6 Ways To Squelch Your Inner Negative Voices

We all have internal dialogue going on inside our head, most of the day and, if you’re unlucky, some of the night too.

This inner voice, at its best, is our gut instinct telling us something that we do not consciously perceive – almost like an early warning radar.

But when you suffer from anxiety, that inner voice can become the worst type of critic – nothing positive to say, and always looking at the worst that might happen.

It can start innocuously enough – I used to think that if I expected the worst, I could only be pleasantly surprised and never disappointed.

It seems like a good defence mechanism – until it takes over, and it has you second-guessing yourself all the time.

The voice will drive you crazy with its incessant chattering and constant naysaying, it will not shut up even when you’re trying to get to sleep (which is one reason why insomnia is such a big problem for people who are stressed), and you will miss out on so much that’s going on around you because you’re listening to the irritating sound of your inner critic.

So, what you need are a few strategies to quieten that inner voice, and let you get on with your life.

Avoid Jumping To Conclusions

This is, admittedly, human nature, but none of us know everything that’s going on in somebody else’s life, so don’t assume the worst.

For example, if you think you’ve been stood up (e.g. for a date, business meeting, drinks with friends), the anxious mind might automatically assume it’s because the person you’re meant to be meeting doesn’t want to be with you.

By doing this, you’re immediately discounting a whole slew of other possibilities (e.g. a family emergency, they were kept late at work by their boss) that would explain their tardiness.

And the truth is, in all likelihood, you do not have the necessary information to come to any conclusions at all.

And if you don’t have the data, then jumping to the worst possible conclusion is not your wisest course of action.

So, if you hear your inner voice pipe in with something critical, try to reply with, “Yes, that’s one possibility, but there are others too” – and then enumerate a few.

Don’t Turn Specifics Into Generalizations

When you’re anxious, you can tend to generalize one bad outcome as though it applies all of the time.

For example, if you fail one exam, it’s likely that you either didn’t study hard enough, or you find that subject especially challenging, but it most definitely does not mean that you are totally unable to learn anything.

If you get rejected for one job, it doesn’t mean you’re unemployable – it just means that was not the job for you, for whatever reason.

And if you fail your driving test the first time, all you can take from it is that you weren’t ready that time, but you shouldn’t go away thinking you will never obtain your licence.

So when your inner critic says something like, “You’re an abject failure”, remember to talk back and say, “No, I failed this time, but I will learn from it so I can do better next time.”

One failure or unexpected outcome does not define you!

Remember The World Is Not Black And White

When you’re stressed out, it’s easy to think everything is 100% good or 100% bad.

This binary thinking seems to be the new norm, and too many people appear to have lost sight of the fact that the world is full of shades of grey.

Maybe this is indicative of just how many people do suffer from stress and anxiety these days, but regardless, it’s a destructive habit.

Imagine your train home after work is late. Under normal circumstances, you would realize that the only impact is that you won’t get home until 30 minutes later than usual, But with your inner voice in full negative mode, that delay can easily become a case of “my whole evening is ruined”.

When you step back and think about it more rationally, you realize that’s simply not the case, of course.

The problem too is that, if your thinking splits everything into black or white, it’s a lot easier to put events and situations into the black (i.e. bad) box than the white (i.e. good) box.

If this is how you see the world, then for something to go into the white box, absolutely everything has to go perfectly according to plan, without the slighted mishap, and this rarely happens.

So, if it’s not in the white box, it must be in the black box – because at least one thing didn’t work out the way you wanted.

That’s how the anxious mind thinks – and it’s wrong, because it’s ignoring all the shades of grey in between those two extremes.

One way to deal with this black and white thinking, if the situation is appropriate, is to write down:

1. What your worst case scenario would look like (i.e. if absolutely nothing went the way you planned) – which is highly unlikely, of course.
2. What your best case scenario would look like (i.e. if absolutely everything went the way you planned) – which is also highly unlikely.
3. What one or more realistic outcomes would look like (e.g. most of what you wanted went well, but there was a minor issue that was insignificant in the bigger picture), which is the most likely possibility.

There are naturally many realistic outcomes you could encounter, but the key thing here is that both the best case and worst case scenarios are rarely going to occur.

So when you hear your inner voice say something that sounds like it’s an all or nothing judgement, remember, as the joke goes, never to use absolutes – because more often than not, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

Treat Your Inner Voice As A Real Person

The voice you hear inside your head, criticizing your every thought and deed, is not necessarily the real you. It feels like it is, because it’s all internal to you, but it’s not.

So, try to transform that inner voice into a person standing in front of you, telling you the same things its says to you in your head.

You’ll quickly realize that this person, who is constantly on your back and dragging you down, is not a person you want to be around.

Remember, we become like the people we surround ourselves with most of the time, and you really don’t want to become your inner voice persona.

So, just like you might refuse to listen to this sort of Debbie Downer in real life – you might even go so far as to walk away from them -, you should do the same with the inner voice.

Walking away from yourself is, of course, not achievable, but what works for me is to drown the inner voice with some song or music that you like (still in your head – like an internal jukebox).

Understand And Analyze Your Triggers

If you want to eliminate your negative inner critic, it’s important to understand what triggered it to speak up in the first place.

So as soon as you hear it chime in, write down what that voice said (e.g. “You’ll never get that promotion at work”).

Then, try to analyze what might have made your inner voice say that.

In the above example, maybe there are others with more experience. Or perhaps you only started in that role recently. Or, and this happened to me, you realize that being a team leader doesn’t play to your strengths and just isn’t for you.

The fact you even try to understand why your inner voice says what it does will help you reduce your anxiety because you’re taking an analytical approach rather than reacting purely emotionally.

Welcome Rejection

This one sounds strange, I know, but when your inner voice generalizes and tells you that you weren’t good enough for a particular job, or that nobody will ever date you, what it’s really saying is one of two things:

1. The other person didn’t appreciate your talents and skills sufficiently.
2. You have room for improvement, which gives you something to aim for.

It’s up to you to work out which is the case, of course, but once again, by trying to understand what triggered that inner voice to say what it did, you’ll be better able to handle similar situations in future.

Conclusion

One final but crucial point – none of this is saying you shouldn’t listen to your gut instinct. What you need to do is recognize the negative voice of your inner critic, and backtrack to work out what triggered it, and why.