Jot It Down

Once you have begun recognizing self-critical thoughts, as you already know how to do, one of the most effective next steps you can take, is to write them down.

Release Your Thoughts

Writing down your self-critical comments, such as ‘I’m a loser’, will help decrease the intensity and frequency of the thought. Releasing our negative thoughts from the walls of our minds, can help relieve the pressure and alleviate some of the negative effects of self-criticism.

Sharing Is Relieving

Remember how good it feels to share a bad feeling with a friend? Even though it might not change what happened or solve the problem, mere sharing makes you feel lighter and better. Same is the case with a journal. Writing it down means you can take it off your chest.

Take the Load off

It’s written somewhere so you don’t need to carry that thought or feeling around anymore. Once you begin noting down your negative self-assessments, expand on the process and jot down the situations in which these thoughts and feelings occurred.

Uncover Your Patterns

Over a period of logging it down, you will begin to see a pattern of where these critical comments stem from. If you write down your negative self-criticism for about a month, and then go back, you will discover similarities and patterns where you never thought you’d find any.

This strategy will enable you to understand yourself better, and therefore start changing your inner critic.