Your Toughest Critic | Riding the Waves of Personal Development

Your Toughest Critic

Written on January 18, 2010 by Srinivas in Uncategorized

3206216434 7087c5b9aa1 Your Toughest Critic

If there’s anybody who treats you like crap in your life and abuses you mentally with that ridiculous inner voice in your head IT’S YOU. It’s amazing that we will often talk to ourselves and be more harsh on ourselves than we would ever let anybody else be with us. That inner voice in your head can be an evil Bi#$#$# or a@#$#$. So, the question becomes how to do you start to tame that demon. The answer is simple. Conditioning.

I was reading Napolean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich the other day and I came across the chapter on auto suggestion. I must have read it three times and I will probably read it every day until I no longer have any doubt about the effectiveness of it. The thing with that voice in our head is that it hates that idea that we are about to control it. It’s been so influenced by the outside world that it’s been conditioned in a certain way. At first when we begin reconditioning it might seem like you are lying to yourself. Here are the lies that I’ve been telling myself every day:

- I’m a best selling author
- I make 5 grand a month from my blog/online activities
- I have 500 RSS readers

The thing is that eventually all of these lies will become truth because you are impressing them so much and so many times on the subconscious. After a while the voice in your head will start to change because it’s been hearing a new message so much. Try it out for 90 days and let me know what happens.

Buffer

The Skool of Delivered to Your Inbox

Michael Michalowski

Do you know what?
Even if you fail and this whole auto-suggestion thing does not work, you will empower, motivate and raise your mood daily with this new habit you have. It's really worth to do it, you cannot lose anything and gain a lot of things.

Should I tell you that I'm not doing it by myself right now? :P
I guess anyone is "stupid enough" to let such gains slip through their hands.
.-= Michael Michalowski´s last blog ..The All-Singing, All-Dancing Crap of the World =-.

share flag

spam
offensive
disagree
off topic

Cori Padgett

I tell myself lies everyday. I tell myself I am a multi best selling author. I am a problogger. I earn 15 grand a month in passive income. I am a total fitness nut. I am slim, svelte, and funny to boot. I am a singer with my own record. I own a big house, with lots of land, horses and my own music studio. And.... I ROCK! OK so maybe that last one is not quite a lie. ;) And most definitely, mind over matter can be powerful when applied. Great post!

C
.-= Cori Padgett´s last blog ..Newsletter Ideas for Slackers (Um… I Mean Inspirationally Challenged!) =-.

srinirao

Cori,

It's funny that you brought my attention to this post Some of the things I wrote down in this post are actually true now (at least the 500 readers part).

Ha ha.. that is awesome! :) It's amazing how you can begin affirming things you want, and then later down the road when you go back and review, you realize you've made some of them a reality.

c
.-= Cori Padgett´s last blog ..Why Guest Posting is Fun in 200 Words or Less… =-.

@Ken: Definitely a book that anybody should read.

@Elizabeth: I've been a musician myself. I played the Tuba for 13 years and I think part of what made me successful at it was having a teacher tell me the day I picked it up that I would be good. The perfectionist mentality can get us in trouble because we get caught up in the one measure we played wrong. I had a teacher who told me that when you mess up you're the only one who knows. Nobody else knows what it's supposed to sound like.

Elizabeth

Okay - hit enter and it submitted. I'd beat myself up over the ONE measure I got wrong. In trying to tame that, I'd be practicing and whenever that voice started up, I'd have to tell myself (sometimes out loud even!) to stop and then I'd make myself look over whatever I was doing and point out what I'd done well.

It'll be nice to take that next step and start telling myself what I'll be.

Thank you!
.-= Elizabeth´s last blog ..Twisted Story Tuesday – The Results =-.

I hadn't thought of telling myself those "lies"! I'll give that a try and let you know what happens. :)

I can tell you that I refer to myself as a recovering perfectionist. I used to verbally berate myself over not having something perfect. I'm a musician and could play a piece 100 measures long and beat myself up over the
.-= Elizabeth´s last blog ..Twisted Story Tuesday – The Results =-.

Ken Kurosawa

That Napoleon Hill book is great. It should be a part of everyone who's interested in improving their situation in life.
Good luck Srini!
.-= Ken Kurosawa´s last blog ..A Proven Way to Boost Brain Performance in 30 Minutes =-.

@Robby: Thanks for the insightful comments. No doubt we are our own greatest motivators.

Robby G

Overall keeping a positive thought process is crucial because it motivates you to achieve what you keep telling yourself. Mind over matter, right? If you think positive, good things happen, if you continue with a down-spiralling thought process then you end up accomplishing nothing and getting depressed. Each one of us is the only person who can be the greatest motivator or the greatest enemy to ourselves. Nice post Srini... short and sweet. Cheers!

@Wilson: I'm glad that we have connected. It's pretty amazing how we can think ourselves into what we want to be. When I affirmed that 5000 dollar idea on a daily basis, I started to come up with ways of making money that I hadn't previously thought about. When earned my first 50 dollars from one of those methods, I knew that I was on to something. I'm looking forward to your post on Lifescape Artists.

Wilson Usman

You know it's funny. Srinivas I don't know if how auto-suggestion connects with the law of manifestation, but that is how I believe I came to connect with you. I dont know if you remember the email I sent you about how I said "Wow this law of attraction thing really works", well is because for the past months I had been telling using an affirmation to connect with bloggers like myself. It's truly is crazy how it works it reminds me of the first chapter of that book of how Edwin C Barnes "thought" himself into partnership with Thomas Edison.

I decided to write a post for lifescapeartists.com of how I came across the law of attraction and and some examples of how it's change my mindset.
.-= Wilson Usman´s last blog ..20 + Reasons I Quit my Job! Now I am a millionaire =-.

The Real Josh

Absolutely, I do that often. It is sometimes easy to get hung up on an idea you just had while reading without giving thought to what you are currently reading half a page down. Nice solid point.
.-= The Real Josh´s last blog ..Develop A Story In Order To Sell More Products =-.

@Josh: I highly recommend that you re-read that book. I find that if you really want to get the most out of any personal development courses or books then you have to be willing to go through it multiple times. The same way autosuggestion works, your mind has to realize what you just read is important.

I love that book and really should go back and reread it. It is true that by conditioning your mind to think and behave a certain way that will eventually happen. It has to. Otherwise you would be a liar and your brain doesn't like that.
.-= The Real Josh´s last blog ..Develop A Story In Order To Sell More Products =-.

@Anthony: Action is definitely key. The thing I've found is that by incorporating autosuggestion int your life you actually end up taking the right actions.

@Gordie: That's a funny place for your critic to emerge. I also think being excessively critical of others can be detrimental to your leadership abilities, so it's good that you have developed that habit.

Gordie

Hi Srinivas,

I've found that over the years as I've taught myself I've managed to stop being critical of others but when I'm on the computer and come across some technical problem and then find the problem was some silly mistake of my own. In those instances my negative self-talk comes out.
.-= Gordie´s last blog ..How To Stop People From Driving You Crazy. =-.

Anthony Feint

I think its important to have these dreams, but its equally as important to do something about them. But I agree, it does require the right mindset.
.-= Anthony Feint´s last blog ..How to Take a Caffeine Nap =-.