The Inner Critic: How to Silence the Voice That Says You're Not Good Enough

It lives in your head. It knows all your buttons. And it lies.

The inner critic is that voice in your head that constantly puts you down. "You messed up again." "You're worthless." "Everyone else is better than you." "You're not worth anything." It never goes quiet, day or night. When you work, it critiques your results. When you rest, it calls you lazy. When you're with someone, it picks apart your words. When you're alone, it condemns your solitude.

That's not your voice. It's the voice of those who criticized you growing up—parents, teachers, peers. They got inside your head and never left. Now they speak through you, and you think it's your own thinking. But it's not. It's a recorded track, and it can be rewritten.