How to Quiet a Harsh Inner Critic About Your Health

This week in building health

Is your Inner Critic Too Harsh on Your Health?

Tell me if this has happened to you before

You decide to improve your health, so you commit to doing more exercise.

You sign up for a gym
You buy new shoes
You get some nice clothes for your workouts

And then what happens?

You stop going
The shoes start gathering dust
Your clothes go in the back of your closet.

When we struggle, our Inner Critic makes it even worse

When that patterns happens, it’s so easy to lash out at ourselves.

The inner critic becomes insulting — “You’re so stupid!” — “You wasted money on a gym again” — “You’ll never get your health together.”

It’s painful (and sometimes cruel)

And you definitely wouldn’t talk to a friend this way.

We all need to practice some true self-compassion

Since we all have that critical voice in our heads, we can all benefit from learning some compassionate self-talk.

This doesn’t mean ignoring your mistakes and your faults. Those are always going to be a part of your life.

It’s more about being able to be patient and understanding with ourselves. In the same way you would be patient and understanding with a friend or a family member.

As a bonus: If you want to see how self compassionate you are, take this self-compassion test to get a sense of it.

What are some ways to be more self-compassionate?

Tool #1: Practice reframing your messaging

Another way to short-circuit the criticism is to change the language.

Imagine how you might say it to a close friend. For example, “You’ve been consistent in the past, and one bad day doesn’t ruin your health.”

This can be hard without practice, so it helps to have a list of handy phrases and reframes you can use when your inner critic gets especially challenging.

Tool #2: Talk to yourself in the third person

One great way to get some mental distance from your inner critic is to ‘Speak to Yourself’ — Sometimes even out loud.

I do this all the time. I’ll ask:

“Why did Javier have a hard to exercising this morning?” instead of “Why didn’t I work out today?”

Using the third person trick makes me a bit more objective and compassionate. I may end up saying, “It’s because Javier is tired and needs more rest.” Instead of saying, “It’s because I’m lazy and can’t muster the willpower to do it.”

Tool #3: Try using ‘You’ instead of ‘I’

If talking to yourself in the 3rd person feels awkward and cringy to you, it can also help to use “You” language instead of “I.”

In the end, it’s all about creating a bit of mental space between yourself and your inner critic.

Combine different tools, experiment and see what works for you.

My favorite health things for the week

// one

Twenty-Five Useful Thinking Tools

18 minutes | Scott H. Young

There’s a problem from being too experienced— you’re used to seeing the world in a certain way only.

Someone who has been an engineer their whole life will see each situation as a system to fix and solve.

An architect will try to imagine different creative ways to solve a problem.

This article shares 25 jobs & mental models that you can use to approach anything you’re dealing with. Think of this a 25 different way to work through any challenge you face.

→ Read the Post

// two

20 Health Myths: Are they true or false?

7 minutes | Tracy Ramsden

This one is just a fun little list of things you might already know (and some thing you might not know yet!)

In my case, I already knew cracking your knuckles doesn’t give you arthritis. But I had no idea that the saying “Feed a cold, starve a fever” actually has truth to it. Who would have thought?

→ Read the List

// three

Fill your gut, then trust it

7 minutes | Ethan Bond

Ethan is talking about business in his article, but the idea works for food (and exercise, and health in general)

You want to be able to trust your instincts

Why?

Because rules are tiring

Remember the last time you went on a strict diet?
There were so many rules!

• No carbs, but it’s okay if they come from fruits

• Lean meat only (but what about that free range chicken?)

• No food past a 8pm, unless you skip breakfast (?)

• And on and on and on

The rules get tiring. That’s why diets don’t stick.

But how can you trust your instincts?

This quote captures the idea

To utilize your intuitive foraging techniques, your first objective is to not starve to death. The second objective is to build intuition in the exact landscape you wish to thrive in.

Use your rules to stabilize yourself first.

Then start to be intentional about it.

• Practice listening to your body

• Experiment with different things

• Learn what works (and doesn’t for you)

→ Read the Post

Thanks for reading!

If you like “Becoming Fit for Life” please share it with someone who can learn from it. You can also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ just below, which helps me get visibility on Substack.

Until next week,