your inner critic is

still loud. Even if you're nailing your newest resolution, you're getting it right, you're on point, you're still hearing that voice say you're not good enough, you're not strong enough, you're not moving fast enough, you're not getting better enough. So interesting. Now, what's really interesting is we're not struggling because we broke our newest resolution. We break our newest resolution because of how we talk to ourselves. Think about that for a second. The reason we quit doing something is because of the story we tell ourselves about it. Think about the last time you quit something.

Think about the last time you gave up on something. Think about the last time you had a habit that you couldn't keep up. I promise you that somewhere your inner critic told you that you should feel guilty, embarrassed, ashamed because of where you were and there's no point in carrying on. You fell off once and your inner critic said, you're just gonna fall off again, what's the point?

Or you were doing something brilliantly and your inner critic said, you're still behind, you'll never catch up. We don't fail because we're not disciplined. It's because of how we talk to ourselves when we mess up. When we lose a sense of discipline, a habit, a routine, the way we talk to ourselves is what steals away our momentum, our drive, our enthusiasm, our energy. It's how we speak to ourselves in the quiet moments, in the silent moments,

in the moments in between that defines what happens outside of it. Now, I'm sure all of you are listening right now and thinking, Jay, I can relate to all of this. And what's fascinating when I was looking at the research is there are two broad types of self-criticism from a researcher named Sullivan, a clinical psychologist based in Atlanta. Now, some of these thoughts, this inner critic, is first person I statements, like, I'm so lazy,

I'm so complacent, I'm so not smart enough, right? Whatever it may be, I'm so fill in the blank. And other people use second person language, like you didn't go to the gym all week, or you're not good enough, or you're never going to get that job, or you can never start a podcast. This second type of statement tends to be really, really challenging to listen to. And Solomon says that our brains process those thoughts as if someone in a position of authority is talking to us. They know all our flaws and they pretend like they can predict the future. Right? When you're hearing that voice that says,

you can't do it, you're not good enough, you're not smart enough. It's actually even more challenging. So whether you're hearing I'm so lazy or whether you're hearing you're so lazy, I'm going to share with you seven principles, seven tips and hacks to help you navigate your inner critic and build a healthier relationship with the inner critic so that you can actually engage in a dialogue with it.

Now these tips are super practical, super accessible. You'll be able to implement them right away from today. You won't have to buy something or develop a new skill or tool or whatever it may be. You'll be able to do this today. So take a screenshot of your favorite ones, make notes, share this with a friend because this episode is going to help you become kinder to yourself, more compassionate to yourself, yet still let you be driven and ambitious. I think that's our worry. Our worry is that if we're not

hard on ourselves, then we won't achieve great things. But we're scared that if we're too kind to ourselves then we'll be lethargic or complacent. Right? How many times have you ever thought to yourself, well if I don't put pressure on myself then I'm just going to coast. And how many times have you tried to think, well I'm going to put so much pressure on myself but that also limits your ability. So in this episode I'm going to help you understand how do you navigate the inner critic so that you can still be ambitious and driven and succeed in whatever way you describe that word

and at the same time be kind, compassionate and mindful. Now, let me ask you a question. When was the last time you helped someone that you hate? If your answer was never great, if your answer was actually I do remember helping someone I hate, how consistently and how constantly did you help that person? Generally we don't help people that we hate, we don't invest in people that we hate especially not consistently or constantly. So think about this. We think we can hate ourselves into changing but you can only

love yourself into changing. Let me say that again you can't hate yourself into changing because you don't invest, you don't give time, you don't give energy to someone you hate. So if you hate yourself, how can you bring out the best in yourself? If you hate yourself, how can you build a life that you're excited by? So just recognizing that this mindset

of I'm gonna criticize myself, I'm gonna put pressure on myself, I'm going to hate myself into changing, I'm going to hate myself into being better doesn't make sense. And by the way we do this to the people we love in our lives, we often think that if I make someone feel bad enough they'll be good to me. If I make someone feel like they're messing up, they'll get better. How many times have people improved because of shame, because of guilt? How many people have you shamed into change? How many people have you guilted into change? How many people have you humiliated into change and how many people have you criticised into change?

you humiliated interchange and how many people have you criticized interchange? Maybe they did it for a bit but not long term. We can't guilt people interchange. You can't shame people interchange. You can't embarrass people interchange. So stop doing it to yourself. You can't hate yourself into change. We change because someone believes in us. We change because someone loves us.

We change because someone invests in us. You will change because you invest in yourself. You will change because you believe in yourself. You will change because you love yourself. If you want to be better, be better with yourself. If you want to do more, be kinder to yourself. That's what you'll respond to. How many people in your life respond positively

to hate, guilt, or shame? Yet we all still try to hate, guilt and shame ourselves into positive change. This is your reminder to be more compassionate, more kind and more loving. I was saying this to a friend the other day who was saying that all he does is gives himself a hard time. He'll overanalyze every situation, every conversation, a presentation at work. He'll relive that moment again and again and again in his head and keep telling himself, it shouldn't have been better.

It could have been better if only he did this, if only he did that. What does that do? It makes him feel discouraged. But what if he said to himself, let's make a plan of how to be better next time, let's make a plan of how to be better next time. Let's make a plan of how we're going to improve next time. Let's actually take a look at what we did great and where we can grow. Let's

look at both greatness and growth in ourselves. Let's not be blind to our flaws. Let's not be falsely flattering or complimentary. We don't want that either. But let's focus on greatnessely flattering or complimentary, we don't want that either. But let's focus on greatness and growth within ourselves. After a presentation asking yourself, what was great about it? Okay, where can I grow? After a phone call, a tough one, what was I great at? What can I grow at?

We're so quick to judge ourselves and point out all the growth and actually not even growth, we point out the guilt, but we avoid the growth and the greatness. Remember, you can only love yourself into change. You can only love yourself into change. You can't hate yourself into to change. artist or a producer. You may have seen the work that I've done through my foundation. And you may know my friend and co-host Donnie Starkins as well. He's a mindfulness teacher, a yoga instructor, a life coach, a man fully invested in seeing people reach their fullest potential. And we've come to form this platform of comeback stories to really highlight not only our own adversity, but adversity in the lives of

well-known guests with amazing stories. Catch us every week on comeback stories on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something about Mary Poppins? Something about Mary Poppins, exactly. Oh man, this is fun. I'm AJ Jacobs and I am an author and a journalist and I tend to get obsessed with stuff. And my current obsession is puzzles. And that has given birth to my new podcast, The Puzzler. Dressing, the dressing.

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I thought to myself, I bet I know what this is and now I definitely know what this is. This is so weird. This is fun. Let's try this one. Listen to the puzzler every day on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's awful. And I should have seen it coming. Step number two, this is a really important step. Give your inner critic a name. If we want to remove that idea of you're lazy or I'm lazy, we have to shift to recognizing that your inner critic is an external voice, that it isn't your voice. It's not how you feel about yourself. And this is a really, really important tool

because this next point that I wanna share, and these both are correlated and connected, is your inner critic, it's not your voice, because someone said it to you first. You may think it's your belief, but it's not your belief. You heard it from someone before. I remember having a client whose mom used to tell her that she looked overweight, that she looked fat,

that she didn't look good when she was a young girl. And as she grew older, no matter how her body shaped and shifted and everything else, she still had that inner voice. No matter what she wore, if she wore a color that her mother didn't like, she heard her mother's voice. What happens though is that over time, the person's voice merges into sounding like yours. If you repeat someone else's statement enough in your mind, it sounds like it's your own voice. So I want you to think about it.

Who said it to you first? And you might even name it that person. So if it was your mom, if it was your dad, if it was the teacher at school that kept saying something to you, that has become that voice, maybe let you, that has become that voice, maybe let's give that name to that voice. That way we can recognize that it's a conversation between us and our teacher or us and our parents as opposed to us and ourselves. We start recognizing

that it isn't how we feel about ourselves, that this is an adopted belief. That this is a belief that we've picked up. How does that help? When you give your inner critic a name, you start recognizing that this is a conversation. That this is a relationship that you've built, that you can distance from, that you can disconnect from, that it isn't something within you. And when you identify who said it to you first, you also start to recognize how careful we have to be in the influences we allow into our space. And now we don't want to find other people

who reaffirm that voice. Often if we had a parent that treated us that way, we also find a partner who treats us that way because it feels familiar. It feels relatable. And Tick Nutt Hahn talked a lot about this, this idea that we crave familiar pain. So you would rather repeat a toxic familiar pattern than break it to experience an unfamiliar, uncertain pattern. So you would rather choose toxic familiarity than untoxic uncertainty. Let me say that again. You would rather choose toxic familiarity than un-toxic uncertainty. Because we'd rather deal with problems that we're aware of than the challenge of a new problem. So often what we do is if our parents believed a certain thing about us we find a partner who believes it as well.

Or we do the opposite. We try and find a partner who adores us and makes that feeling go away. But guess what it doesn't because the voice is still in our heads. We're looking for the partner who tells us the opposite without forgetting the message we've gained from our parents. So give your inner critic a name. Name it after that teacher or that parent

so you can make it a conversation. Or give it an imaginary name to even weaken it further, to remove that authority from it. And who said it to you first, recognize that this isn't your voice, and actually say that whenever you hear that inner voice, say, this is not me, this is not my voice. I am not my thoughts, I am not my mind.

Actually, repeat that with me right now. I am not my thoughts. I can choose my mind. Actually repeat that with me right now. I am not my thoughts. I can choose my thoughts. I can choose which thoughts to give energy to. I can choose the voice inside my head. Step number four is remove the I am statement. Instead of saying I am lazy, say I am experiencing laziness. I'm experiencing whatever emotion it may be, allowing yourself to create some distance from that emotion. Or what I accept is I may say I am feeling lazy and I am going to make a plan. I am feeling tired and I'm gonna get to bed early tonight.

So if you're accepting it, you can say the I am, but you're still saying I am feeling instead of saying you are. Right, that distance allows you to disconnect from that inner critic. It allows you to create some space between you and that inner critic so you can now fill that space with

enthusiasm and energy the repetition of I'm lazy. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I Can't do that. What that does is it creates a story and a narrative that you repeat and perpetuate in your life step number five This one has probably been my favorite one because I think what we often try and do is we try to silence the inner critic before taking the right step. And this is pretty tough because the inner critic doesn't go away.

I still have an inner critic today, right? After all these years, I still have an inner critic. It still shows up, it still turns up because over years I'd heard things. You're not good enough at that, you can't do that, you're gonna lose everything, you don't deserve this, whatever it may have been. It still appears. What I've realized is that I have a few choices with it. I can either think, okay, I need to get rid of this thought and then I'll live my life. Once I get rid of this thought,

then I'll take action. Actually, it's the opposite. Don't let it stop you from making the right choice or taking action. You can be self-critical and still work out. You can be self-critical and still meditate. So often what we do is, our mind says, oh, you missed meditation yesterday, what's the point of meditating today? And then you think, all right,

well, let's not meditate today. Well, no, you can be critical of yourself and still turn up to meditation. You can be critical of yourself and still work out. And it's better to take the right action because the right action will allow you to gain more strength to have a healthier conversation. You'll then be able to say,

well, I worked out today and I feel great. So I'm gonna keep working out. And guess what? I feel great when I work great. So I'm gonna keep working out. And guess what? I feel great when I work out. So I'm gonna keep working out. I'm gonna keep building that muscle. So don't let something stop you from making and taking the right choice and right decision.

So many of us block ourselves because of a couple of misses, because of a belief about ourselves. How many of you have missed out on a great opportunity that was offered to you because somewhere you felt you don't deserve that opportunity? Maybe you bumped into someone and they said to you, hey, message me, I'd love to talk to you about this opportunity.

And you didn't even message because you were so scared that you'd mess it up and you'd rather not even turn up. You'd rather not even go there. How many of you in your life have tried something and because it didn't work out one day because one day didn't go wrong you changed your belief about yourself. Please, please, please. Your inner critic is a retrainable voice. Your inner critic is not a truth. Your inner critic is not a reality. Your inner critic is a changeable, trainable voice. And that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to make it a voice that is like your coach in your mind, that is going to excel and allow you to want to do better.

Ask yourself, when you want a friend to improve, when you want to encourage, cheer, and enthuse your friend, how do you talk to them? How would you explain them to be better? And this is an activity that I want you to do. Find the area of your life where you most overthink, overanalyze and overwhelm yourself. What's something that triggers you regularly

into your inner critic giving you a hard and tough time? Let's say that when you make a mistake at work, that's when you're the kind of person that wants to lock yourself in a bathroom and completely attack yourself. In that moment, I want you to ask yourself this question, how would I connect with a friend? How would I connect with a loved one

if they just told me this news? How would I talk to them? Not what would I say to them, how would I talk to them? I'm sure it's with love. I'm sure it's with empathy. I'm sure it's with compassion. Okay, now what would you say to them? You can just say to them, hey, it's all gonna be fine.

And you wouldn't say to them, oh, you really messed up this time. You're the worst. You're gonna get fired. You'd say, hey, let's figure out how we can avoid this mistake in the future. Let's figure out how to improve this situation right now. Let's build the skillset we need in order to perform better.

Notice how the way you talk to yourself transforms how you talk to others and how you listen to others. I've realized that when I miss a day of going to the gym, giving myself grace allows me to commit again tomorrow. Making myself guilty may force me to work out today, but it doesn't last. Let's say I have a day where I eat unhealthy, or a couple of days where I ate something

that I know wasn't good for me, and then I can berate myself, I can criticize myself, I can slander myself, I can do all of that stuff, but if I actually ask myself, hey, why did that happen? What was it about that day that drove me to that decision? Oh, I was tired. Oh, I was jet lagged. Oh, yeah, that was the day where I was feeling really stressed, understood. Okay, so let me make sure that I'm resting more. Let me make sure that I'm sleeping better this weekend and then I'll make better choices. Checking in with yourself and asking yourself, why was that?

Why did I do that? Why did I miss going to the gym? What was the reason? Rather than being like, you miss going to the gym, you're the worst. Now, a couple more things I want to mention to you. We have to start journaling our wins and good moments. We have to start sharing them more deeply. What we usually do is when something good happens in our life,

we celebrate for a day. But when something bad happens in our life, we cry for a month. It's no wonder that our negative thoughts become more pronounced. Right, if you get something wrong, you literally tell yourself every day for a week, I'm the worst, I should have done better.

But if you get something right, you may say once, oh yeah, I did good. And whether we're being modest, whether we're playing ourselves down, whatever it may be, we're training our mind to say, when I do something wrong, I go really hard on myself. And when I do something well, I consider it to be easy. I consider it to be expected.

We expect greatness from ourselves. And so we only amplify our weaknesses and flaws. Next time you do something right, next time you do something well, next time you do something well, I want you to journal it deeply. I want you to share it with a friend. And by the way, I got into a bad habit of this when a few years ago, when I was really grateful that so many of my dreams were coming true, when I was speaking to friends, I started to play down my achievements because I didn't want to make other people feel uncomfortable. And while I was well-intentioned, what ended up happening is I started becoming more negative

because what I was doing is I was amplifying my negative experience and minimizing my positive experience. Now, if you do this consistently, what ends up happening is you're spending more time talking about the mistakes and flaws and spending more time talking about the mistakes and flaws and spending less time talking about your successes. Now, I'm not telling you to be arrogant and walk around being like, look what I achieved, look what I did. That's not the point.

But the point is if you don't deeply cherish, welcome, celebrate your successes deeply, you're training your mind to be more critical than a cheerleader. We need to strengthen the cheerleader in our mind. Not the arrogant person, not the egotistic person, but the cheerleader that says you're doing great. You're on the right path. You're making the right choices. Keep going. Not the voice that says you're the best in the world. No one's as good as you. Everyone else sucks, right? It's not that voice. So notice the difference between the critic, the cheerleader and the person who's actually cheating you, right? We're not trying to be cheated by our ego. We're trying to be challenged and enthused by the cheerleader.

Final step, at the end of every day, write down three things you did that day that you did well. Three things, it could be as simple as washing the dishes and saying to yourself, today I did a really good job washing the dishes. It could be you got the laundry done. It could be that you wrote that article,

you launched that podcast, you got to the gym, whatever it is. What are three things you did that you did well today, that you made happen today? We have to start retraining that thought because guess what? Most of us, when our head hits the pillow, will list all the things we didn't do. This isn't positive thinking. This is improving the conversation in your head. If your head hits the pillow and you go, I didn't do that, I didn't do that, I didn't do that. Basically what you're saying is you're a failure. But if you said to yourself,

okay, I didn't do those three things, but I did that, and I did that, and I did that. All right, I'm doing okay, I'm doing good. I can do better, but I'm doing good. I really hope that this episode helps you silence calm and navigate your inner critic. I'm hoping that you can be kinder and more compassionate to yourself so that you can be more successful, so that you can achieve more, so that you can be more impactful. And I'm wishing you a year of productivity, performance, but also patience,

calmness and love. Thank you so much for listening. Please leave a review on any podcast app that you're listening to this on right now. Look out, every Monday there's a new episode with a guest, every Friday there's a new episode with me, and of course you've got five years of episodes to listen to, so there's plenty of episodes to go through.

Enjoy it. Make sure you've subscribed. Turn on your notifications because I know a lot of you have been missing some of my episodes. I don't want you to miss out on purpose in 2024. We're on the journey to happiness, health and healing together. If you love this episode, you will also love my interview with Kendall Jenner on setting boundaries to increase happiness and healing

your inner child. You could be reading something that someone is saying about you and being like that is so unfair because that's not who I am and that really gets to me sometimes but then looking at myself in the mirror and being like but I know who I am. Why does anything else matter. On his new podcast, 6 degrees with Kevin Bacon. Join Kevin for inspiring conversations

with his friends and fellow celebrities who are working to make a difference in the world, like actor Mark Ruffalo. You know, I found myself moving upstate in the middle of this fracking fight, you know, and I'm trying to raise kids there and, you know, my neighbor's like willing to poison my water. Listen to Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast and founder of the

Center for Human Potential. If you like on purpose with Jay Shetty, I think you'll enjoy the Psychology Podcast where we explore the depths of human potential. In each episode, I talk with inspiring scientists, thinkers, and other self-actualized individuals who give you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the worldly living. Our aim is to help you live a fuller, more meaningful life. Listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.