Are we defeating ourselves with our own critical inner dialogue?

Do you ever listen to yourself?

I'm not talking about paying attention to your conscience or cringing at the sound of your voice in a recording.

I'm wondering if you've ever listened to the way you talk to yourself?Or about yourself?

Like most of us, I bet that you pepper your conversations with things like, "If I wasn't such an idiot ... "

I'm also sure that you are familiar with three of the most limiting words in the English language: "should," "never" and "always."

We use these words and phrases all the time. They affect our perceptions of the situations we find ourselves in and of our ability to act in those situations. That limits our choices and our power to takeaction.

Those words and phrases reinforce the negative stories we believe about ourselves. And no matter where they came from or how long they've been there or how outrageously wrong they may be to our friends or family, those stories are there, haunting us like ghosts.

If you'd like to banish some phantom stories and feel a bit better about yourself, take some time to listen to how you talk to yourself. Listen for those words, for those phrases and ideas.

Are you telling yourself ghost stories?

We're so used to the things we say to ourselves, it's tricky to catch them. The quickest way around this is to ask our friends what kinds of things we say. They know how hard you are on yourself.

Once you have some ideas of the kinds of things you say again and again, it will become obvious every time you say them.

And when that happens, don't be hard on yourself about it! Just notice what words and stories come up and ask yourself if they're true.

"Am I actually the worst?"

You already know these things aren't literally true. But when you say them over and over, they can start to feel true, and you can end up acting as if they were true.

I'm not going to ask you to not say those things.I'm going to ask you to do something different.

When you notice yourself saying things that don't serve you well, if you can repeat it with just a word or two changed, it can feel a bit better and give you a bit more power to act.

Here are a few examples of words you can add or switch out to help you see yourself differently.

And 'yet?'

I know a lot of us had grade school teachers who insisted there was no such word as "can't."

I mean, clearly there is such a word, so I'm not going down that route.However, I do thinkit would help if we worked around words like "never"or "can't" by addingthe word "yet."

Instead of saying, "I can't write this,"we could say "I can't do this yet." Or instead of saying, "I'll never be able to dance like that,"we could say, "I haven't danced like that yet."

"Yet"allows you to see possibilities for learning, changing, or receiving something different in the future. It reframes the thought and keeps the door open for success.

And while we're on the subject of the word "can't," let's explore how we use it when we are trying to change a habit.

'Don't' is better than 'can't'

Imagine you're trying to get more rest on weeknights.

A friend invites you to an event that will end after midnight. If you start by thinking that you "can't"go, you'll probably feel like you're missing out. But if you say, "I don't stay out past 11 p.m. on weeknights," then you feel like you have the power in the situation.

Whether or not you decide to go, the power will be in your hands. Saying that you 'can't' feels like not being allowed to do something. Saying that you "don't"means that you are deciding what serves you best. The power is yours.

Don't lay blame

When something goes awry, most of us are quick toblameourselves. We decide that we were the ones who messed things up, or that our flaws kept things from working out.

While it is important to take responsibility for our part in any given situation, we don't have to assign blame. And we definitely don't have to spend time telling ourselves an internal story about what we "should"have done, and how we "always" do things wrong.

Instead of jumping to blame ourselves when something goes wrong, look at the big picture.

I'm not saying that we never fall short in our actions, but there are often extenuating circumstanceswe need to consider.

Instead of asking why you can never get things right, ask what the context was when it went wrong.

That change in perspective gives us freedom to explore how to fix the situation without treating it as a reflection or result of our flaws.

It gives us the power to make changes without being hard on ourselves.

Use your words

Your choice of words either increases or decreases your power to take action.

If you spend a little time becoming conscious of how you talk to yourself, and then do some editing where needed, you'll feel more in charge of the stories you tell yourself about who you are, what you're like and what you're capable of.

Now it's time to try using your words to be kinder to yourself. Pretty please.