Good Morning All – I hope you had an amazing thanksgiving weekend and enjoyed time with family and loved ones! As always, I like to start the week off right with some words of motivation or inspiration:
“You are not your thoughts. That voice in your head criticizing everything you do is not you. It’s a narrator—an unreliable one. You’re the one listening to it, and you can choose to stop taking it so seriously.”
Most of us have a running commentary in our heads throughout the day. Sometimes it is helpful, but it can also be intensely critical.
I should have handled that better.
I sounded foolish.
I am falling behind.
Everyone else has this figured out.
I am probably going to fail.
Because these thoughts are in our own voice, they can sound like facts — but a thought is not true just because it appears.
Our inner voice is influenced by fear, stress, past experiences and assumptions about what other people may be thinking —
It can take one awkward conversation and turn it into proof that we are socially incapable.
It can take one mistake and turn it into a verdict on our competence.
It can turn an uncertain outcome into a guaranteed disaster.
This does not mean ignoring honest self-reflection or refusing to take responsibility. If we made a mistake, we should acknowledge it and learn from it. If something needs to change, we should address it.
But there is a meaningful difference between learning from an experience and using it as another reason to attack ourselves.
One practical way to create some distance is to change the language slightly. Instead of saying, “I’m not capable of doing this,” we can say, “I’m having the thought that I’m not capable of doing this.”
Then we can ask:
Is this thought true? Is it useful? Would I speak this way to someone I care about?
This week, let’s pay attention to our inner voice -- especially our inner critic. We do not have to fight every thought or pretend it is not there. Let's notice it, question it and decide whether it deserves to influence what we do next.
Have a great week!
Sincerely,
Your Realtor Denis Hrstic