How to Turn Off Your Inner Critic and Start Living Your Life

AVAlexander Volchek

How do you deal with your inner critic? You take on a task and tell yourself you won't succeed. You set a goal and say it's impossible to achieve. You see other people's circumstances and say, “That's definitely not for me. I'll never have that in my life.” Then you look back at a task that didn't work out and find reasons for it, when the reason was there from the start: you were endlessly criticizing yourself. How do you deal with a state that leaves you without confidence, without firmness, without love for yourself? Whatever you do, you're unsure whether you've done it right and constantly find fault with yourself. Please support my channel by liking this video; that really helps the algorithm. If you'd like to receive new videos from me, subscribe and leave comments. Tell me how self-criticism shows up in you and what you feel when you criticize yourself. If you do nothing about this state of self-criticism, you'll burn through your health. When you're caught up in self-criticism, you'll make the wrong decisions. That means you won't be living your own life. And the more you live a life that isn't your own, the more self-critical you'll become.

One of the most terrible prices you can pay is to plant self-doubt within yourself. It's far better to pay the price in money. Do you see the paradox? The greatest price you can pay is to pay with your own inner state. Would you be willing to have doubts planted within you for a million dollars? What about ten million? Doubts you couldn't get rid of, doubts that wouldn't be associated with that million dollars at all. What kind of doubt? Doubt that you love your child. Doubt that you have a good life. Doubt that your family loves you. Doubt that things are all right in your life. Are you willing to sell that for money or not? That's where this inner critic leads. I'd like you to ask yourself now: on a scale from zero to ten, how critically do I treat myself? Zero means no self-criticism ever arises during the day, in any state. Someone will ask, “Can self-criticism be useful? Can it set a powerful process of development in motion?” We hear huge numbers of people, talks, and books telling us to be highly critical of ourselves and to develop critical thinking.

I suggest looking at self-criticism as something negative. Right now, consider it a negative thing. People have mixed up and confused critical analysis with a true understanding of cause and effect. There are things you don't need to analyze. Critical analysis in the twenty-first century has led people to question whether it's good or bad to kill someone, to deceive other people, to steal, or to harm others. That's what they've reduced critical thinking to. Now take someone who wants to start a business. Someone has actually asked, “I want to start my own business, but I have doubts. What should I do? I've been trying to launch it for a year, but I haven't, because I keep doubting.” There are different reasons you might not be able to start your business. On the one hand, perhaps you're afraid, and this is your inner fear. On the other hand, you might not be starting it because you simply don't need it. Starting it would be a mistake. Look closely beyond the example of your own business: huge numbers of people make mistakes in choosing an education, getting married, starting a business, or taking a job.

After a certain number of years, they realize they've made serious mistakes. Whenever you encounter that kind of stopping point, the first thing to examine is whether it's really self-criticism or a healthy state of understanding that you don't need to do this. That brings us to something interesting. People often substitute one interpretation for another: they think they couldn't do it, that they failed. They think they made a mistake when they actually did the right thing. Look very closely at this, because many of the things you haven't done were things you didn't need to do in the first place. You didn't need them. There's another situation: someone does something great, takes a great step, but feels no inner joy at all. They don't feel they've done anything really good and can't be happy for themselves. There's a kind of apathy. What can you do about it? There are two main questions to ask yourself to find a solution in a case like this. First, why did you take that action? Did you do it because the business needed it? Or because you wanted to prove to everyone how great you are?

Imagine doing something to prove to everyone how great you are, then feeling no joy once you've done it. What did you expect? From the start, you were acting under a false pretext, out of lies and deception. From the start, you were trying to manipulate another person. The second thing to ask when you don't feel happy about what you've done is whether it really was done well. Did you truly resolve the issue you were facing? Did you really resolve the situation? If you genuinely resolved it and acted from entirely sound motives, that emotional state won't arise. There's also another situation someone just sent in: a new opportunity appears. It brings new money, a new career or business, or new partnerships. But inside, you feel you won't be able to cope. You feel you can't do it, that it won't work out. Your inner critic eats you alive. A whole combination of things can be behind this. Find the source and examine what it is. Is it because society and the people close to you are sending you that message? Is it because you've already been in situations like this and couldn't handle them?

Or is it because you've doubted yourself in absolutely every task throughout your life? You can work through this situation by looking at how you criticize other people. You can work through this particular situation precisely by looking at how you criticize other people. Look at whom you've criticized during the day and how often you've thought that someone wouldn't succeed. How many times have you told your colleagues or employees how incompetent they are and that they won't be able to do a task? Then don't be surprised when that same state arises in you. Someone says, “I made a mistake. I did something bad,” and is overwhelmed by shame and apathy. That critical, self-critical attitude appears. Consider two states when it comes to a healthy assessment of your own mistakes. If you want to hide, it means you're completely unprepared to face the consequences and take responsibility for what you did. The second state is when you've made a mistake, know it, and are ready to take that responsibility. The problem is that in the twenty-first century, people have become accustomed to not taking responsibility—accustomed to not taking responsibility, accustomed to being able to live without answering for their actions, their words, their threats, or their mistakes.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with having made a mistake and still feeling fine, normal, and full of energy. You know you've made a mistake and say, “I made a mistake. I'm ready to take responsibility.” People are afraid of the responsibility involved in admitting it themselves. That's the main problem. If you've made a mistake, the only thing you need to do is respond to it normally and calmly—

be ready to admit that something isn't working for you, that there's something you don't understand. This sequence of actions, conclusions, decisions, and causes and effects will help you work through self-criticism so thoroughly that it will never arise in your life again. I wish that for you wholeheartedly, because freedom from self-criticism is possible only if you're moving toward genuine development, toward the world's true values and truths, and living according to the laws of the universe. There's no other way. If you're in a state of dissatisfaction, searching in external material things, then you're merely… or not merely—you're on some path.